APPLAUSE FOR SSS-DAGUPAN. I was impressed. I visited the new Social Security System (SSS) office at the Eastgate along A.B. Fernandez Ave. East, Dagupan City twice last week and there were no more long queues under the sun for SSS members. Instead, I found them comfortably waiting inside a spacious and fully air-conditioned area.

The new location, just across the road of the old site in the same area, makes transactions with the SSS less-hassle and less stressful, unlike in the past. No more amoy-araw or amoy suka sa pawis for SSS members.

Second, there are many comfortable seats for its clients as if waiting in an airport or bank lounge. Then, I also noticed the now courteous and ready-to-assist security guards.

The employees’ desks and cubicles are properly arranged for the step-by-step transaction or concerns of the members. Big improvement, indeed.

During my two visits for a father’s concern with his pension, I wonder how many clients these SSS employees serve daily as I saw more than a thousand people in each of my two visits.

SSS Dagupan assistant manager Catalina Basbas who has been helpful with quick responses to my queries, said they serve about 5,000 people every day, especially during long holidays.

That’s a lot people. Nakakahilo ang dami nila. Kaya pala halos hindi na makangiti ang ilan sa kanila sa pagod. These SSS employees are the kind who deserve pay increase given the bulk of their work. It’s really public service. – Tita Roces

 

POLITICAL WILL AND IRR. After the passage of the long-overdue ban on fish pens in Dagupan City last year, comes the more difficult part – the implementation. Considering the election period, the political will of the city officials will be tested outright with the expected implementation of the ordinance.

Will the Fernandez administration immediately come up with the needed implementing rules and regulations (IRR) or will they delay the IRR as an excuse to circumvent the law? Let’s see.

I believe the passage of this ordinance is also a political tactic, to whose advantage and misfortune? Quite obvious, isn’t it?  – Dada Austria

 

AGAIN, LINGAYEN OR DAGUPAN? The celebration and observance of Lingayen landing by liberation forces 71 years ago on January 9 led by the Americans, again revived an old and unsettled dispute on where General Douglas Mac Arthur actually first landed during the liberation of Luzon from the enemy.

Some said he first landed in Dagupan, some in Lingayen and a few others said he first set foot in San Fabian.

But judging from history, he could not have landed in San Fabian where the fighting was heavy as Japanese defenders positioned their heavy artillery on a high peak in San Jacinto to target the landing allied shops.

So, that left Dagupan or Lingayen as the only two possible sites where Mac Arthur first landed.

Mike Villa-Real, vice president of the Philippine Veterans Bank, said they have documents obtained from the archives of MacArthur Memorial in his birthplace Norfolk, Virginia, USA proving that it was in Dagupan where Mac Arthur landed.

The MacArthur monument, the only one on Luzon soil, still stands proud in Bonuan in the property owned by the heirs of the late Major Moises Maramba, a war hero from Dagupan.

So I told Mike: “They are claiming otherwise in Lingayen.” And he answered in chuckles.

It was the late Pangasinan Governor and Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella who told during a Lingayen Landing commemorative program some five years ago that based on what he gathered during a luncheon he hosted for General MacArthur and his wife during their visit to the Philippines in 1951, it was in Lingayen where he first landed.

Perhaps, the best to solve this nagging question is simply to give credit to both Lingayen and Dagupan as hosts to MacArthur – a fact that happened anyway and nobody is questioning it. – Leonardo Micua

(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)

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