High ground

BAGUIO. DAGUPAN. Tacloban. Iloilo. Cagayan de Oro. Cebu.  Zamboanga. Naga. Laoag. Batangas. Davao…

And – topping them all – Angeles.

That is in the field of least vulnerability to climate change effects, as determined in a study of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Bank of Philippines Islands Foundation (BPIF).

"Climate exposure, socioeconomic sensitivities, and adaptive capacities are melded to generate scores which show each city's climate vulnerability. A chronic recommendation is to climate-proof local infrastructure by moving coastal roads and communities to high ground, improving community drainage systems and investing in natural solutions like mangrove forests to parry inbound storms." So noted WWF-Philippines Vice Chair and CEO Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan during a presentation at the Widus Convention Center in Clark only last Tuesday.

Ensconced inland and rising over a hundred meters above sea level, Angeles City, by accident of geography, has neither storm surges nor tsunamis to fear at the threat of every storm.

Plus factors there for Angeles City to make any comparison with Metro Manila all the more odious – to the latter’s utter disadvantage. Which Tan himself highlighted with his call on government to decentralize the capital region to the point of transferring government executive departments to the provinces, with, presumably, lesser vulnerability to the impact of climate change than Metro Manila which already "represents a concentrated risk."

It can only be Angeles City – megamized with its immediate suburbia of Mabalacat City, Porac and Magalang – as destination point of any hegira from Metro Manila. He did not say it, but Tan did not have to.   

Suffice was his call on the government to decide to “finally fully develop” the Clark International Airport as premier international gateway, in the wake of projections that the Ninoy Aquino International Airport has already reached beyond its lifespan.

"Why build a new airport when there is an existing one?" Tan asked, in obvious reference to various plans of government and business taipans preferring over Clark some large reclamation projects in Sangley and in Bulacan to ground the Philippines new premier international airport.

Sheer squandering of time and resources, an exercise both futile and fatal, given the storm surges, liquefaction and subsidence inherent in seaboard areas.

As one natural law holds: Water reclaims its own.

In actuality, the findings in the WWF-BPIF study are not newly revealed truths.

For so long, in its campaign for the full development of the Clark airport, the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement has always harped on the high elevation of Clark – along with Angeles City, naturally – its distance from bodies of water, its flat expanse and strategic location – at the heart of Central Luzon, serving as gateway to the North; at the hub of the Asia-Pacific region.

Metro Manila’s congestive constriction, its below-sea-level elevation – the apt word maybe submersion – show the starkest comparison for such an easy, sound decision. It’s actually a no-brainer situation. Which, would have augured, if not agreed, well with the state of mind obtaining in this government.

Alas, it did not. And from the way the currents of events are, it is not so, it will not be so. At least until 2016. The actualization of the potentials of Clark International Airport, I mean.

But we can salvage some consolation here. Our faith in the supremacy of Clark over any other airport, extant and planned, as premier international gateway; our vision of a future – so bright, you have to wear sunglasses, to steal some wag’s blurb – for Angeles City and its environs have been given their weight in gold with the stamp of the WWF-BPIF.

So, we just have to keep up with our Clark advocacy. Dare to struggle, dare to win. As the activism of our past inflamed us.

Finally, as much a signal honor as a daunting challenge to Angeles City – to its government as well as to its people – is that ranking of least vulnerability to climate change effects.

With the increasing migration and its equally increasing social cost to the city – from garbage to ghettoes, from the exhaustion of natural resources – water, foremost – to environmental pollution, not to mention unemployment, poverty and crime, Angeles can easily lose that rating of least vulnerability.    

In that sense, vigilant action is not just the call of the hour, it has to be the way of life for the city.

We cannot anymore afford to squander through indifference, neglect or abuse, what nature has so generously bestowed upon this city.    

The visitation

THREE ARCHBISHOPS and two bishops concelebrated Mass on Sunday, January 26, for ailing and detained former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in her suite at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City.

“They come and visit in order to give her encouragement and help strengthen her faith even more to fight for truth and justice, to show their authentic friendship to someone who is suffering from sickness and injustice, and to share their love and compassion with somebody who is being harassed and persecuted.” So GMA’s spokesperson Raul Lambino reportedly quoted the five prelates as having stated in their homily. The political undertones there, taken in the context of the situation, if not in the character of the source.

Quick was the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines to distance itself from the event, saying Archbishops Rolando Tirona of Nueva Caceres (Naga), Nerio Odchimar of Tandag and Diosdado Talamayan of Tuguegarao; and Bishops Emilio Marquez of Quezon and Ramon Villena of Nueva Vizcaya “acted on their own.”

“They were there in their individual capacities. It was [up] to their prudent judgment.” So was CBCP president Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas quoted in media reports.

We understand the reaction of the CBCP, especially Villegas, a known Aquino-Cojuangco family favorite dating back to his “secretaryship” under Cardinal Sin, for disassociating itself from the action of the five princes of the Philippine Church.

Given the RH conundrum, the CBCP is much too careful to engage the government in any new political entanglement.    

We understand too, if not more, the collective actuation of the bishops in their visit to and Mass for GMA. Something sadly lost to some people, not the least of whom those with no love lost for the former president. Aye, I read as much as heard nasty remarks on the bishops’ visit as though they shook hands with the Devil herself.

Bitterness, if not hatred, may have moved these Christian brethren that visiting the sick and those in prison is given to Catholics as a work of corporal mercy.

The Catechism instructs and defines: "The works of mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities. Instructing, advising, consoling, comforting are spiritual works of mercy, as are forgiving and bearing wrongs patiently. The corporal works of mercy consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead." (#2447)

This, grounded in Matthew 25:35-36, to wit: “ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

This, in fulfilment of the second of the two greatest commandments – “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:31).

A most Christian act the bishops did there. As did their confreres retired Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz and Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, evangelist Bro. Eddie Villanueva, former Vice President Noli de Castro, former First Lady Imelda R. Marcos and former Presidents Fidel V. Ramos and Joseph Estrada.

No, there’s no question of justice being raised here. It’s all a matter of charity, as Christians, indeed, as all men of faith, are sworn to give, to live.    

     

Red, still

“WE SHOWED here in Pampanga one of our victories against the 45 years of insurgency in the country. We have had the insurgency problem for so long, and so many died and suffered, and many families were broken because of that. Now it is time to end the culture of violence. It is time for us to unite and abandon the armed struggle and time to live in peace and prosperity.”

So hailed last week Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Gen. Emmanuel T. Bautista, and immediately thereafter signed a memorandum of agreement with Gov. Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda declaring Pampanga “peaceful, insurgency-free an ready for further development.”

The “end of the insurgency,” Bautista said, was the “fruit of the AFP’s people-centered attitude ((that) made more Filipinos believe in the real intention of the military to push progress, peace and stability.”

It was utter naivete to expect the other side of the ideological divide to take this quietly in stride.     

It was a relief though that instead of the New People’s Army issuing a “standing order”  – as in the “sampling” of an urban cop or a rural CAFGU as in the olden times – the Communist Party of the Philippines released a statement to remind one and all that: No, Pampanga is not by any chance  insurgency-free.

“The fact is, since 2010, the NPA in Central Luzon tactically shifted its forces to focus on building its guerrilla base areas in the mountainous areas of the region. Its forces in the Pampanga plains were temporarily redeployed, not so much as a result of AFP operations, but as a planned course of action in line with building the base areas.”  The CPP said in its statement.

“The workers and peasant masses of Pampanga province continue to suffer from intolerably oppressive and exploitative conditions in the big haciendas, sugar centrals, in the lahar quarrying areas, as well as in the so-called special economic zones,” said the CPP. “Tens of thousands of peasant masses are being displaced as a result of widespread land grabbing by big landlords and so-called developers who are in league with the ruling Aquino regime.”

And thereby damned the AFP’s statement that “Pampanga is ready for further development” as tantamount to “inviting foreign companies and their local partners to grab land, exploit, take advantage and oppress the working class and peasantry.”

Providing proof, thus: “A case in point is that of Hacienda Dolores in Porac town where thousands of peasant families are being driven away from their land by the big comprador-owned Ayala Land and its cohorts by using the military and police to suppress the peasant masses.”
Insurgency feeds on oppression. That is a basic revolutionary tenet. So long as poverty, inequity, injustice exist, so does insurgency.  The cause is what matters most. 

Here’s my peso worth of thought excerpted from an old short essay on the primacy of causes over personalities in revolutionary movements.

History shows that successful movements, even revolutionary ones, are solidly grounded on causes. It is the cause that solely makes the rallying point. The personalities serve as the coordinate points.
Not even so charismatic a revolutionary as Che Guevara succeeded in fomenting the Bolivian revolution with him as the rallying point. Che failed in rousing the Bolivians not so much for their lack of faith in him as for the absence of a cause to rally them.
Everyone in Bolivia in1967 was poor. There were no oligarchs from whose stranglehold the people should be emancipated. There were no large landowners whose lands needed to be distributed to the people. Even the military government was not as repressive, as corrupt nor as unpopular as its civilian predecessor. So assessed an American political think tank at the time.
Now, think why and how the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army managed to survive through all these years, despite the government’s mailed fist approach to the insurgency, its all-out war against the “communist terrorists;” despite all those land reform programs to “emancipate” the peasants, thus dissuading them from joining the insurgents; despite the capture and subsequent “rehabilitation” of the CPP-NPA leaders, from Dante Buscayno to Rudy Salas to Romy Kintanar to Popoy Lagman; despite the extrajudicial killings of militants.
The answer: the primacy of the cause. Personalities subsume themselves to the cause. Never the other way around. The fate and fortune, especially the misfortune, of the personalities feed, nay, nurture the cause. Here, we are reminded of Che: “Wherever death may surprise us, it is most welcome. Our funeral dirge will be the staccato sound of machine guns and the cries of battle and victory.”
Of all the movements in the country today, only the insurgency can lay claim to that age-old truism that “nobody is indispensable.”
Again Che: “What do the danger and sacrifices of a man or a nation matter, when the destiny of humanity is at stake.”

Insurgency-free then shall assume a meaning radically different from that of the military’s. 

Agyu Tamu!

(THE THIRD and last part of our Angeles City story in celebration of 50 years of cityhood. The capping essay in our book  Agyu Tamu: Turning Tragedy into Triumph.)

Agyu Tamu!

FROM OUT of the depths of desolation and despair, a cry – faint at first, then resonant all across the city.

There rekindled some flicker of hope that the city can rise again, if only the people believed in themselves – that, yes: “We Can.”

Summoning storied People Power, Acting Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan led thousands of his constituents to the Abacan River to confront the gravest threat to their very existence: Lahar.

“Pala Ko, Buhay Mo,” the activity was named.

With picks and shovels, hoes and rakes – many with no implement other than their bare hands, the determined populace sandbagged the riverbanks – bamboo stakes serving as improvised sheet piles – in a bid to check further scouring by lahar. It was futile as pathetic an effort, with but ten minutes of lahar flow, not the slightest trace of the day’s work remained.

The determination of the community though gained international respect and recognition, their activity winning for the coordinating agency, the Angeles City “Kuliat” Jaycees, the Best Community Involvement Project in the 47^th World Jaycees Congress in Miami, Florida.

The can-do spirit at the Abacan River thence inspiring and spawning clean-up projects all around the city. Manufacturers joined their craftsmen and artisans in rebuilding their factories to revive productivity. Among the first was Cruz Wood Industries which resumed its manufacture and export of high-end furniture within 45 days after the eruptions.

At Fields Avenue, bar girls and bar owners themselves hosed mud from their dance floors, sprayed the ash off their neon billboards, and opened up even to zero customers if only to perk up the place. US veterans that opted to stay helped in the famous avenue’s clean-up.

The abandoned Clark golf course was literally dug up from several meters of sand and ash by the Angeles City golfers in a team-up with the PAF’s Clark Air Base Command. And made it playable in due time, the constant threat of ashfall providing additional degree of difficulty to their drives, pitches and putts.

So it is clichéd that familiarity breeds contempt. So it was with lahar, the dread and horror it initially brought lost with the advent of heavy rains: its scalding heat fizzled, its viscosity dissolved with the abundance of water.

Lived with lahar, the Angelenos did. And even profited from it. Where lahar flowed – at the Abacan River – enterprise flourished.

With the bridge totally destroyed, passenger vehicles loaded and offloaded commuters at each end of the gap. For them to go down the river and cross to the other side.

Makeshift ladders of all makes – steel, aluminium, bamboo, wood – and sizes were soon ranged against both bluffs of the river to ease the ascent and descent of the commuters – for a fee of course.

To cross the river, commuters had a choice of the “Pajero” – and improvised sedan chair, and the “Patrol” – the carabao-drawn farmer’s cart locally known as gareta. Again, for a fee.

The pumice stones belched from the volcano’s bowels became a principal source of livelihood, a backyard industry. Crushed to golf-ball size, the pumice was used in stone-washing denims. Handicrafts, ornaments, even art objects were fashioned out of pumice rock, among the more familiar were Japanese stone lanterns, ashtrays, religious images – the head of the crucified Christ, angels and cherubs – and miniature jeepneys.

Needless to say, sand quarrying became a principal source of income in the city.

With the sense of normalcy returning to the city, there arose the need to jumpstart the still-lethargic local economy. Thus newly-elected Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan and his confidant, the activist Alexander Cauguiran, brainstormed Tigtigan, Terakan King Dalan.

Grounded on the defining character of Angeles as an entertainment city, the Mardi Gras-like festivity – of street music and dancing, of food and drinks – ably delivered to the nation and to the world: “Happy Days are Here Again.”

A happy beginning

AS THE phoenix birthed itself from its own ashes, to rise, to soar to greater heights of glory, so did Angeles City.

Clark Air Base reborn as a freeport zone. Its airport well on its way to full transformation as the country’s premier international gateway.

Manufacturing abounding.

Foreign investments rising. The Koreans keep on coming. Fields Avenue upgrading.

The service industry – hotels, restaurants, entertainment – rebounding. New ones, like business process outsourcing, aborning.

Shopping malls sprouting.

Thousands of jobs opening.

Greater opportunity spelling prosperity. A promised land of plenty.

More than a happy ending to the Pinatubo story, this is yet a new beginning for Angeles City. 

It was the worst of times

(THE ANGELES City story we started here last issue, in celebration of 50 years of cityhood, continues. Still from out book  Agyu Tamu: Turning Tragedy into Triumph.)

It was the worst of times

JUNE 10, 1991. Angeles City awakened to its worst nightmare: the American dream was over.

Dashed was the hope – against hope – that GI Joe would stay, come what may. A belief borne by the new concrete wall around the base perimeter that had just been completed, the frenzied base housing construction seen as a sure sign of increased troop deployment, and the second runway built reportedly to serve as alternative landing site for the space shuttle Columbia. All coming to nought.

Before stunned eyes passed the very end of the city’s economic being: By car, bus, truck, American servicemen and their dependents started their exodus from Clark – jamming the North Luzon Expressway in a three-mile long convoy – to Subic where US warships and troop transports awaited them for the long journey home.

Their departure from Clark was for the Americans a less than stoic acceptance of the impending repudiation by the Philippine Senate of the bases treaty – to ultimately come in September – than a hurried, harried flight from certain catastrophe.

June 11. “16,000 evacuated from Clark” bannered the Stars and Stripes, with the subhead: “Major eruption feared from Mount Pinatubo volcano.”

The rumblings of the hitherto hardly known volcano starting to get frequenter and stronger by the hour.

June 12. Philippine Independence Day. For the first time in 90 years, Angeles City was thoroughly free of a foreign occupation force. The meaning of the day though was utterly lost to Mayor Antonio Abad Santos whose speech before the city hall alternated between carping – “overacting,” he called the American abandonment of the base, and comforting – that the greater number of Angelenos need not panic, being outside Pinatubo’s immediate 10-kilometer radius that was initially tagged as danger zone.

Thunderous explosions cut Abad Santos in mid-speech, a giant plume of ash shot up 20 kilometers in the sky, immediately followed a rain of hot ash and pumice stones. It was 8:51 in the morning.

Panic – people froze in their track, eyes in the sky and mouth agape, shocked and awed by nature’s might.

Then pandemonium – the rush for home, hither and thither like headless chickens, amid the cacophony of frightened shrieks, nervous prayers, screeching tires and blaring horns.

With the acrid smell of sulphur wafting in the ash-laden air, masks – surgical and industrial – ran out in the city’s drug and hardware stores. The surplus biochemical masks from Desert Storm which found their way to the PX stalls of Dau and Nepo Mart had been snagged, wholesale, by some very enterprising profiteer much earlier.

Braving the cloud of ash, President Cory Aquino flew by helicopter to Clark to see the situation first hand, and dropped by the Angeles City High School where the eruption’s very first evacuees of 2,000, mostly Aeta tribesmen, have taken refuge.

“This could only be the beginning.” So warned Dr. Raymundo S. Punongbayan, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) of the June 12 eruptions.

June 13. Phivolcs recorded more eruptions, the volcano gushing greater clouds of ash and gases 25 kilometers in the sky. “Phenomenal eruptions,” Punongbayan called them, and declared: “This is already the Big Bang. I can’t see any other eruption that will exceed this.”

June 14. Dark clouds blanketed the city, ominously dimming the garish neon lights of Balibago.

June 15. A much Bigger Bang that proved Punongbayan’s declaration deadly wrong.

The Great Eruption that turned bright day – starting at 8:15 in the morning – to darkest night. The roll of thunder, the flash of lightning, the rain of ash and stones, and the tremors of the ground foreboding the very end of days.

The city’s secondary economic lifeline – next only to Clark Air Base – furniture and handicraft manufacturing totally collapsed, literally, from the weight of ashfall: Factories – roofs, beams, posts and walls – crashing down on machines, equipment, supplies and finished products.

Collapsed too, as many houses in the city, was the roof of the Philippine Rabbit Bus terminal downtown, killing two waiting passengers and injuring scores of others. Later in the day, the city’s very icon of the finest Chinese cuisine – Shanghai De Luxe Restaurant – burned to the ground after its roof collapsed on the liquefied petroleum gas tanks in its kitchen.

By 2 in the afternoon, steaming mudflows – soon to enter the lexicon as the terrifying “lahar” – sprang from the foot of Pinatubo, rampaged through the Abacan River, destroying in succession Friendship Bridge that led to Clark, Hensonville Spillway, Abacan Bridge, where MacArthur Highway traversed and Pandan Bridge that led to Magalang. Scouring the riverbank and gobbling up houses and buildings, including the remnants of the collapsed Angeles City General Hospital.

It was the city’s first taste of the devastating power of lahar – a horrific byword sending people to higher ground at the slightest drop of rain.

West of the city, the lahar-swollen Mancatian River swallowed its eponymous bridge cutting off Angeles City from Porac town. Mudflows overtopped the Sapang Balen Creek  and spread steadily across the city proper. The public market and commercial area of San Nicolas and the business district, indeed the very heart of the city, Sto. Rosario where city hall, the “big church,” the enclaves of the rich, as well as the city’s and Central Luzon’s biggest private school, Holy Angel College were all sited, all inundated by steaming mud.

There, a long established tale belied: As the elevation of Angeles City is levelled with the very spire of the Metropolitan Cathedral in San Fernando, any flooding in the city would mean the capital town under at least 30 feet of water.

On Doomsday itself, no flooding was recorded in San Fernando.

With supplications to the Almighty drowned by the rumble of the volcano, with the onslaught of mudflows and the rain of ash unabating, it was hegira for the Angelenos.

All the roads leading south of the city were filled with dazed and dazzled refugees, on foot, in cars, on buses, on truck: seeking relative safety in the homes of relatives and friends, finding temporary shelters in evacuation centers, the first of which was Amoranto Stadium in Quezon City provided for by Mayor Brigido Simon, Jr., a Kapampangan himself, who also brought buses to the very ramp of the Angeles exit of the North Luzon Expressway to ferry more evacuees.

Buried in ashes, reduced to a virtual ghost town, Angeles City and its twin basetown, which also bore the initial brunt of the eruptions, made easy picking for the moralists’ sermon of the wrath of God heaped upon Sodom and Gomorrah. The host cities to the US military bases long known as deeply mired in decadence and debauchery.

But erased from the face of earth like the biblical sin cities, Angeles City refused to be.                                 

It was the best of times

Woke up to this FB post from seminary brother Archie C. Reyes, city information officer: “Almost there! Ready for the 1st float parade of its kind ever to be witnessed in Angeles City and probably the rest of the country. Be there and witness the history of Angeles City unfolds before your eyes. January 18, 2014 at 5:00 pm in front of the Holy Rosary Church and Museo ning Angeles.”

Got reminded there of the city’s grand celebration of its 50^th year. And instinctively whipped out this brief of its American past in our book Agyu Tamu: Turning Tragedy into Triumph (2011). 

It was the best of times.

“THREE HUNDRED years in a convent and 50 years in Hollywood.” Nowhere in the country is that anonymous wit’s encapsulation of Philippine history more manifest than in Angeles City.

The celestial beings that old Barrio Kuliat took for its name, a signal honor to the religiosity of its people. Religiosity resonant in its main streets of Sto. Rosario and Sto. Entierro at which juncture stands the citadel of faith, Holy Rosary Parish Church.

Religiosity celebrated not just in one but two fiestas in October: On the second Sunday, La Naval in devotion to the Virgin whose intercession sparked the victory of the Spanish fleet against Dutch and British privateers in 1646; and on the last Friday, Piyestang Apu for Apung Mamacalulu or the Lord of Mercy.

At the opposite end of the moral divide stood – from 1903 – Clark Air Base, the largest American military installation outside continental USA.

And right outside its very gates evolved Fields Avenue, a virtual city of camp followers: All-night and all-day clubs featuring shows of the most exotic and erotic kinds, short-time motels and alley inns, beer gardens and massage parlors, women, women, women, of all ages, shapes and degrees of pulchritude, and – to be gender-equal – gays.

There too abounded the PX (post exchange) trade – of stateside goods smuggled out, purchased or pilfered from the Clark commissary. US Booster and Chuck Taylor. Baby Ruth and Hershey bars. Hanes and Fruit of the Loom. Jim Beam and Jack Daniel’s. Benson & Hedges and Hav-a-Tampa. Apples and grapes. Playboy and Penthouse. Find them only at Dau and Nepo Mart.

Ay the Checkpoint, immediately before the Clark main gate, flourished literal wheeling-and-dealing – of used American gas guzzlers, from the sporty Mustang to the immense Cadillac, most prized by the locals as status symbols – whence arose an argot: “English Checkpoint,” best exampled when bargaining: “How low can you make it down, Joe?” (A variation: “How much is the lowest can you make it down?)

The Vietnam War spurred the city’s own gold rush, with Clark serving as logistics hub and forward base for the USAF’s bombing forays to stem the Red Tide – pursuant to the Cold War’s “Domino Theory” – about to sweep through most of Southeast Asia. And the city all too willing to open its arms – and legs – to war-weary soldiers for their R&R.

So ruled the Almighty Dollar. So reigned the American GI. In the city denigrated by the defenders of morality as having been founded on the very loins of an occupying army.

The cudgel taken by the militants and nationalists finding conscientization in the damnation of the three isms shackling Filipino society: feudalism, imperialism and bureaucrat-capitalism.

The perfunctory cries of “Yankees go home” rising to the belligerent screams of “Lansagin ang base militar” in scores of protest marches and rallies routinely dispersed by head-bashing, truncheon-wielding elements of the Philippine Air Force’s Clark Air Base Command.

Still, and all – neither nationalism nor sovereignty ever been found to fill an empty stomach, as some wisecrack of a politico once quipped – the city and its citizens welcomed the American presence as all-boon and never-bane to their very existence. Their economic empowerment solidly established, their social well-being firmly secured.

Having the cornucopia in Clark Air Base, ensconced in its pre-eminent status among communities, urban and rural in all of Northern and Central Luzon, Angeles City found little reason to fear, much less prepare, for the unknown.

In the Epicurean ideal, the city rocked and its citizens rolled.           

Clark declaration

“WHAT WE hope to achieve is to encourage the President to declare a national policy on the concrete role the Clark Freeport should play in the country’s economic development.”

Declared 1^st District Rep. Joseller “Yeng” Guiao of the end-in-view of his brainchild, the "Clark Challenge: Stakeholders' Summit” set this Thursday.

Specifically targeted by Guiao is the release of the P7.2 billion fund now lodged as un-programmed item embedded in the Department of Budget and Management much-bruited about by both Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya and Clark International Airport Corp. President-CEO Victor Jose Luciano as intended for the development of the Clark airport.

“We also hope to encourage the DOTC to hasten the completion of the North Railway project, as well as extend its reach from Calamba, Laguna to this freeport instead of the original target destination of only up to Malolos, Bulacan by 2020,” Guiao said.

Reading Guiao above is re-reading business mogul Manny V. Pangilinan who on at least three occasions said a definitive policy declaration on Clark by the Aquino government is all it takes for his group to invest here, particularly in the development of the Clark International Airport, complete with its own railway system.

At the sidelines of last year’s PLDT stockholders meeting where he sits as chairman, MVP disclosed that he had commissioned a study on the railway system fitted to Clark: “So our thinking has always been to have a high speed train that will connect Clark with NAIA… of course it will have four stops… the first stop could be in the northern part of Manila, another in the middle part and Makati and the final stop is NAIA.”

Most certainly unlost to Guiao is MVP’s mind on the matter of Clark in facing the challenge to consolidate the stakeholders’ aspirations and actions to – as Punto bannered last week – “prod  the national leadership to adopt a policy direction and concrete actions” on Clark – the freeport and the airport.

For added measure, Guiao vowed to take the summit output to the House via a privilege speech. 
Here’s something I picked from inquirer.net written by Paolo G. Montecillo that may serve as inspiring input to Guiao’s summit:

Aquino to decide on fate of Clark airport

The fate of Clark International Airport will be left in the hands of President Aquino, who will have to decide if the government should develop two major airports in Luzon or focus its efforts on just one.

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) said different plans for Clark and its Manila counterpart, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), would be brought up to the Cabinet economic cluster and later to the President for approval within the month.

The choice would be between maintaining two major airports—Clark and Naia—supporting each other, or vacating Manila in favor of the former US military base.

Malacañang also has the option of establishing a brand-new airport inside Metro Manila or in a nearby province that will replace the existing Naia complex in Pasay City.

“We are finalizing plans and bring this to the President [for a final] decision,” Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said Thursday.

Abaya admitted that while there were several options on the table, no clear favorite has emerged and it would be up to the President to take his pick.

“Will we have one or two gateways? Do we close down Naia in the future for some other airport? A lot of stakeholders are waiting for these decisions,” Abaya said in a radio interview.

“What’s important is that a decision is made soon so projects can move forward,” he added.

Clark International Airport is seen as the inevitable replacement to Naia, which has suffered from congestion and various legal issues over the past decade. The Clark airport sits on 2,400 hectares of land, more than three times bigger than the 700 hectares occupied by the current Naia complex.

Plans to develop Clark, however, have been put in the backburner as the government weighs its options on sticking with Naia.

The Joint Foreign Chambers of the Philippines, which represents foreign business groups operating in the country, earlier this week lamented the government’s indecision over Clark’s development.

The group said the frequent changes in the DOTC’s leadership—the department has had three secretaries in the last three years—has left Clark airport in the “twilight zone.”

Sadly, the above news item is dated February 28, 2013.

What was to be decided by BS Aquino within the month has been left undecided for the past 11 months.  

Prod the President to declare a national policy on Clark?

I can only wish Guiao and his summit good luck. Mine is some unguarded pessimism borne by Clark promises proffered by one administration after another which always turned out broken and undelivered.  

The only difference I see in this BS Aquino administration is there’s no promise at all.

Dog tags

"AN OLD desperate dog.”

Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. called Manny Pacquiao, over what he perceived as the Filipino congressman’s dogged efforts to stage a megabuck bout with him.

“So this guy's got all these problems and he wants Floyd Mayweather to solve them for him, huh? He's willing to do anything now after his career done took a major setback,” sneered the Moneymouth, referring to Pacquiao’s troubles with the BIR and the IRS.

In characteristic Christian humility, Pacquiao turned the other cheek with his acceptance of Mayweather’s dog tag, even as he threw back stone-hard bread, riposting he was not a dog “running with its tail wrapped between its legs.” A head-snapping jab there at Mayweather’s penchant to cherry pick his opponents, as some boxing aficionados are wont to say.

“At least I look for more fights, I don’t run away from them,” Pacquiao followed with a looping right.

Dogs are clichéd as man’s best friend, yet they tend to get the choicest cuts in the worst insults. Gone to the dogs, for instance.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago riled the usually cat-cool Sen. Panfilo Lacson not so much for calling him “Pinky” as for branding him as Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s “attack dog.” Warranting a reply in kind from the former top cop. A case of dog-eat-dog there?

“Tuta ng Kano (America’s puppy).” So the militant Left derided Ferdinand E. Marcos, Cory Aquino and all those who followed them to Malacanang down to Cory’s son BS.

Even the venerable Carlos P. Romulo, who served eight Philippine presidents – from Quezon to Marcos – and who himself sat as president – of the Fourth Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1949-1950, was not spared of a similar epithet. No idle urban legend but a revealed truth to student activists of the First Quarter Storm was Chou En-Lai’s dismissal of Romulo as “America’s running dog” at the Bandung Conference of Asian and African nations in 1955 that helped crystallized the Non-Aligned Movement.

At the time of Cory too, I remember the Malacanang Press Corps raising a howl over a presidential factotum’s obvert reference to them as mongrels when he directed his staff to “feed the kennel” whenever his office issued press releases.

For too long a time, a collective insult, indeed, a curse, to the whole Kapampangan race is the branding “dugong aso.”

In 1981, the political leadership of Pampanga – from Gov. Estelito P. Mendoza, Vice Gov. Cicero J. Punzalan, down to the mayors led by the “Big 5” of San Fernando’s Armando Biliwang, Arayat’s Benigno Espino, Magalang’s Daniel Lacson, Sta. Ana’s Magno Maniago and Sta. Rita’s Frank Ocampo, along with Angeles City’s Francisco G. Nepomuceno, raged and ranted rabidly at then Olongapo City Mayor Richard J. Gordon for citing the Kapampangans as dugong aso in the context of regionalism’s ill-effects to nationalism in his nomination speech for Ferdinand E. Marcos in the KBL party convention at the Manila Hotel.

Actual physical threats were even thrown Gordon’s way in addition to some persona non grata resolutions. (Gordon’s topping Pampanga in the senatorial contest of May 2013, is some vindication of the forgiving-and-forgetting nature of this race.)   

Even as dugong aso stuck to the Kapampangan, the insult accruing thereat has largely dissipated. This is owed in large part to then Gov. Lito Lapid, as we wrote here sometime ago:      

“Ikinagagalit nating mga Kapampangan ang pagtawag sa atin ng ‘dugong aso.’ Subali’t ito ay ipinagmamalaki’t ikinararangal ko. Sa katapatan, wala nang mauuna pa sa aso: sa kanya iniiwan ng amo ang tahanan nito, pati na magkaminsan ang pagtatanggol sa kanyang pamilya. Subukin mong saktan ang amo, at tiyak, dadambain ka ng kanyang aso. Ang katapatang ito ang iniaalay ko sa inyo.” (We Kapampangans get slighted when told the blood of dogs runs in our veins. But I find pride and honor in this. When it comes to loyalty, none beats the dog: to it man leaves the protection of his home, at times even the defense of his family. Try to hit a man and his dog will surely attack you. This is the kind of loyalty I offer you.)
Before a beaming President Ramos at the Mawaque Resettlement Project site in 1997, Governor Lito Lapid pledged his loyalty in gratitude for the new lease on human decency, on human life itself that El Tabaco bestowed upon those the Mount Pinatubo eruptions devastated, displaced and dispossessed.
Thence, the Bida embraced FVR’s Lakas-NUCD with a fidelity the wife could only wish he committed to his marital vows with as much devotion, if not intensity.
Lapid there made a rarity: loyalty being an uncommon commodity in politics. So what is it that makes politicians and adulterers one and the same as a dysfunctional radio? Low fidelity on a high frequency, dummy…

There too was Lapid giving a novel and noble meaning to the derogatory dugong aso impacted in the Kapampangan psyche, extolling it as the virtue of katapatan, of dogged loyalty to an elder, to a superior, to a friend. No mean feat for the uncolleged Lapid.

But for the title “Of dogs and men,” there is very little I remember of a column I wrote in The Voice in the late ‘70s. It would have made a most relevant read in the subject I am discussing here. The ending of that column though is something I cannot possibly just easily forget, having consigned it as much to the mind as to the heart and put out at every opportunity that calls for it, like now.

A lesson in loyalty – of dogs, as well as of men – perfectly captured in that blurb of an award-winning Lino Brocka movie: “Sa bawa’t latay, kahit aso’y nag-iiba. Sa unang latay, siya’y magtatanda; Sa ikalawa, siya’y mag-iisip; Sa ikatlo, siya’y magtataka; Sa ika-apat, humanda ka!” (At every lash, even a dog changes. At the first, it would learn; At the second, it would think; At the third, it would wonder; At the fourth, prepare yourself!)

So Mayweather better be aware: Caveat canis, as the Latins of old put up at their gates. As much for the Pac-Man’s bite as for all the world’s love for the underdog.

  

Man of the Year 2014

COMPETENT. DARING. Caring. Beyond sheer sloganeering, Atty. Arthur P. Tugade redefined the Clark Development Corp. by living up to that corollary meaning, therefrom the Clark Freeport Zone highly profiting.

“We want to make Clark a logistics hub but this cannot be done without a business environment and a habitable society,” Tugade told Punto in April 2013, some four months into his term as CDC president-CEO, in his first ever interview with media.

“So basically what’s the direction? Set the predicate for business here and once it is there you can pursue the logistics hub and effect a habitable community. The trust gained, the total persona of the businessman - pleasure, education, leisure and enjoyment – attained.” The road map set there.
“I can do all that but I don’t know how long I will last here, I can be fired next week or next year,” Tugade said then, with a laugh. “That’s why I strike, with full force, at the culture - respect, honesty, smile and punctuality because that can be brought home unlike if I make a road which you can’t bring home after work.”
Core values impacting on a work ethic rather alien, if not absurd, in a governmental corporate setting.   
Thus, one Clark worker articulating the freeport community’s first impression of the new boss: “Tugade's intentions are good but his style is out of place. He has this habit of uttering expletives and he likes to call employees insulting words. That's why instead of getting support in his crusade against corruption and his many good plans, the others are shying way.”

Thus, Punto bannering in February 2013 “Cussing president riles CDC workers, locators.”

Subsequently – in and by Tugade – affirmed the validity of findings in human behavioural studies that “People who use a lot of swear words tend to be more honest and trustworthy.”

“I believe one of my significant achievements at the CDC was not about bringing in big ticket investments but rather, striving to change the core values and culture within the corporation,” matter-of-factly Tugade saying. The whole Freeport firmly believing.

Grateful CILA

First to recognize Tugade’s advocacy was the Clark Investors and Locators Association.

In February 2013 letter, CILA President Rene Philip Banzon wished “to express our gratitude for your quick response to our proposition regarding the yearly renewal of our Certificate of Registration and tax exemption now extended and given a validity of three years…[which] is certainly a big first step towards working together in increasing the efficiency of services provided by the [CDC] and decreasing the red tape and other typical inconveniences relating to government requirements in operating at Clark.”

And hailed Tugade’s “…leadership and deep understanding of the business…a definite plus for any investor doing business in the Freeport and we at CILA certainly look forward to working with you in the continuous development and success of Clark.”

CILA Chair Nino Enriquez followed with a laudation to Tugade for “the changes [Tugade] instituted” that made it “easier to do business now with the CDC” and his authoritatively definitive “No Receiving of Gifts” policy that put finis to the  practice of dinner dates with prospective investors.

Obtained in Tugade there, the Bedan ideal of virtus. Arguably, it is that no-nonsense straightforwardness valued in this CDC president,  and that credibility and trustworthiness vested in him by the freeport community that allowed, aye, spurred Tugade to succeed where his predecessors failed – the recovery, make that voluntary surrender, of lands investors contracted but never used totalling 240.9 hectares; and the imposition of contractual timetable on lease agreements definitively precluding the land speculation of scheming locators.    

  

$200-M investments  

As it turns out, Tugade’s mission assessment of “…not about bringing in big ticket investments” is the year’s biggest understatement.

In the first eight months of Tugade’s presidency, the CDC raked in more than $200 million in investments from new and revived projects, and secured $31.42 million in committed investments from eight major projects signed from April to July 2013.

Among the new projects were Aderans  Inc., a hair implant facility with committed total investment of $1.9 million and will hire some  1,000 workers upon completion; Pishon Corp., a garments manufacturing  firm investing $3.9 million and to employ  1,500; garment manufacturer L & T’s expansion project worth $6.5 million and requiring 5,000 workers; MSK Corp., with investment of $8.57 million will hire 1,360 workers when finished; Preferred and Proven Therapies, Inc. (PPTI), a distribution hub for dengue and malaria medicines which has committed $8.25 million investments and will hire some 200 workers, with a bonus – wrangled by Tugade from the company – to make its products available in the local market at a much reduced price to help stem the dengue and malaria problems in the country.
Other projects are Wind Tunnel International, a full service gasoline station investing $0.3 million; Mt. Carmel Medical Center, which signed up as a tertiary hospital, has invested $1.43 million and will hire 80 workers; and Stotsenberg Medical Center, Inc. with $0.57 million investments and 80 workers.
Projects that were revived were Global Clark Assets Corp., developer and international sports complex, which signed a contract in 1997 has renewed a commitment of $47.62 million with 4,000 workers; BB International Leisure & Resort Corp., which signed a contract in 2006 has invested $47.62 million for a hotel/resort, water park, and retirement villas and will hire 400 workers; Ritzville Corp., a luxurious retirement estate which signed a contract in 2007 has invested $4.76 million with 50 workers; TIEZA, a wakeboarding, tourism sports complex which signed up in 2009 will be completed in time for the APEC in 2016 has invested $1.19 million; Eaglesky Technology  Amusement & Gaming Inc., which signed a contract last year for the construction of Hotel Midori with an investment of $35.71 million and 350 workers; Taiyo Phils. Inc. (Ingasco), an air separation plant facility which signed up last year invested $30 million with 20 workers; and Y&K Dev’t Corp., a hotel and language institute which also signed a contract last year with $8.24 million in investments and 352 workers.
From its current workforce of 71,713, CDC is “determined” to raise this to 100,000 by 2016,  

Corporate conscience

Brusko on the outside – the batang Tatalon occasionally resurfacing, Tugade is all mushy pusong mamon inside. His compassion translating directly to action. As befits his formation’s patron, Beda Venerabilis, thus: “He alone loves the Creator perfectly who manifests a pure love for his neighbour.”

As in his initiative of the first-ever-in-Clark jobs fair for indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities drawing over 400 applicants.

Of them, Tugade said: “Many times you will find the most efficient and the most hardworking [employees come] from people who have been forgotten and forsaken, if only you give them the chance... [as] this breed of people lived in the arena of hardship and survived.”

With the harsh reality that not all the applicants would be taken in on the spot, Tugade made the assurance: “The CDC will still provide you opportunities such as this. Come back and look for a job that will suit you well. Don’t be afraid. Don’t falter. Don’t lose hope.”

As promised, the CDC launched in December the “Aeta-preneur” project – a livelihood program in partnership with the Technical Education Skills and Development Authority aimed to fill in on a sustained basis the economic needs of IPs here and PWDs employed inside the freeport.

“Christmas is a time for giving. And what better way to give back to our Aeta brothers and sisters than to teach them new skills and new methods to earn a decent living,” Tugade said during the project launch. “(They) are often seen peddling native wares and products. But we at the CDC are not content in just seeing them as mere vendors. No more selling of golf balls. There should be more.”

The CDC has provided Aetas and PWDs livelihood trainings under the “Kabuhayan para sa may Kapansanan at Katutubo” program like wellness massage, electrical and plumbing, negosyo karts, desilting and hollow blocks making, among others.

Complementary to the training is the CDC construction of a wellness, coffee and snack bar. The proposed venue is already cleaned and painted. The rooms have also been equipped with used air-conditioning units. A KKK committee was also formed to look for potential concessioners to employ Aetas or PWDs for sustained income.

The CDC’s livelihood program also includes a desilting project for Aeta communities along the Sacobia River which used to be a lahar channel from Mount Pinatubo. The project will initially involve some 50 members of the Mabalacat Aeta Tribal Association.

To maximize the desilting project, Tugade said Aetas will also run a small hollow block-making business with the training for its operators already started last Dec. 4. It was reported that the first Clark locator to have committed to order hollow blocks from this Aeta-preneur project was the BB International Leisure and Resort Development Corp. which is developing the P2.5-billion Clark Valley View Leisure and Resort Corp. and the P2-billion Midori Hotel, reputed to be the first 5-star hotel in the freeport. 

Yolanda aid  

Tugade’s soft spot for the proverbial lost, last and least goes beyond the Clark Freeport. At his initiative, CDC donated a total of P2.45 million to victims of Super typhoon Yolanda.

Initially, CDC donated more than P1 million out of that saved from the cancellation of the company’s traditional Christmas party.

The second tranche of P1,249,650 was raised through the CDC’s “Bangon Bayan” donation drive. Aside from cash, the CDC also donated two tons of assorted supplies. In cooperation with Clark-based locator Seair and the Philippine Air Force, the CDC brought in relief goods loaded in at least five 6x6 trucks.

Straight path

At the start of his Clark tenure, Tugade said he was asked to sign the CDC Integrity Pledge but declined, as he was beset with doubts.

“After more than 11 months I have already earned the ascendancy to urge fellow CDC employees in saying: Let’s go for the integrity pledge. Let’s go and make a vow on no corruption,” Tugade proclaimed, confident with the warranty that today, each CDC employee has taken to the administration’s “straight path.”

A proud declaration: “We are now ready to shout to the whole world, not only within the Freeport zone that we can live by the no corruption law. We can all take pride in saying that Mr. President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, sa CDC po, daang matuwid kami!” 

Competent. Daring. Caring. Tugade has indeed done the CDC proud of its new meaning.

His mindset of “I don’t know how long I will last here, I can be fired next week or next year,” notwithstanding.  – With reports from Ding Cervantes, Ashley Manabat and the CDC Public Relations Department

Our Hall of Fame

SIMPLY PUT, newsworthy and – as much as possible – praiseworthy comprise the only criteria to making it as Punto’s Man of the Year.

How have we religiously subscribed to that is reflective of our choices through all the six years that we’ve been doing it. Tough chance if our choices do not correspond to those of our more discerning and discriminating readers. Anyways, here’s a lookback, with the opening paragraphs of each tribute, generally giving the rationale for the choice: 

2008: EDDIE T. PANLILIO, Governor of Pampanga

MIRACLE MAN of the year. Even if that homage of his fanatical followers be taken out of the equation, Pampanga Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio will still surpass the grade as the most significant personality to have emerged in 2007 in the whole expanse of Central Luzon, if not in the whole country. If only for crafting history as the first Catholic priest to be ever elected governor.

Breaking his priestly vow of obedience – unheeding the five-fold plea of his superior to forego with his political ambition – Panlilio ran – and won – on the sheer strength of his sacerdotal persona, Among Ed. Dec. 31, 2007-Jan. 2, 2008.

2009. VICTOR JOSE LUCIANO, President-CEO, Clark International Airport Corp.

IT WAS a no-nonsense job tailor-fit for our Man of the Year.
Thrice offered by no less than President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the top plum of the then fledgling Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC), is one our Man of the Year could not refuse. Not in Puzo’s Godfather sense of the phrase though, but for the sheer challenge – of blazing a trail, and the impact – to national development – it posed.
Thus, it was that the fellow from Magalang, Pampanga who has made a name for himself in the national scene, retraced his steps back home to serve not just his fellow Kapampangans, but the rest of the people of Central and and Northern Luzon and help them – and the nation – find their niche in the international arena of development.
2010. OSCAR S. RODRIGUEZ, Mayor of the City of San Fernando
EXCELLENCE IS a passion; good governance, a duty; service to the people, a commitment.
The cardinal virtues of leadership in a republican state – long lost in the parody of democracy that is the Philippines – find renaissance in Mayor Oscar Samson Rodriguez of the City of San Fernando. And the Fernandino could not have been happier, nay, more blessed and prouder: of his city and his leader.
As 2009 proved yet another banner year for the city, reaping just about every recognition in myriad fields of endeavor. 

2011. LILIA G. PINEDA, Governor of Pampanga

2010 MAY as well be “Year of the Mother” for the Province of Pampanga with the ascendancy of Gov. Lilia Garcia Pineda. 
In all her public incarnations – mayor, board member, and now governor – as much as in her private persona, motherhood has come to be the very definition of Lilia Pineda: its full meaning finding expression in her singular efforts to promote the health and well-being of her people. The endearing sobriquet “Nanay Baby” as much a manifestation of the reciprocal respect and esteem her people hold her in, as a testament to the nurturing care she unceasingly provides them.
Thus, it came to pass that “Nanay Baby” was all it took to strip the veneer of sanctimony of a rehashed morality play, of a discredited crusade in the 2010 election campaign and buried in an avalanche of 488,521 votes the pretender to the Capitol throne. Indeed, an indubitable vindication of a true Pineda victory in 2007.

2012. EDGARDO D. PAMINTUAN, Mayor of Angeles City

RIGHTING – rather than just fighting -wrongs.

Forged in the crucible of the Marcos dictatorship, Edgardo Dizon Pamintuan is steeled in the protection and promotion of human rights, and thus fated to a public life of correcting human errors, political, social and fiscal, administrative and criminal: his end in view, a society grounded on the democratic ideals of equality and liberty; his goal-in-hand, a community sharing in prosperity. 
Pamintuan's persona as honorable mayor of Angeles City makes the latest -if arguably, the greatest - testament to this: taking over a city awash in wrongs, if only to set everything in it a right, and how! As a call of duty, at the instance, mayhaps even in the insistence, of destiny. 
WE MADE a break from the usual last year when instead of men and women, we opted to give our annual accolade to the COMPANIES OF THE YEAR.

2013. SM MALLS

THE SHORTEST distance between rural rusticity and cosmopolitan sophistication is an SM City mall.
No more is this truer than in the coming of the Philippines’ premier mall to Central Luzon, instantly turning the landscape from rural to urban, promptly transforming the shopping, dressing, eating, leisuring habits of the people. Setting a new lifestyle aptly captured in the catch phrase: “Mag-SM tayo!” translating to “The SM mall is all.”
The pre-eminence of SM City malls in this once rice granary of the country upped and maxxed some more in 2012 with the opening of SM City Olongapo in February and SM City San Fernando Downtown in July, bringing to – count them: SM City Marilao and SM City Baliwag in Bulacan; SM City Pampanga and SM City Clark in the regional center; and SM City Tarlac – seven Henry Sy’s malls in this region, the greatest concentration outside Metro Manila. 
Unarguably, SM Prime Holdings – with all its mainstay shops and tenants in its malls – is the single biggest job provider in the whole of Central Luzon. (SM malls got it all, give back some more)

2013. CEBU PACIFIC AIR

ADRIFT IN the doldrums was the Clark Freeport for much of 2012, the impermanence at the helm of the Clark Development Corp., arguably, taking its toll on prospective investments.
Performing CDC president-CEO Antonio Remollo was replaced in April by former Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Eduardo Oban Jr. albeit in an OIC capacity, and was in turn replaced in mid-December by businessman-lawyer Arthur Tugade. Like the banana republics of yore, the constant changing in the CDC leadership gives the wrong signals to investors, to say the least. 
Providing the only redeeming value to the Clark Freeport in 2012 was – is – Cebu Pacific Air, the Philippines’ largest national flag carrier.
On December 4, CebPac opened its Philippine Academy for Aviation Training (PAAT), a P1.8-billion joint venture with CAE (NYSE: CAE; TSX: CAE), world leader in aviation training. Aptly capping 2012 with the greatest promise of a bullish 2013 for the Clark Freeport, as well as the Clark International Airport. (CebPac perks up ‘lethargic’ Clark)

To our Man of the Year of 2014, ATTY. ARTHUR P. TUGADE, welcome to this league of extraordinary men, woman and companies. 

Defined, defiled

THE PHILIPPINES’ Christmas Capital, and now Asia’s too.

So is the City of San Fernando salutatory defined in a story in Sun-Star Pampanga in the wake of a contribution in CNN.com headlined “The giant lanterns of San Fernando, Asia's Christmas capital” by Al Gerard de la Cruz.

Gushed De la Cruz: “They are the largest incarnations of the Philippines' parol, an eye-dazzling electric Christmas lantern that symbolizes the Star of Bethlehem.

In action they're truly a sight to behold. Each giant parol features a series of thousands of spinning lights synchronized by seven large steel drums -- the rotors.

When the parol spins, the rotor hits a row of hairpins, electrifying the bulbs.”

And bedazzled, can only ejaculate: “It's this yuletide fervor for the nationally loved electric star that has lent credence to San Fernando's cachet as the ‘Christmas Capital of the Philippines.’ And likely even Asia.”

A new branding most welcome. Chorused Mayor Edwin Santiago and 2013 Giant Lantern Festival Executive Committee Chairman Marni Castro: "We are very happy and proud to be named as Asia’s Christmas Capital. It is a great honor for Fernandinos and our lantern makers that the world has recognized the ingenuity and craftsmanship of this centuries-old tradition. It gives us the drive to be better and support the parul industry in San Fernando."

As one good thing leads to another, so – again per Sun-Star Pampanga:  – “The Parul Sampernandu and its kin, the giant lanterns, will again make history, as they are the first-ever Asian participants in the exclusive and revered Xiamen traditional Chinese Lantern Festival.

The organizing committee of the Xiamen Lantern Festival and International Garden Show (circa 206 BC-AD 25 under the Western Han Dynasty), slated from February 2 to February 17 this year, has specifically chosen the City of San Fernando – dubbed as Asia’s Christmas Capital by CNN because of its unique giant lanterns -- to give Chinese a peak of the local Parul Sampernandu, in the highly restricted show.

“The lantern festival is the traditional festival of Chinese people. It is an important festive occasion of folk customs and promote cultural heritage. The lantern show, which has been consecutively organized in the City of Xiamen over the past few years, has become one of the well-renowned lantern shows in China. It has gained popularity because of its unique features of Minnan (Southern Fujian) folk customs and the integration of traditional and modern elements as well as being the major venue for it, in terms of participation and size,” said the organizing committee’s communiqué to Mayor Edwin Santiago.

“Looking forward to your participation in the 2014 Xiamen Lantern Show and in order to further enhance the cultural exchange between China and the Philippines… as we sincerely exert all efforts to provide all kinds of support for the participation of your good city and country,” it added.

In another note to Santiago, Consul General to China Julius Ceasar A. Flores said that the move will “contribute to the nurturing of relations between the Philippines and China, and more particularly, in the deepening of ties between our people on one hand and on the other, with the city of Xiamen and the provinces of Fujian and Jiangxi.”

City Tourism and Investments Promotions chief Ching Pangilian-Gonzales said the City and its lantern makers led by master craftsman Erning Quiwa are all set for the festival.

“We believe that this is the first time an Asian country or city outside of China has been invited to the festival where lanterns are icons of exclusive culture and tradition. We are hot on preparations now and mighty proud of the rare invitation,” she said.

YEAH! Parul Sampernando making it to the big league there. And in some sort of “lantern diplomacy” to boot!

This is not the first time though that the San Fernando lantern gets international exposure. Sun-Star Pampanga reported “the Parul Sampernandu has been in Hollywood in 1993, a year before, at the World Expo in Spain, the Philippines' embassies and consulates in Canada, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Thailand and the United States, among others.”

Unwittingly missed, or conveniently ignored in the report there is the San Francisco (California) Lantern Festival of December 2003 staged by then Board Member Robert R. David, a lantern maker himself, with Fil-Am community organizer MC Canlas.

The celebration of Pampanga Day on Dec. 11 in the City by the Bay as mandated by its city council included the making of traditional parols by Fil-Ams, mostly youth, which were then displayed in a parade around SoMa (short for South Market St.) ending at city hall. The centrepiece of the 2003 event were the two giant lanterns that David crafted in San Fernando, shipped to San Francisco and mounted at the façade of St Patrick’s Church fronting the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. For his efforts, David was given official recognition by the City of San Francisco as “outstanding artist.”

So how did I know all this? I was there when it happened. Even helping David take down the giant lanterns from the church and dismantled them in early January 2004.

So indeed, the City of San Fernando gets its full, proud definition in its unique lanterns. And no other media has been as impactful of that pride as Sun-Star Pampanga. That we have to give to publisher Levy P. Laus, the very avatar of Fernandino pride. And glory too.       

It really makes me really wonder then why that celebratory story on the Parul Sampernando had to end: “The Fernandino lanterns have also bedizened such Austrian landmarks as the Rathausplatz and Ethnology Museum in Vienna, as well as the Stadtturm in Innsbruck, including the Lord Mayor's House in Dublin and the Good Shepherd Cathedral in Singapore.” 

BEDIZENED, meaning “gaudily adorned” or “decorated tastelessly” – with all its  synonymous attributions of vulgar, tawdry, kitschy, cheap, trashy, garish, crude – is a definitive defilement to the Parul Sampernando.  

The City of San Fernando’s pride defined and defiled in one single story – that’s something for the books. I most surely will have a copy of that Sun-Star Pampanga where it appeared for keeps.