When the city council was respected
By Leonardo Micua
WHEN the Dagupan City council had Attys. Reggie Ravanzo, Conrado Guadiz, Jimmy Arzadon, Dr. Alfredo Sta. Maria and yes, Pedro Torio and Pepito Calimlim as councilors, newsmen always looked forward in covering the Sangguniang Panlungsod. They talked sense, argued and debated on the floor as statesmen honored by their peers and the whole city.
The Sunday PUNCH’s late Rhuey Baterna and I covered the session without fail, from the days when the session hall was still at the second floor of the old city hall, and then transferred to the third floor of the old Makong Building, when city council was called Sangguniang Panlungsod for the first time, and at its present site on the third floor of the now legislative building of Dagupan.
These councilors debated fiercely on the floor and against each other (Ravanzo, Sta. Maria and Arzadon were with the LP and Guadiz, Torio and Calimlim were with the NP). But when the session was over, they all parted ways and headed to their respective homes as best of friends. What and how they debated against each other in the halls of the council never affected their friendship with each other.
We cannot say the same about our present crop of councilors. The councilors, especially in the majority, have not moved on five months after the election. They seemed to have forgotten that they have a duty to the people of Dagupan—that is to serve them with all their might. Their minds are still locked up on the events of the campaign.
I watched the ruckus that happened at the session of the SP last Tuesday on zoom and as a veteran newsman that covered almost every session of the council in the past decades for The PUNCH and the agency that I was working for, I can say that a number of these councilors today are the exact opposite of the aldermen-statesmen of Dagupan in the past that I looked up to being true public servants.
After that incident, the SP appears to be headed away from what we knew about governance, about legislative work in the past, as the hall of decent and honorable men who debate intelligently on relevant issues. Today, hearing garbage coming out from the foul mouth of one councilor is beginning to appear as the norm.
We know that respect begets respect but there is one councilor who is not respectful of his peers and thinks highly of himself. He thinks he and his peers are above the rest only because he and allies hold the majority votes.
The shouting match at the city council, uploaded by citizens in the internet, was prompted by this guy’s trashy conduct who kept taunting others while a colleague was speaking on the floor. For lacking in manners, I presumed he had not been taught good manners and right conduct from kinder school.
Meanwhile, the students supposedly not included in the list of scholars despite filing their applications and presented to the SP, were ill advised to go to the wrong venue and wrong officials. Their cases could have been easily addressed if they argued their case to Mayor Belen Fernandez and not before the SP that is not involved in implementations of ordinances.
I cannot recall Mayor Belen and her committee delegating their tasks of selecting qualified scholars to any Tom, Dick and Harry in the SP. And to grandstand with better effect, this guy challenged colleagues to each sponsor scholars with their own money. It was a completely insane idea clearly meant to taunt the minority.
P.S. I almost did not make it before the deadline in writing this column because the rowdy situation that I saw in the SP when the session turned into a virtual shouting match. That made me sick! It was a sickening sight indeed!
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The Sangguniang Panlalawigan has its hands full with all the boundary disputes that Pangasinan is currently embroiled in. First, Pangasinan has a still unsettled boundary dispute with Benguet when Tuba town is claiming the area where Northern Cement in Sison is located. Then there is Barangay Malico in San Nicolas being claimed by Sta. Fe, Nueva Vizcaya.
And now, Mangatarem is now being encroached by adjacent San Clemente, Tarlac.
In all these boundary disputes, Gov. Ramon Guico III’s firm stand is Pangasinan will not surrender even a square inch of its territory from any adjacent LGU. That’s a tough one.
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