The Pangasinan Star ONLINE

AFTER ALL
Behn Fer. Hortaleza, Jr.


MAYBE it was just her fraternal or maternal instincts getting the better of her but surely we can empathize with woman colleague Eva Visperas’ little “outburst” at the palpable absence of many media practitioners and “leaders” of the Pangasinan press from the wake and funerals of three mediamen who passed away recently – Napoleon Donato, Maximo Mendiguarin and Dominic Villafuerte.

To be sure, her own clique in the local media (from the Patrima particularly) were very much in the wakes and funerals of our three departed colleagues; that’s one thing you can’t take away from them, and they’ve proven they are sincere condolers. The Pangasinan media is that much richer for their display of oneness and sympathy for fallen comrades.

Eva may have been however a little unfair, to say the least, to imply hardness of heart of other colleagues whom she may not have physically seen in those times when she was present at the wake or at the funeral. For one, at Nap’s funeral – rather, cremation – many other media “leaders” were there, we can vouch for that, who need not be mentioned in this space anymore since that would be unseemly -- trotting out a list of who’s who in a morbid scene. And who could have guessed how many others went to the wakes or funerals in the other days, or hours, when Big Sister wasn’t there?

We do believe that, like praying, attendance at a wake or funeral should not be made a big thing of since it is a personal devotion between the dead and the living, and nobody else. It is not something one does to publicly profess deep colleagiality or kinship or worship of someone or something because that would be akin to the ways of the Pharisees, they who are wont to be seen and heard paying obeisance to their deities.

One last word to the wise, and just for the record, at Nap’s pre-cremation rites -- not that it matters anyway because distant cousin Nap in his coffin wouldn’t’ even have known, but just to set the record straight (we hate even doing this at all, naming names that is!) -- Patrima prexy Roland Hidalgo was there, and so was the other club’s chief Raul Tamayo during the final night of wake at Eternal Gardens.

Personally, of the three dead mediaguys, the only one we missed saying farewell to, (physically, we might stress, for Ms. Eva’s info) was Dong Villafuerte. That’s as sincere as we can get about this funeral attendance thing. Enough said. Makapabegas la.

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GRADE 1 and pre-elementary pupils of the towns of Basista, Labrador and Burgos here don’t to go absent or truant from their classes anymore for the “sacrificial” reason of working to help augment their family’s income in order to buy a ganta or two of rice for the dining table.

Government, thru the Department of Education and the National Food Authority, among other agencies, will be giving them their day’s daily rice needs – actually a kilo of rice each to the pupils in the target areas -- for each day of school attendance as a form of incentive.

The Food for-School Program is a food subsidy package for young learners pre-identified as belonging to poor families by the Technical Working Group (TWG)composed of the National Nutrition Council , NFA, Department of Interior and Local Government, DepEd and National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) .

A memorandum of agreement has been signed between DepEd and NFA for the delivery of the rice to school principals in identified schools of 5th and 6th class municipalities. Distribution will be based on a validated masterlist to be submitted by DepEd to NFA. This was an agreement forged during an orientation meeting among the agencies concerned at Teachers’ Camp in Baguio City last November 12.

Hitting two birds --- school truancy and malnutrition among pupils -- the program, to be very effective, must keep away those politicians who are quick to “ride”on such community-based programs and yes, school administrators too who might have other ideas with the commodity to be delivered under their care.

And if we sound too suspicious about these, it’s just because there is available and more than ample evidence of good programs going bad precisely because of such obnoxious ulterior motives among vultures in official clothes.

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SAID AND DONE: We’re saving our appreciating peso’s worth of comment on that ‘novel’ money-making, er, revenue-earning scheme, the pay parking ordinance, of the sangguniang panlungsod of Dagupan for next week. Having given our neighbor columnist below, DOS, the chance at first bat, we don’t want to fall guilty of doing an issue “overkill.” Just a small shot for now: There are intentions and there are motives. . . . We hope our good friend Councilor Joey Tamayo is not raising an issue on his having been misidentified by this paper as chair of the committee on peace and order of the Dagupan SP last week because he confuses The Pangasinan Star with the Sun-Star.Pangasinan.The latter, which folded up early this year, is identified with Mayor BSL…. Joey, we’re a purely independent (and proud) community newspaper, surviving by dint of hard-earned advertising and indelible newsman’s blood. We lick no asses to survive.