'Arguendo' Park

WITH ALL the controversies that swirled about it, the latest of which is its very renovation, the Arnedo Park fronting the Capitol may well be given the title of this piece as its new name.
Not simple arguments and counter arguments but discord, at its bitterest, impacted upon the park named after one of Pampanga’s better governors.
Arnedo Park birthed and nurtured the protracted protest of the dismissed quarrymen of the Biyaya a Luluguran at Sisikapan – yes, the Balas Boys initially hailed as heroes by the Capitol for the so-called miracle in the then P1-million daily quarry collections only to be damned later as heels by the Panlilio administration.
It was the Balas Boys’ protest that reared the dictatorial tendencies of the Capitol tenant shamelessly showcased in his memorandum to City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar Rodriguez ordering him to cease and desist from granting rally permits “for whatever purpose” at Arnedo Park, and questioned its very proclamation as a “freedom park.” To think that Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio claims a militant past where he fought the Marcos dictatorship!
Of course, the sangguniang panlalawigan (SP) led by Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao – whose father Bren was an authentic victim of Martial Law – promptly did its democratic duty by affirming that freedom park declaration with a resolution.
Arnedo Park too was the scene of the first-ever protest rally staged against a local government unit by the Pampanga media to denounce discrimination inflicted upon their ranks and denial of free access to information by the then fledgling Panlilio administration. It was this rally that minted “Dabusado,” colloquial for “abusive bitchiness,” now etched in the lexicon of the Kapampangan.
It was Arnedo Park again that hosted the first-ever rally of a townspeople against their own. The Minalin folk, led by Mayor Edgar Flores and all the barangay chairs, practically disowned Panlilio for his actions deemed inimical to the interest and welfare, if not the very life, of his townmates.
At issue there was Panlilio’s order to stop desilting operations in the Minalin rivers and impounding trucks ferrying loads of silt and debris for use as filling materials in the town’s road-widening projects. A two-pronged initiative of the municipal government to rehabilitate the rivers and thereby minimize flooding and at the same time improve the barangay roads.
First-ever in Pampanga, the massive call for the resignation of the governor was initially sounded at the Arnedo Park by Panlilio’s own civil society groups – Rene Romero of the Advocacy for the Development of Central Luzon, top Panlilio financier Madame Lolita Hizon of Conscience, and the resigned members of Panlilio’s confidence team.
First-ever in Pampanga again, the initiation of recall proceedings against the sitting governor, had its series of rallies and culminating finale with over 25,000 people at the Arnedo Park, before marching to the Comelec office to file the petition backed by over 224,000 signatures.
Then, last January 5, Arnedo Park provided the jump-off stage for the so-called “Capitol siege” when quarry truck drivers protesting the implementing rules and regulations of that anti-overloading ordinance, along with the picketing Balas Boys stormed the Capitol, pounded on the very doors of the offices of the governor and his putative provincial administrator.
It was in that “siege” too that two nephews of Panlilio were allegedly mauled by the protesters after they allegedly tore down the streamers of the Balas Boys which they found insulting to their uncle.
Yes, those streamers crafted like a wedding invitation with a thoroughly made-over Atty. Vivian Dabu and as thoroughly-groomed Panlilio made their first – and lasting – appearance at the Arnedo Park even as they were later mounted on showboats that took them to the remotest barangays of Pampanga. And taken to the courts too for libel were the Balas Boys on account of these streamers.
Unhappy, if not utterly bitter, moments did the Arnedo Park provide Panlilio. No wonder then that it had to be demolished.
Rehabilitation, Panlilio called the demolition of Arnedo Park. Reconstruction would be more like it, with possible influences from some geomancer.
The turn-about of the monuments there, including the mounted statue of revolutionary hero Gen. Maximino Hizon whose remains are reportedly interred at his monument’s base, could be in accordance more with feng-shui orientation, less with National Historical Institute provision. It is a way of breaking the spell of bad luck for Panlilio. Alisin ang malas, as your neighborhood card-reader would prescribe.
Instead of banishing ill winds and creating harmony though, the park’s “rehab” has provided yet another discordant note in Panlilio’s relationship with the SP.

Racism at Clark

NOW IT is being told.
Already storied if not historied was the utter devastation of the British Hitman Hatton by the Filipino Everyman Pacquiao in Las Vegas in the morning of May 3.
But long before Hatton hit the canvass like a bludgeoned carcass, the British had already knocked the Filipino out of his senses in the totally different arena that was the London Pub at the Clark Freeport. And there was even no need for Manchester United’s hooligans to do the stomping and trampling of Filipino pride right in its own turf.
Here’s the account of a number of our Clark sources.
London Pub – can any place be more bloody Brit than that? – right at the Mimosa Leisure Estate, was the setting for one of those pay-per-view spots for the Pacquiao-Hatton fight. It was made exclusive though to the bosses, employees and guests of Peregrine Development International, a company doing some major contract work at the Global Gateway Logistic Hub at the Clark aviation complex.
Among the invited guests – on an RSVP arrangement, at that – were top honchos of the Clark Development Corp. and the Clark International Airport Corp. along with investors and locators, both foreign and local.
As the telecast started early morn, there was free breakfast for the guests. Ay, there right at the breakfast table was where the British uppercut knocked down the Pinoy senseless.
At the U-shape buffet, one side – with nothing but pan de sal and pan Americano and some assortment of spread as butter, marmalade, jams and jellies—was marked “For Filipinos” The other side marked “For Expats” was groaning under the weight of all sorts of food for a heavy meal: from meat and poultry to pastries and cakes, virtual ambrosia.
So what’s wrong with that? Nothing with the tagging per se. Everything with the mutual exclusivity of the setting.
When Filipinos tried to get to the “For Expats” side, they were told – upper-lipped stiffly now – to please stay at their side of the buffet. Which a number of Filipino guests meekly obeyed.
It took one CDC fellow and his wife to raise a howl of protest over the patent racism being inflicted upon Filipinos right in their own country. It was still so kind of him and the wife to just return their plates to their rack before getting out of the London Pub. Were I in his place, I would have smashed everything there, not excluding the faces of all those that had anything to do with London Pub.
So the people of Peregrine tore those breakfast place names to bits after the CDC fellow made his exit. So they have made profuse apologies to him and all who were offended. So what? A grave harm has been done. The Filipino was damned in his own country.
So what is the CDC doing about it? Just grinning and bearing this racist slur? Afraid that the slightest inquiry would hurt the sensitivity of the owners of London Pub and make them leave Clark? Have we no sense of nationalism left at CDC?
It makes me sick to my bones to hear that one CDC manager at London Pub ate his Filipino breakfast with much gusto, not the least aware of the insult impugned on his race. Why, he was even said to be profuse in his gratitude to the hosts at London Pub for having won some pricey television set at the post-fight raffle! By his actions, this character is a disgrace to the national hero he claims kinship to. Shame.
An international incident was raised when the Hong Kong writer with the name that sounded like “Cheap Luck” tagged the Filipino people as a “nation of servants.”
Not even a whimper is heard over this clear case of racism, nay, of apartheid at London Pub. In case you have forgotten, apartheid was the policy of racial segregation perpetrated by the government of white South Africa whereby colored people along with dogs could not set foot on enclaves of the whites. It sparked a series of popular uprisings and ended with the multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, which led to the ascendancy to the presidency of Nelson Mandela that put a definitive finis to white rule in South Africa.
Yeah, the White Trash finally segregated from the natural beauty of Black Africa there. Only to rear its ugly head anew here at Clark.
Yeah, Clark: The Next Frontier… of Racism.