By Gonzalo Duque

 

WHEN Mayor Al Fernandez was still alive, he formed a political alliance and named it LiFe. It’s an acronym for Lim and Fernandez.

That was the time when then Fourth District Congressman Benjie Lim run for mayor of Dagupan with Al’s son, Alvin as his vice mayor.

I guessed then that political elders before wanted that acronym LiFe to signify that they promote enhancement of life for our people in the city of Dagupan.

So, things like nutrition, education, health, clean water, sanitation and others should occupy their agenda for the city.

It seems that today, the acronym LiFe has become a standard for negativism for the seven majority members of the Dagupan City council, opposed to the administration of Mayor Belen Fernandez.

To me, they went too far already. They stupidly mistook obstructionism to mean to fiscalize.

So, my editor, Ermin Garcia Jr., calls them EpaLiFe or mahilig sa pakitang tao, pero wala namang silbi. 

Let ‘s take the case of the Mother and Child Hospital. I was informed that the seven majority councilors expressed support for the project but they do not agree that the site where the project is going to be constructed.  It is because of their distorted and misguided belief that the land still belongs to the family of Mayor Belen Fernandez.

Mayroon na ngang donation papers in the hands of DOH! Nobody jokes about donating a land. Why are they insisting on their lie? The document says the land was donated by the brother of Mayor Belen Fernandez to the DOH and, therefore, the land no longer belongs to them (Fernandez  family) but to the DOH. What else do they want?  Talagang pinapahirapan lang nila ang Dagupan.

Therefore, the majority in the SP has no valid reason to stop the construction of the project. Tama na yang personality politics na yan.

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I was also informed that a case has been filed with the Ombudsman against former Mayor Brian Lim, former City Treasurer Romelita Alcantara and former City Accountant Eva Daroy, and an official of  corporation that turned out to be a dummy over two undelivered motorboats that were already paid in full.

There are two complainants: Bernard Cabison, chief of the Waste Management Division under Lim (and is still occupying that position under Belen Fernandez), and Melchor Guiang, Lim’s former chief of the General Service Office.

What drove Cabison and Guiang to file the complaint was when they discovered their forged signatures over their printed names in two documents in connection with the two paid but undelivered motorboats.

In other words, whoever masterminded the fraudulent transaction used the names of Cabison and  Guiang to defraud the city government.

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So as not to belittle the historical significance of the Bangus Festival, let’s give credit to former Mayor Benjie Lim, being its founder. That’s all.

It was Mayor Belen Fernandez who introduced a lot of new ideas and innovations to the festival that has made it one of the biggest tourist attractions in the country every summer.

I remember Bangusine or the 1,000 ways to cook bangus. It  was a brain child of Belen. I know this because I was chairman of the first Bangusine event held for the Bangus Festival. Then she succeeded in making the Bangusan Street Party as one of the biggest street parties in the Philippines.

There was also the Festivals of the North that invited champion street dancing dancers from various regions  to perform in a showdown to determine which is the best regional festival in the Philippines.

But I heard that this was temporarily shelved due to shortage of fund but will be revived in the future by Belen once Dagupan already has a more cooperative city council.

Belen also helped choreographed the Gilon-Gilon Street Dancing by seeing to it that the steps of the dancers adopt to the movements of fishermen while harvesting their bangus and make it a popular street dance.

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