We start this article with very good news—the bells of Balangiga will be with us by Christmas!
They will be returned to the parish church of Balangiga in Eastern Samar, and directly therefore to the people of Balangiga, but they will ring out for the entire country, as a national treasure, as a relic of the indomitable spirit of our people for freedom and against foreign colonialism.
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“It’s inflation, stupid” seems to be what presidential spokesman Harry Roque said when asked about the drop in President Duterte’s approval ratings as reported in the third quarter of Pulse Asia’s Ulat ng Bayan. The field research was done in the first week of September, when almost all in mainstream media were reporting long lines of the “masa” waiting to buy NFA rice, which was the only affordable staple grain in the wet markets.
Weeks before, television showed pictures of “bukbok” infested rice, and reported a shut-out of the staple in Zamboanga City, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. For months on end, people had been grappling with the higher costs of living highlighted by rice, oil, canned goods, sugared drinks, even fish, and later with Ompong, vegetables tripling in prices.
No leader, however popular, could not escape being negatively affected by rising prices. Roque was proven right when two days after his comments on the drop in the President’s ratings, the same research outfit came out with the issues that concerned, rather bedeviled the people most: inflation. And with it of course, the corollary issue of low wages, the demand for adjustment of which is a natural consequence of the former.
But my friend Harry may not be very accurate in singularly pinning the blame on resigned NFA Administrator Jason Aquino. “It’s complicated” is probably the best description of what brought about this rice supply crisis.
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Last Friday, in the midst of rush hour, I went to Mandaluyong City Hall to witness the launch of a new Philippine-Taiwan project: the National Kaohsiung University of Taiwan, along with several other centers of learning in the southern port city of our closest neighbor to the north, would collaborate with the city government in bringing high-quality technical learning to the poorest communities of Mandaluyong.
It is a template that hopefully can be recreated in other parts of the country, bringing science and technology close to those who need training most as a means to graduate from poverty.
Former Mayor Benhur Abalos was our gracious host in the absence of his then-indisposed wife, Mayor Menchie Abalos. He proudly showed us the architectural drawings of what would be the Mandaluyong University of Science and Technology, and how he would build it despite the cramped territory of his city.
Mandaluyong City is a prime example of local government service at its best, where strategic location propels higher revenues which in turn are used to uplift the condition of its residents, and more especially, the future of its children. Both Taiwanese and Filipinos there present were moved by the musical presentation of young girls and boys with physical disabilities who face a brighter future because of the caring programs of their local government leadership.
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The visit to my friend Benhur’s political domain got me passing through the now controversy-laden Estrella-Pantaleon bridge which links the Rockwell district in Makati to the Barangka area in Mandaluyong’s riverside.
Indeed it is a puzzlement that a two-lane bridge which serves as an alternative to eternally traffic-choked Guadalupe bridge will have to be dismantled to build a four lane span. The Makati side can possibly justify a four-lane bridge, but the Mandaluyong side is another thing. The bridge will just bring vehicles to narrow and winding streets which, unless they tear down properties for road-widening purposes (which in this country’s “democratic” ways will take a lifetime of litigation), those two additional lines of vehicles will just clog a natural chokepoint in the Barangka area.
Some DPWH engineers say that building new bridges across the river, especially in the Makati-Mandaluyong and Taguig-Pasig links, have become urgent in light of the need to repair and rehabilitate the oft-vehicle punished Guadalupe bridge in EDSA. That is understandable, but maybe they need to look elsewhere in Mandaluyong for a better location.
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Speaking of local politics, it seems like the Abalos-Gonzales partnership, which was started in the early 80s when both patriarchs, Neptali Gonzales Sr. and Benjamin Abalos spearheaded the anti-dictatorship movement in Mandaluyong-San Juan, then a single congressional district, endures without viable threats.
Benhur who looks much younger than his 56 years, has been succeeded by his gracious wife Menchie, while Boyet, son of the late Senate President, has bequeathed his umpteenth congressional hold to his wife Queenie Pahati-Gonzales who hails from my lola’s Paombong-Malolos hometown origins.
On the other side of the Pasig, political conflict brews among family members. Mayor Abby Binay, who succeeded her brother Jun-Jun in the stronghold of former Vice-President Jojo Binay, will be challenged come mid-October by no less than Jun-Jun himself. Mismo!
Unless patriarch Jojo, who is running for congressman in the first district, can put his foot down, and firmly.
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The political pot has began to boil and the certificates of candidacy will be signed, sealed and delivered to Comelec from October 11 to 17. Pre-election fever, which has been submerged by earth-shaking issues like the coup in the House, the rice price crisis and the general inflation surge and even the Trillanes brouhaha, will now take center stage in public attention, briefly interrupted by the bells of Balangiga tolling for the nation and cheering us during the season of grace.