Is it really about the pandemic?
By Leonardo Micua
THE announcement of the Dagupan City Historical Cultural and Arts Commission before the Sangguniang Panlungsod that only limited activities are being prepared for the city fiesta this year is saddening for fiesta lovers.
With only few days before the fiesta on December 27, we have yet to hear the hizzoner name the Hermano or Hermana mayor or create the executive committee to run the fiesta in accordance with accepted traditions.
From what we heard, there will only be a mass wedding at the city plaza in the morning of December 15 and an anticipated midnight mass in the afternoon of that day in the same venue.
And there will also be blessing of the river at the River Cruise site, where three customized boats sans engines have long been moored, a virtual Christmas party for employees and of course the Rizal Day celebration on December 30 at the premises of the Rizal monument.
Preceding all these activities is the baratillo now labeled as Dagupan City Christmas Trade Fair which will run this month to January next year, which is expected to generate enough funds to bankroll the fiesta with the monies paid by exhibitors.
I was surprised to hear the Dagupan HCAC still soliciting suggestions on what other activities need to be added to this year’s fiesta celebration.
This prompted me to suspect it is not really the pandemic that is preventing the city government from holding a bigger fiesta than what was already conceived by the Dagupan City HCAC. It is probably about the money why city fiesta will not be a bit as heartwarming as the Christmas lights that now adorn Quintos Bridge as well as in front of the city museum.
This could lead anyone to ask:: Has the city now run out of cash to sustain its operations up to the end of the year?
We recall that the Sangguniang Panlungsod just passed Supplemental Budget No. 2 worth P77 million over the last two months. Were all these been used up?
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What happens if Senator Bong Go will not go to the Comelec too soon in order to formalize his announced withdrawal from the presidential race? To me, he’s still a candidate and because he is still going around the country, meeting voters, he could still become a formidable opponent to any presidential candidates soon.
We heard that Go is still not going to the Comelec anytime soon because his supporters, who have encamped around there, will do everything to persuade him to continue the fight and never to raise the flag of surrender.
Was his announced decision to withdraw from the presidential race just stage-managed as a ploy so that other presidential candidates will not gang up on him at this early? It could be a political strategy, so the other presidential aspirants should watch out.
But what kind of a man is he when he does not honor his words? He could be branded as a man who says something yet his actions are different from what he says.
What is it about the report that President Duterte is still reportedly shopping for Bong Go’s replacement? Is substitution still possible after the November 15 deadline set by the Comelec and after Duterte expressed he had no plan to back any other presidential candidate other than Go?
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Even as Maria Ressa is receiving her Nobel Prize in journalism in Oslo, Norway, another journalist from Pampanga was gunned down in his home in Samar where he reportedly went into hiding after he received a serious threat on his life in yet another classic example that the culture of impunity continues to reign in this country.
Jess Malabanan, a correspondent of the Manila Standard and Bandera as well as stringer of Reuters, was the latest victim of assassin’s bullets, the perpetrators and the mastermind, probably thought they could get way with the crime just like in many past killings of journalists and treated as colds cases.
Undoubtedly this killing has again re-installed the Philippines as the most dangerous place on earth for journalists.
We personally express our outrage on Malabanan’s senseless killing and sincerely hope that authorities will exhaust all means to get the killers as well as the mastermind soon.
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