Think about it
Meet Col. Chan, new Pangasinan police director
By Jun Velasco
“If you claim a position, you don’t have the correct view,” Manjushri
IT’S the time of the year when we try another resolve to take a new, another look at things.
Maybe it would be appropriate because by dint of our Gregorian calendar (not Mayan), much of what we read – like Obama’s unguarded optimism and Pnoy’s constancy in Daang Matuwid — speaks of shining hope, optimism enhanced by our buoyant and high-performing economy.
Are we festive, the mood having gained a new lease of life, because the “ end” simply turned out to be the “bend” of the road?
How did life go? How was the outgoing year?
Let’s lift an inspiring line from a fellow columnist Fr. Emeterio Barcelon’s advice. He said, “Act as if it is impossible to fail.”
Bullseye!
At the same time, may we take you to a text message sent us yesterday by another old friend, Jimmy Licauco? Know him? He is none other than the one who is being blamed for bringing the country to a standstill on December 21, 2012.
“Jun, what you should feel is a shift in consciousness. That’s the real message of the Mayan calendar prophecies. Almost everybody got it all wrong when they thought the calendar predicted a shift in the earth’s axis. No such thing happened.”
That’s Jaime T. Licauco’s text message.
In another vein, we lament, as a friend and fellow columnist, Chito Villanueva, made it plain, “the uncontrolled accumulation of wealth and the ostentatious display of affluence by the very few rich individuals and families against the stark and heart-wrenching images of street beggars, the hungry and the desperately homeless, who have been devastated and rendered destitute and from typhoons and super Typhoon Pablo.
It’s obvious there ought to be a way, a clear way, out.
It should be waged in a solemn and mighty prayer, that God’s hand thwart the perils in the few days ahead.
* * *
Our coffee shop buddy, Col. Marlo Chan of the Oscar Orbos fans club, erstwhile provincial director of Ilocos Norte, has come home to replace Col. Sonny Verzosa as police director of this premier but beleaguered province.
What a fitting Christmas gift!
Marlo, a native of San Quintin town, had long intimated to this columnist an old obsession: to be in direct service of the province he loves.
When he was intelligence chief of Camp Crame, Marlo, this PMA graduate was instrumental in busting many crime syndicates that earned the respect and admiration of his peers and seniors.
Gifted with a boyish face, former Speaker Joe de Venecia in the gasping days of the 90’s mistook him to be an ROTC officer. When we said he was a police major, JdV said, he “looks like Vandolph.”
Marlo will assume his post amid portents of political backlash that stems from jueteng charges hurled by a minor politician against an achiever governor Amado Espino. It’s political season, folks.
We expect Marlo, an achiever of modest ways, to provide the air a much-needed balm and carry out his mission with aplomb.
We are familiar with his inner thoughts honed during the heydays when he was adviser to the wonder boy of Philippine politics Oscar Orbos. We think he’ll find the Pangasinan peace and order challenge a walk in the park.
Btw, as soon Marlo’s new assignment was announced, we received a text message from our spokesman in the Federation of Provincial Press Clubs of the Philippines in 1986, fellow poet and now Laoag City-based Sammy Bangloy, dean of broadcast commentators emeritus in Northern Luzon:
“Brod Jun, Marlo Chan shrewdly made use of his long years as intelligence operative in solving Ilocos Norte’s peace and order problems, resulting in total elimination of gun-for-hire rubouts, illegal drug rings and numerous convictions of criminal elements, high and low, thus presaging a more peaceful, less violent and orderly Ilocos Norte and Laoag City this coming 2013.”
Can we have that winning formula implemented in this presidential province, Colonel Marlo?
* * *
Don’t believe the rumor that Wilson de Vera is out of the Calasiao mayoral race. He, aide Alex Simbulan, told us, “my boss has been marinating himself with hoi poloi, with the masa. He is determined to win in the elections.
Wilson, the last time we heard, was in the US. Welcome home to Puto Country!
* * *
Basista Councilor Bernard Doria thinks that while re-electionist Cong. Pol Bataoil has the edge, old foe Kim Lokin is working very hard in hopes to do a Juan Marquez. A re-electionist, Councilor Bernard chairs the LP in Basista, hometown of the late former speaker Eugenio Perez, one of the original pillars of the party.
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