My kind of Smart City

By Ermin Garcia Jr.

 

DAGUPAN Mayor Belen Fernandez wants to see the city emerge or evolve into a “Smart City” by 2016.

I have not heard her speak in public functions lately where she perhaps expounded on her “Smart City” vision so I cannot claim to know her thoughts on this. So without any thought of preempting or correcting the context of her goal, I dare list my own context of what my Smart City could or should be, or call it a wish-list!

First: Residents must have free wifi access in public areas, namely, at the city plaza, city hall, sanggunian hall, police station, city library, Malimgas and Magsaysay Markets, the astrodome, barangay halls and Tondaligan Park.

Second: The city has an app that provides regular updates on prices of commodities in the city’ public markets and supermarkets and prices of fuel in local stations; b) Status of ongoing infrastructure projects in the city are posted; c) Lists of summary expenditures of the city government

Thirdly: Executive meetings of the mayor and proceedings of the city council’s weekly sessions could be watched via live streaming.

Fourth, the city library is already equipped with 20 computers with access to internet, and index of books and publications are fully digitalized. It should already have ample Braille materials.

Fifth, CCTVs are installed in every major intersection in the city’s barangays.

Sixth: City police operates 7 mobile units patrolling the city’s streets 24/7.

Seventh: Business taxes can already be paid through any commercial bank in the city.

Eighth: Residents have access to updates on status of government operations during calamities.

Ninth: Sidewalks are restored to pedestrians in all main streets and thoroughfares.

Tenth: Traffic rules and regulations are strictly enforced 24/7.

Everyone can dream, can’t we?

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PLAGIARISTS ARE BACK. About 2 years ago, this corner attempted to correct the impression of some news publications that it’s OK to regularly plagiarize articles and print these in their issues. Most of those that our student volunteers tracked were items published by columnists, and to our horror, including teachers who want their “articles” published to comply with a DepEd requirement for promotion. Plagiarism was simply rampant like nobody’s business!

We earned the ire of publishers, editors of local newspapers (and desperate teachers who paid to have their “articles published) for exposing their unethical secrets to look and sound intelligent, and well grounded in journalism. Mercifully, many decided to reform and began a closer monitoring of submitted articles. That was two years ago.

Today, after a random check by some students, they noted that the two-headed green-eyed monster called plagiarist has began rearing its ugly head again in some pages of local newspapers. Why they think nobody will know escapes us, when all that one needs to do is to Google a sentence or a paragraph, and voila, the original article appears on the monitor!

The Pangasinan Gazette unabashedly copied the October 27 editorial of Philippine Star while The Express Monitor lifted the November 11 editorial of Manila Standard Today en toto. Both made it appear like these were their own original manuscripts since there were no attributions as “reprint”. Shame…shame! (More on this next issue for your entertainment!).

But worse than plagiarists, one local newspaper, the Pangasinan Online Balita had the gall to lift one entire column item published in The PUNCH last September 4, 2014 and published it in its issue last week without any permission from us.

For the record, I’d like our readers to know that submissions of our reporters and columnists are exclusive to the PUNCH. If you happen to see a reprint of our news and columns in other publications, these are unauthorized and stolen.

Using our news and column materials for their own (even with an attribution) is not the kind of flattery that is appreciated.

In fact, dishonest practice is a kind word for the likes of them.

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WHAT INTEGRITY? I used to wonder why integrity is easily lost in the local practice of journalism these days but no longer.

There is a dearth of true print journalists in Pangasinan, and yet there is easy money to be earned from publishing judicial and extra-notices in newspapers. Commercial printers believe they have found the trick that since they are aware that the primary purpose is to earn from legal notices, it doesn’t matter to them what gets printed in their pages. Plagiarism or theft doesn’t make any difference to them. Consequently, two printers (one in Bonuan Boquig and the other in Malued) now publish 3-5 newspapers, happily participating in the raffle of notices from the regional trial courts

Since the law does not limit the amount a newspaper can charge for the publication of the notices, one can imagine to what extent they go to milk petitioners under the very noses of executive judges.

My only personal lament is to see respectable colleagues lending their names to many of these publications-for-judicial notices to give these a semblance of integrity of legitimate journalism practice.

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