By Gonzalo Duque

 

I’VE been privileged to be named by Mayor Belen T . Fernandez as member of an executive committee tasked to prepare the activities for our 75th Diamond Anniversary this year with Mayor Belen herself as chairperson.

In the first meeting of the executive committee held at Tim Horton’s Coffee last September 9, I was unanimously chosen to head the secretariat with other city officials from the legislative branch and officials of the mayor’s office as my members.

Since the task is daunting, I would like to expand the membership of the secretariat that would include members from the private sector who I know can help speed up our work.

Planning what will be in store for our diamond anniversary shall include minds, here and abroad, who really know the history of Dagupan since its inception as a city. And no book was ever written about this, except that little handbook written by the late historian Restituto Basa (God bless his soul!) to be used as one of our points of reference.

By the way, before I left for a trip to Ilocos Norte, we have just discussed about the t-shirts that we are going to print to celebrate our Diamond Year. Members of the Dagupan Association of Northern California, who are in town, would like to bring such t-shirt when they return home to US of A.

With the guidance and support of Mayor Belen, who by the way is the Diamond Mayor of Dagupan, we can succeed in coming out with a meaningful but auspicious celebration of our 75th year of city hood.

By the way, there is an old photo showing the late Alipio Fernandez Jr. being sworn in as the first elected mayor of Dagupan City by (if I am not mistaken) President Manuel Roxas which I believe is among the old photos being displayed at Dagupena Restaurant in Calasiao. That should be preserved as one of the legacies of Dagupan.

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On the issue of illegal fish pens found by Mayor Belen still teeming in our rivers, don’t expect her to do a Herculean job of undoing what was done by her predecessor for three years while she is just three months in office. What I mean is that the sins sowed by the past admin of wreaking havoc to our rivers cannot be atoned by the succeeding admin overnight. 

Give time for Belen to flex her muscles over years of Brian’s misadministration. 

Remember that Brian himself violated an ordinance that banned the operation of fish pens in all our city rivers when he allowed his friends and may be political allies to build their respective fish contraptions irrespective of their sizes and distances to each other.

During Mayor Belen’s previous term, she allowed only fish cages with an area of 10 x 7 meters and 10 meters apart to be up in our rivers consistent with a standing city ordinance. And these were owned by marginal families living in adjacent barangays. 

When she left after losing the election by measly few votes, the legal fish cages were supplanted with huge and oversized fish cages  owned by rich and influential to the powers that  be in the city at the expense of the environment and eco-system in our rivers. 

Do you find Belen softie to the owners of these huge and oversized fish pens? I don’t see it considering her strong determination to bring the rivers back to the people who really own it.

Masisisi ba natin si Belen sa maling ginawa ni Brian? 

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In my next column, I will discuss about my trip to Ilocos Norte, particularly in the town of Nueva Era where the mayor is our good friend Aldrin Garvida, who we had good friendly talk for hours.

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