'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.