By Leonardo Micua

 

A report from the World Health Organization (WHO) that the pandemic will last for another year will be a hard pill to swallow for the poor. Unfortunately, we are among the countries that will inevitably suffer much from this prolonged catastrophe with our big population of 111 million, plus the economic downturn that we are presently in.

With rich nations reportedly cornering the available vaccines in the market at the expense of poor nations, we cannot just grin and bear it and wait for our turn to die from this contagion.

Faced with this grim reality, we have no other option left but to ramp up with our ongoing vaccination program in order to ultimately achieve the herd immunity that we so desire. But the drawback is vaccines are coming to us in trickles, not enough for 70 percent of our citizens.

But knowing the resiliency of the Filipinos as our forefathers have shown in far greater crisis that befell our nation such as World War II, we know we can survive from this worst health emergency that hit us. We have no choice but to be vaccinated in order to get back to our normal lives.

This as some foreign variants of COVID-19 have reportedly managed to enter the country, through some of our returning OFWs. We should be most wary about these variants, especially the one transported from India which is believed to be the most transmittable type of all the variants ever discovered yet.

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We heard that the Sangguniang Panlungsod of Dagupan turned down the proposal of the mayor’s office to make the proposed Executive Management Group into an ultra-powerful department in the Dagupan City government. Well, the SP approved the creation of the EMG under the office of the mayor but with diffused functions, and its duties reduced to merely assisting the City Executive.

 Well, that’s good news as far as we are concerned. But the bad news is the SP approved the elevation of units under the office of the mayor into departments. Some units elevated must be deserving to be made into departments but others are not. Need we specify what these units are? Your guess is as good as mine. 

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As clear are as the glaring sun of May, former Mayor Belen Fernandez is bent on reclaiming her old post. She has shown this with her remarkable achievements in private life when she made quite impossible feats possible. With her at the helm of her family-owned CSI Group of Companies, the CSI Warehouse Club gutted one years ago, is now back on its feet.

Recall that just one week after that conflagration and while the ashes from the burnt edifice were not yet being cleared, Superwoman Belen made business as usual for her company by making the adjacent Stadia as a temporary outlet of consumer goods in order not to deny Dagupenos and Pangasinenses the chance of buying goods at exceptionally low prices.

No other woman can do that in so short a time. God knows who is deserving and who is not. A miracle can yet happen soon as somebody up knows what is happening in Dagupan. Just go around and you hear what’s in the heart beats of ordinary Dagupenos.

The new CSI Warehouse Club that Belen built is definitely bigger, cozier, cooler and offers more comfortable atmosphere for shoppers than the old, which is the reason that even on weekdays, one can always see people pushing carts filled with consumer goods queuing to the cashiers’ nooks.

On top of that, the Dagupan LifeStyle Center that Belen designed when she was no longer at the helm in Dagupan, is now open with such restaurants such as Cabalen, the Korean resto Romatikong Baboy, which are serving specialized menu for diners with discriminating tastes, are now being mobbed from morn till dark.

We heard that Ex-Mayor Belen is now already building a supermart in Manaoag town to cater to the needs of local residents and those of San Jacinto as well as pilgrims pouring in like swarms of bees at the Minor Basilica of Manaoag as what was seen before the pandemic, and in Agoo town in La Union on a lot beside the Manila North Road that CSI has acquired.

These are just among the few surprises from Superwoman Belen and we might see and hear some more in the coming days.

CSI and Belen are so much blessed by the Almighty that the company is eying to branch out to Laoag City in Ilocos Norte possibly next year when its Manaoag and Agoo projects shall have been completed. She is also bent on ensuring CSI’s presence in several more towns of Pangasinan in response to the clamor of their residents.

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