Think about it
FVR, JDV: inseparable duo
By Jun Velasco
MEDIA front: Undoubtedly, the Sunday Punch wields the baton in the province’s media leadership hierarchy.
A new kid on the block, the Capitol Post is a Northern Luzon paper based in Lingayen town. It has started circulating in La Union, Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte.
Meanwhile, Pacebook Magazine, a bi-monthly national paper, is a recorder of “what’s best and noblest in the Pangasinense and Filipino”…. covering readership that extends beyond Pangasinense’s geographical boundary.
It has just launched a who’s who book, “Pangasinan 300.”
Watch for it.
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Happy birthday, former President Fidel V. Ramos, aka Steady Eddie, on March 18.
As we wrote this, our thoughts were on Pacebook’s 3rd year anniversary rites at the President Hotel yesterday.
FVR and his alter ego, global statesman JdV were main guests.
We thought the magnificent duo, Steady Eddie and Victory Joe, wanted to renew their ties with Pangasinense roots.
Don’t forget that it was during the Ramos presidency that the seeds of the country’s jump to a tiger economy were sown… and on the way to fruition got stranded by the ascent of movie actor President Erap to the presidency, delaying if not blocking the growth fundamentals introduced by FVR. They wouldn’t fit the “weather-weather” presidency and the subsequent corruption-blasted presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
For his part, in spite of his globe-trotting forays as world peace guru, JdV assured us of his presence by inviting mutual friend Roger Oriel, publisher of the largest Fil-Am newspaper Asian Journal in the U.S., to attend the get-together.
Our very first meeting with JdV was sometimes in 1964 on a university campus when he came to fetch then Guillermo de Vega during our fraternity initiation rites. That meeting was the start of a friendship highlighted by our meeting Cathy, his niece, at the inaugural of his home in Bonuan Binloc.
Unforgettable was the night Martial Law was declared. JdV, then greenhorn congressman of the Second District, took us to the Manila Overseas Press Club to join Joe Guevarra, E.P. Pattane and later Nap Rama of the Philippines Free Press. Nervous talk then was FM’s proclamation of Martial Law.
JdV kept reminding us about our association with the KM and our articles on Marxist ideas with Nestor Pulido, Pepot Ilagan and Prudencio Mejia might land us in detention.
When we arrived Dagupan on September 21, l972, we were told constabulary agents were looking for us.
JdV visited us in Camp Aquino once. After our release, we visited then PC Chief Fidel V. Ramos at Camp Crame to thank him for being instrumental for our release.
“Don’t thank me, thank Him, “he said, his forefinger pointing upward.
Us think FVR and JdV must have welcome the “bonding” at President Hotel to renew ties with roots.
Mita Duque says her hotel was actually named after FVR because it was there where he was born and spent his childhood days. Our late auntie, Purita Maiquez-Martinez, FVR’s high school classmate, was fond of FVR. She said, “our classmates were all fond of Eddie,” she said.
As we go over the track, lives sand ways of great men and women, we’ve found a common thread: they are not piqued by small issues, never attracted to temporary pleasures. They know how to hold their emotions and postpone the satisfaction of their gratifications.
They have the last laugh.
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We received this text message last week from Ramon Santillan, vice president of the Pangasinan Federation of Non Government Organizations: “Re your “billboard” item, we are 100% behind the Sunday Punch’s crusade for clean and honest government.
Like you, we are in the dark why Dagupan officials in question have the gall to remain in government with questionable record. Why not urge Dagupeños to back to the hilt publisher Garcia’ filed complaint vs. these erring officials?”
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