Reviving the Dawel River Cruise

By Leonardo Micua

REMEMBER the Island Tours during the administration of Mayor Belen Fernandez?  Well, the new city administration of Mayor Brian Lim appears bent on restoring the old Dawel River Cruise launched by his late father as mayor.

This became evident after I saw one of the Island Tours boats marked “USA” being transferred to the other side of the Dawel River near the tensile -roofed Daungan.

I surmise the other boats of the Island Tours, marked “China” and “The Philippines”, will also be harnessed for the revival of the Dawel River Cruise. I know that the three island Tour boats were donated to the city by private corporate companies to support of the administration of then Mayor Belen.

Since Belen never claimed these boats to be personally owned by her, the three boats were among the properties she turned over to the Lim administration.

In contrast, the old Dawel River Cruise also had two customized boats reportedly donated to the city by private parties. But when Benjie lost the election and was hospitalized, the two boats were towed away in the dead of night with the claim that these were Benjie’s personal properties.  

An investigation by the police on the order of then Acting Mayor Fernandez, the two boats ended in private fishponds along the Patogkaweng River, cannibalized with their engines gone. And since there was no official document in the files of the city listing these boats as properties of the city, Belen did not insist on recovering the boats.

That was the main reason why the Dawel River Cruise had to be discontinued and replaced with Belen’s Island Tours along the Calmay River.   

But something is standing in the way of the revival of the Dawel cruise. in view of the ongoing retrofitting and later widening of the Dawel Bridge by the Department of Public Works and Highways, it will likely require the reconstruction and widening of the bridge, and the Daungan may have to be relocated.

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How were the hogs in Barangay Apalen, Bayambang infected by the African Swine Fever (ASF)? Since is the disease is not home-grown in Pangasinan, it could have only been transported to by a carrier hog or hogs that may have come from ASF-infested areas either from Rizal or Bulacan.

The question has risen to many speculations because as of this writing, the person or trader who may have brought the infected hog or hogs to Pangasinan has not been identified. Even Provincial Legal Officer Geraldine Baniqued, spokesperson of a task force noted a delay in the reporting of the incident in Apalen.

Thus, an investigation in aid of legislation by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan is in order because the shipper of the infected hog could not have slipped past checkpoints between Bayambang and Camiling Tarlac.

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Many say that Dagupan should already stop holding Dagupan Bangus Festival after the Sangguniang Panlungsod decided to allow the free entry into the city’s fish market of 300 banyeras of bangus on Mondays and another 300 banyeras on Fridays from other areas.         

Our PUNCH photographer noted that no administration in Dagupan in the past officially welcomed out-of-town bangus to the city.  It did not happen, he said, during the administrations of Mayors Liberato Reyna Sr., Cipriano Manaois, Alipio Fernandez Jr., Benjamin Lim, and Belen Fernandez. But it is happening under Brian’s watch.

How, indeed, can the city celebrate the glory of local bangus industry if the Dagupan bangus is very well on the verge of extension due to the big influx of milkfish from Bulacan that tastes like mud?

While Dagupan residents can easily distinguish the authentic Dagupan bangus from the fake, visitors would not. Once they believe that the Bulacan bangus is Dagupan bangus, the integrity of the tasty bangus will be lost in no time.

At the last hearing of the SP, a consignacion shouted to another: “Hoy! Why are you promoting Bulacan bangus?    

To the city official who opened the floodgate to Bulacan bangus, I ask:  Hoy, why are you promoting the Bulacan bangus, and not Dagupan bangus? 

So, let’s forget the Dagupan Bangus Festival.  A Bulacan Bangus Festival instead?                  

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