Think about it
UN should tap JDV on China bullying issue
By Jun Velasco
OUR politically charged environment brought about by “positioning” in the 2016 elections should not sideline the disturbing events unfolding in our very lives.
One is the threat posed by Big Bully China which is playing deaf and blind to our pleas for rational behavior in dealing with the West Philippine Sea problem.
Foreign affairs experts are nervously pining for peace initiatives, but they know too in their heart of hearts that they are dealing with an arrogant and bully-ish antagonist. (With apologies to our friendly hosts in Beijing who were warm and fraternal in their reception during our 2001 visit).
Most of our countrymen who want to feel pampered by alleged American protection know that this time it’s risky to take lightly this imminent war over China’s reclamation game because of the geographical closeness of an offensive neighbor vis-a-vis American support which is very remote by land and sea.
China’s threat is very real. Local Chinese friends hereabouts do not know how to behave whether to be critical or sympathetic to their Mother Country.
Sobriety, indeed, is the call of the moment. This corner once suggested to the Department of Foreign Affairs whose head, Sec. Albert del Rosario, “ is a bayaw” of Speaker Joe De Venecia Jr. to tap him (JDV) to persuade China to listen to reason and become a champion of peace.
This move might still work wonders with marketing genius JDV who, rumors say, can sell refrigerators to the Eskimos. Why not?
The other threat staring us in the face is the Global Warming or Climate Change phenomena.
You should have seen the TV footage on Fox news showing the State of California on the threshold of being devastated by a 9.2 earthquake anytime soon, God forbid!
A respected newscaster (his name has just escaped us) reports that dogs and pet animals were barking anxiously as if disturbed by ominous movements beneath the earth.
The series of earthquake drills in Metro Manila in the City of Dagupan (identified by a WHO report to be in a tsunami path (ask Prof. Nick M.) validates the call on everyone to adopt a “preparedness mode” all the time.
The memories of Typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng and the 1990 holocaust are still too graphic to take these threats for granted.
* * * *
The passing of Edmund Q. Calimlim, 44, a Dagupan City Hall employee for the past 22 years, instantly reunites friends and kins, conjuring reminiscences of our youth when his father – former City Budget Officer Eddie Calimlim and the former Cristy Quinto — were our regular buddies at their Adelina, Sampaloc residence in the pre-martial Law 70’s.
One day three years back, at a computer shop in Barangay Pantal, Edmund politely informed us that Eddie, our boyhood pal and high school classmate, was his father.
We became instant confidants, after which he confided that his mother, Cristy, was living in New York, while erpat had opted to live with officemate Julie and their three children in Barangay Bonuan Boquig. But Edmund said the Lord knows best, and that he hasn’t lost a bit of love for his parents, leaving us in complete admiration for his sense of equanimity.
We realized that unpredictable events always happen in our lives, and it behooves us all to let God do the bidding to get us through life’s zigs and zags and vicissitudes with nary a complaint, because He after all, is THE director of our lives. We’ve been impressed with Edmund’s unconditional love for family and his maker. May he rest in peace.
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Governor Espino’s delivered appeal to Pangasinenses to use and develop our national language (Filipino) at the 3-day National Language Week has stirred up our preoccupation with the language or dialect we use in our everyday discourses.
In his speech, Spines said there’s a connection between cultivating our sariling wika to make our people appreciate our cultural heritage, intimating that under his leadership, a study and flair for our cultural heritage would be enriched by his campaign in the use of the national language.
We suggest a deeper research on how to reconcile our native Pangasinan language and our Tagalog-based Wikang Pambansa, concededly a tough job for our linguists.
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We remember a poignant chat with the late Badong Bernal beside his father Atty. Santiago Bernal’s office at a local church.
Badong, a close buddy starting on the DCNHS campus, then advised us to “start writing in Pangasinan or in Tagalog (he was referring to Filipino) since you think in these languages. It’s up to the translators to make your writings understandable.”
Our language subject, by the way, takes us back to the late Geruncio Lacuesta, founder of anti-purist Pilipino, whose campaign has led to the evolution of Filipino as our national language.
In our everyday speech, let’s watch out of the text message revolution which is mongrelizing our language. Me tnk so, wat do u c?
(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)
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