Punchline
Sweet vindication
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
The man who plays with fire weekly is on a roll!
Lyceum-Northwestern University president (and PUNCH columnist) Gonz Duque was recently elected national president of the Private Schools Athletic Association (PRISAA). The first educator from the region to occupy the post.
How he will be rated will depend on how he performs. And if his presidency of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU) would be any indication, I think Pangasinan would have more reason to be proud of the guy.
As PACU head, he took issue with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) on the manner with which the later dictates changes in curriculum. Gonz vigorously demanded that any change should be consulted with the stakeholders not simply with their chosen PhD consultants. Consequently, RA 7722 was passed requiring CHED to conduct public hearings each time a change in curriculum is contemplated.
Again as PACU head, he sought the leveling of the playing field for all colleges and universities particularly in the rating of the nursing schools. When the education sector always summarily conceded all policies issued by the intractable Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) as studied, there was Gonz who refused to take it sitting down. He maintained it was grossly unfair for PRC to rate a college to be substandard simply because all failed marks of examinees regardless of their date of graduation in their respective schools should be factored in equally with those of the new graduates of the college.
Both PRC and CHED certainly did not expect a usually compliant sector to come out spewing fire and venom against its policy. Yet some of Gonz’s colleagues thought he was fighting the windmills and for his own university’s sole interests. The issue reached the court and to make a long story short, PRC and CHED backed down and revised its rating and evaluation policy following Gonz’s guidelines.
That particular change leveled the field for the older and bigger colleges and universities with track records of success in the past with the new schools with few graduates. They can no longer be quickly labeled as substandard.
Then Gonz’s own sweet hour of vindication came recently. His university, apart from producing 356 new nurses, is the only institution in Region 1 with two topnotchers in the November 2008 Nurse Licensure Examination. (And in the Pharmacy board exam, LNUs College of Pharmacy has been consistently awarded for its top performance).
Gee, when it rains on a summer, it pours for Gonz. With him at the helm of PRISAA, the expectations are now higher. Expect him to play with more and bigger “fire” in the months ahead.
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ARMING OUR COPS. Recently, the PNP admitted it sorely lacks firearms to support police stations across the country. Thousands of cops could not even be issued pistols even just for show!
With the expected rise in the crime index, particularly with the worsening economic crisis and the usual violence that accompanies pre-election activities, this admission can only make the citizenry feel even more defenseless and vulnerable.
Last week, the arrest of three fully armed bandidos in Sta. Barbara gives us a preview of what’s in store. Loose high-powered firearms are proliferating under the very noses of our military and police organized crime syndicates are arming themselves faster than we can train upright cops and soldiers. Kidnapping of members of affluent families is on the rise. Politicians, government officials and journalists are sitting ducks for guns-for-hire.
But through all these, our Smiley PD Barba would not even think of asking Guv Spines to recall the shotguns issued to the barangay kapitans and reissue these instead to poorly armed, undermanned police stations in the province. At the very least, he thinks the barangay tanods should be armed as well.
And what would he arm the province’s cops with? Nothing but a 24-hour smile pasted on their faces.
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DAGUPAN POLICE ON THE TAKE? It’s now 65 days past the Dagupan City fiesta. And Dagupan’s top cop, P/ Supt. Sonny Verzosa, still refuses to lift a finger against the nightly gambling at the “perya” site in Brgy. Mayombo.
A denial from him today only insults Dagupeños since a police outpost is just a stone’s throw away from the nightly gambling. A resolute cop on duty would have arrested the gambling maintainers not a day longer but this is not the case in the city.
Hence, the question that comes to mind is – how much in nightly tong collection is the police station getting? Is Mr. Verzosa sharing it with any city or barangay official? And why hasn’t the city council made the police chief account for this gross dereliction of duty? Or worse, is the ‘perya’ providing a good cover for illegal drug pushing?
Hmmm… looks like there is enough “sunshine money” being spread out. Courtesy of the Dagupan police station?
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