A few good men

By Al S. Mendoza

I AM sad that Bebot Villar had backed out of the gubernatorial derby. His iron-fist style of leadership could have made the difference had he ran and won.

But I am sadder that Oscar “OO” Orbos also nipped his bid to run for governor. By not   running, OO has slammed the door shut on corruption-free, dignified-laden governance in our beloved Pangasinan.

Goodbye, goodness.

Welcome, bad eggs.

It is said that evil triumphs because of the silence of good men.

Many have been silent for too long, virtually giving the license to only a few that have consistently and loudly flaunted their naked crookedness.

If crooks continue to remain with us, we have only ourselves to blame.

We deserve what we get.

Under OO in the ‘90’s Pangasinan existed with a vision, scaling heights as it stood up there alongside equally prosperous provinces like Rizal, Cebu and Davao.

I still remember OO’s dream of building a port in Sual to connect Luzon to Hong Kong.  Imagine ourselves making a cruise to Hong Kong from our own shores.  We sail to the Crown Colony for genuine pancit and Peking duck for a weekend delight.

Wow, that would have been the crowning glory of OO.

People from all over would be flocking to Pangasinan, giving a sustained boost to the economic standing of our province.

Only the likes of OO could have thought of such a brilliant idea.

There was also this dream of OO to cut through the mountain ranges of my beloved Mangatarem to get to the other side, which is Zambales, of course.

Wow, that would have given us an eternal thrill had it become a reality.

And do you also know that because my beloved Mangatarem has this place called the Baguio City of Pangasinan because of its year-round cold weather, OO had also envisioned developing the place and transforming it into a tourist spot?

That also would have been superb since not far from our “Baguio City” that’s just a  stone’s throw away from the famed Teraoka  Farm is the  Manleluag Hot Springs, that hidden jewel at the foot of a sleeping volcano whose waters are medicinal. 

Now listed as a national park, our Manleluag Hot Springs has become a favorite picnic haunt by folk coming from as far as Chavit Singson’s Vigan in Ilocos Sur and Lupo Alava’s Bagabag in Nueva Vizcaya.

Our outgoing governor has recently caused the cementing of the road leading to Manleluag – alas, the paving did not even go beyond 200 meters. And from the highway to Manleluag is a distance of approximately 10 kilometers.

Was Victor Agbayani a bad governor then?

Nine years he has been our father in Pangasinan. Today, Victor’s wife, the beauteous doktora, now wants to take over.

If we will allow that, then maybe, Victor was a good governor.

Any objection?

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/general-admission/)

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