Gov as NASA

“PINEDA TO spread satellites of state universities, colleges.” So screamed the banner story of Headline Gitnang Luzon, issue of June 28-30.

Wow! State universities and colleges hereabouts are far, far superior to their counterparts in all the world by having their own satellites! Beating even the Americans in their own game!

Wow, WOW! Governor Lilia G. Pineda is her own National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launching these satellites! Eat your heart out PNoy, whose closest thing to launch is a kuwitis.

Yeah, the Gov does one better – she launches satellites – even over the mythical Helen of Troy – she launched only ships, albeit a thousand, that precipitated the Trojan War.

Really one for the books! Fictive, that is.

Defective, rather misleading, was the use of “satellites” in that headline. It’s not actually satellites – as we understand the dictionary meaning of “artificial body placed in orbit around the earth or another planet in order to collect information or for communication” – that is inferred there.

The word is used as a modifier – connotative of, rather, synonymous to “branch” – to an absent noun – “campus” – as in “Pineda to spread satellite campuses of state universities and colleges.”

There indeed are new satellite campuses of the Don Honorio Ventura Technological State University (DHVTSU) that Pineda caused to be established in Sto. Tomas and in Porac. The former at the Bacolor-based DHVTSU’s southeastern orbit, the latter at its northwestern orbit. Orbit here in all its astronomical, geographical, and journalistic meanings. He, he, he.

In the works is yet another DHVTSU satellite campus in Lubao – the land donated by the Pineda family – to serve the second district of the province.

And Pineda is now going outside DHVTSU in putting up satellite campuses, training her sights on the Mabalacat Community College (MCC) that forever-Mayor Boking Morales set up in Barangay Tabun in 2008, the first ever of its kind in Pampanga  

The governor is keen on an MCC satellite campus in Barangay Dapdap to cater to the seekers of higher education in the resettlement centers in Mawaque and Madapdap.

Come to think of it, “satelliting” has become a hallmark of the Pineda administration in its delivery of services to its constituents. The Gov indeed some kind of NASA, as in Nanay’s Advocacy for Speedy Action. The last terms interchangeable with Social Advancement.

So, in education there are the satellite campuses.

In health, the district hospitals which Pineda repaired, reconstructed, rehabilitated and refurbished serving as medical satellites of the Provincial Health Office, the Diosdado Macapagal Memorial Hospital and the JB Lingad Memorial Regional Hospital.  

In peace and order, Philippine National Police and Air Force of the Philippines  Action Centers (PAACs) were constructed by the provincial government in coordination with the PNP and Armed Forces of the Philippines at the provincial boundaries in Barangay Mapalad, Arayat; Barangay San Roque, Magalang; Barangay Dolores, Mabalacat and along Floridablanca-Dinalupihan.

The PAACs make a nexus of dragnets, or, keeping with our theme, satellites, to check the ingress and egress of criminal elements in Pampanga.

In disaster preparedness, the local municipal disaster risk reduction management councils serve as satellite offices of their provincial counterpart, inter-connected by a communications system and rescue and relief support services.

One wag though noted that Pineda satelliting is best instanced in having the son as vice governor, the daughter as Lubao mayor and the daughter in-law as Sta. Rita mayor.

“Truly satellites, in the strictest meaning of the word, are the children, orbiting around the mother, basking in some reflected glory shining from her,” remarked him, ostensibly loudspeaking for the Movement Against Dynasties. That though is a totally different, if not a reversed, take of our satelliting story.