By Ermin Garcia Jr

 

THOSE who still don’t appreciate or understand how important Pangasinan is in the realm of voting power, let the recent  images of the presence of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte in Pangasinan wooing voters for the 2025 mid-term election tell you that!

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was in Lingayen on November 22, 2024, at Narciso Ramos Sports and Civic Center Gym for the distribution of P50 million in financial assistance, providing P10,000 each to 5,000 farmers, fisherfolk, and livestock raisers affected by the recent typhoons.

Six days later, on November 28, 2024, Vice President Sara Duterte was at the Lingayen Civic Center for the distribution of 2,000 gift packs to beneficiaries from different sectors to celebrate the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) 89th anniversary.

We find it encouraging, if not completely strange, that their presence in Pangasinan didn’t show any signs of animosity between them, it was like business as usual amid images of their vitriolic and acrimonious relations.

The recent sense of the word war, however, that drew political lines in Pangasinan between the two was not lost to Pangasinenses.

There were Gov. Ramon Guico and Vice Gov. Mark Lambino who played the generous hosts to PBBM in Lingayen but not to VP Sara who, however, found comfort in the leadership of Lingayen Mayor Bataoil, who’s gunning for a seat in the House of Representatives that’s out to destroy her today.

Some wondered why VP Sara chose to hold her celebration of the anniversary of the office of the vice president in Lingayen, not in Dagupan, where her satellite office is located. It could not simply be because Mayor Belen Fernandez dons the colors of the Unity Team, but everyone knows  Mayor Belen could still be the gracious host to a mutual friend in Sen. Imee Marcos. And between woman leaders who share the same advocacy – good government – that would not have posed a problem for both.

So could it be because VP Sara already knows that her allies in Dagupan, the 7 epaLiFes, are already known to be notorious public officials?

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NO SILG FOR DAGUPAN. Now that the Department of Budget and Management deemed the passage of the 2025 annual supplemental budgets valid, after the DILG issued its legal opinion that the passage of the two budgets was in order, will the bumbling legal adviser of the 7 epaLiFes finally tell the barkada that to file another court case seeking the nullification of the 2025 and supplementary budgets would already be tantamount to committing political hara-kiri.

After the 7 epaLiFes failed to block the 2023 annual and supplemental budgets via the court on three occasions, they ought to learn by now that no court would lend itself to an effort to deny services to our communities.

But if it’s any consolation to the 7 epaLiFes, they can claim full credit for the failure of the Belen Fernandez administration to earn a single Seal of Good Governance in 2024.

For the past decade, Dagupan City has been a consistent recipient of DILG’s  Seal of Good Governance under all previous mayors, including Mayor Belen in years (2013-2016), except this year.

Note that Pangasinan provincial government and the province’s two cities — Alaminos and San Carlos— were also among the 96 cities awarded with the Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) awards while its 28 towns — Alcala, Anda, Asingan, Balungao, Bani, Basista, Bayambang, Bolinao, Bugallon, Infanta, Labrador, Lingayen, Malasiqui, Manaoag, Mangatarem, Mapandan, Pozorrubio, Rosales, San Fabian, San Manuel, San Nicolas, San Quintin, Sta Barbara, Sto. Tomas, Sison, Tayug, Urbiztondo and Villasis were included in the 566 national awardees of the 2024 SGLG. 

Except Dagupan City, for the first time! The barkada should take a bow for this ignoble achievement!

Indeed, the failure of the city government to earn the seal last year cannot but come with the unprecedented notoriety of the 7epaLiFes, who abused their authority and used it to block the passage of the annual and supplemental budgets that would have funded the delivery of services that count for good governance.

The blocking of the budgets even delayed payments of incentives due the city hall employees and retiring employees.

Perhaps, if there was one action that could have still possibly earned plus points for the Belen administration, that would have been the filing of corruption charges against employees during the Brian Lim administration, against whom irrefutable evidence has been documented by COA.

So far those unscrupulous individuals who used their positions to enrich themselves are still free and have not been made to account.

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BTW: Follow us every Monday 6:30 a.m. over 104.7  IFM Dagupan with IFM manager Mark Espinosa. Also this week, Pebbles Duque will also launch ‘Punching Duo’ podcast with Gonz Duque and myself discussing both local and national issues on both lighter and serious sides of issues. Google it on Internet.

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