By Leonardo MIcua

 

A video clip posted about the claim of a husband and wife from Barangay Dinalaoan in Calasiao town that they were threatened by armed men who broke into their house on April 7 went viral on Facebook.

The wife narrated how she was threatened at gun point and ordered to tell her husband, Paeng, not to get involved in politics, or he, the barangay chairman and the town  mayor will be killed.

It appeared that this reported incident was only one among many incidents of reported threats and intimidations perpetrated by armed men on supporters of incumbent mayor Joseph Arman Bauzon.

Residents were alarmed by the audacity of the armed men despite the gun ban during the campaign and election period.

Bauzon, running for a third and final term of office, admitted that Paeng is his supporter and wondered why the armed men had to threaten him and his family.

“…in a democratic society such as ours, everybody is given free to choose his or her own candidate,” Bauzon said in his post.

It is Bauzon’s biggest challenge in his entire political life. He won the mayorship in 2016 convincingly against then Vice Mayor Roy Macanlalay and repeated it in 2019 against Macanlalay’s son Mark  Roy, who in previous elections lost to Vice Governor Ferdie Calimlim by a narrow margin.

When Paeng and his wife went to the Calasiao Police Station to report the threat against them by the armed men, Mayor Bauzon joined them there to lend his moral support.

He said that by the personal account of the wife of Paeng, not only Paeng was under threat but also the barangay captain of Dinalaoan and including him.

Bauzon wondered what has become of his town. because of politics. But as the town mayor, he said he will do everything to protect his people.

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We condole with the family of former Mayor Belen Fernandez and her siblings for the loss of their beloved mother, Doña Remedios Tan Vda de Fernandez who, with her late husband Jimmy Fernandez, were the early pioneers of business and commerce in Dagupan City. 

We are amazed by their wonderful story when the couple started their City Grocery, when Belen helped them repack sugar while attending school at the Divine Word College of Dagupan and the then Luzon Colleges (now University of Luzon).

When Belen took charge in that store after earning a degree in business at LC, she  made friends with sari-sari store owners who became her “sukis” then eventually earned her the monicker “Sari- sari Store Queen of Pangasinan.”

I mention this because from that humble beginning and through patience and perseverance which the Fernandez siblings learned from their parents, a business conglomerate like the CSI Group of Companies was born. The rest is history. 

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