Foreign interlopers TKO’d local tobacco!
By Jun Velasco
 

NEXT week, the province of Pangasinan will be the cynosure of eyes for the staging of sport competitions among   young sporting heroes of the private schools all over the country.
Tasked to oversee the games is our education leader and neighbor columnist, Lyceum Northwestern University president Gonzalo Duque, president of the   Private Schools Athletic Association of the Philippines.
It will be a tough challenge to our ability to host some 4,000 athletes, government and education officials and our sports-minded countrymen.
Pare Gons will surely have his hands full, and our sense of  duty to a friend and colleague and to our province should prod us to ensure the PRISAA events’ success.
Gonzalo has documented in his Punch  column the support of a number of  friendly  samaritans topped by  Speaker Joe de Venecia, Gov. Victor Agbayani  and  the Sangguniang Panlalawigan headed by  Vice Gov. Oscar Lambino, Mayor  Benjie Lim and the Sangguniang Panlungsod headed by Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez and others who have unselfishly responded to ensure the  PRISAA events’ success.
Mayor Lim opted not to miss the event  to show off  Dagupan Bangus’   superiority in the world in culinary excellence  by staging a Dagupan Kalutan to give   the seven-day  marathon a festive air. Fast emerging singing sensation Mocha Uson, who was our next-door neighbor on Amado street  in the 80’s, will team up with Gary Valenciano to do an entertainment galore at the People’s Astrodome  on February 8.
What sticks up like a sore thumb is  the province’s  proverbial lack of   hotels and lodging houses  for  a big event like this. Gons and his hard-hitting team of  Phil Celi, Seato Gonimil, Art Tangco, Manny Gatchalian and adviser Councilor  Chito Samson   have cracked out creative ideas including homestay strategies to beat the  housing  problems  for 4,000 people.
In the past, “hell broke loose!” when some local organizations hosted national conventions in Dagupan City due to lack of hotel facilities.  It’s true  many hotels have appeared in our four cities and a few   progressive towns in the province, but they were  no match  to the   lodging needs of  nationwide events.
Let’s support  Gons and his team for doing a yeoman’s job, which Governor Agbayani aptly says,  puts our hosting ability to a tough test. PRISAA circa 2006  is  Pangasinan’s products showcase to the world, too.           
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Will there be a Manny Pacquiao-Erik Morales  III?
Many sports observers don’t think so.  But let’s see, because over and above  our  world-class boxers’ thirst for fame, they too  love the smell of money. And so, we predict a Pacquiao-Morales III.
It’s but fair, isn’t it? Each has one win, one loss, and  a third fight should settle the score once and for all.
Those who  scoof at  a third encounter say that  Morales’ crushing defeat might have sown terror  in his heart to face Pacquiao.
What of it? Boxing, to Las Vegas and Madison Square mafia, is  big business. Mark  it, after  Morales emerges from the hospital to heal his wounds, he would  sign another contract for  the third showdown, titled, “The Great  Decision.” 
We watched  the boxing classic in  Speaker Joe’s house, and there was no mistaking the pride in everyone’s face for Manny Pacquiao’s win.  For a while, the country was united as one mind and one heart and one soul in Manny’s  towering heroism. If  we’d have more of  that show of  Filipino excellence, maybe all this put-down  culture perfected to the hilt by self-seeking politicians would be wiped out from the face of the earth. What a dream!  We dream to see that day, better still, we pray  that day to  come soon. Everyone is hungry of deliverance from  you-know-what.
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Tobacco growers in the north including Pangasinan are restive and may pose a  social problem because they  “have lost”  the market to foreigners.
Hear their lament through their spokesman, former Councilor  Dominador   “Boy” Rayos, who  tearfully recounts   how a multi-million business “has gone down to nothing”.
 Many of our tobacco planters, Boy says,  have shifted to  rice and corn, but the “shift,” it appears, is in “not doing any good,” so they, our tobacco  growers, a portrait of  defeat,  are already  applying for jobs abroad. Is the situation beyond solution?
The solution is for government to subsidize our farmers, Boy Rayos insists,  because the foreign market is just too unbeatable in the uneven playing field.
Our tobacco farmers need a saviour like Manny Pacquiao  to knock out  the foreign interlopers.     

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