Butch’s new job

Next week, Boss Danding will be in Urdaneta City. The week after, Ping Lacson will be in Dagupan City. Next month, FPJ will be in San Carlos City.

I will not be surprised if by now, Raul Roco, Gringo Honasan and other presidentiables, are also already scheduled to be in Pangasinan in the next few weeks. After all, we comprise 60 percent of Ilocos Region’s voting population.

This is not the first time Boss Danding will be here. If he has frequented the province in the past it is of course because he considers Pangasinan his home province. His son, Mark, is the province’s fifth district representative to the House and he owns a cement plant in Sison town..

Ping Lacson, on the other hand, is a Pangasinense by affinity. His wife, Alice De Perio, is from Bolinao town. Isn’t it that his campaign line in the 2001 senatorial election was his declaration that he “Manugang na Pangasinan”?

Then, of course, everybody now knows that Da King is from San Carlos City, and he has proudly proclaimed this when he was guest during the coronation night of the city fiesta in 2000. There are now talks that FPJ will be celebrating his birthday in that city on Aug. 22, when he is also supposed to launch his presidential bid.

Exciting, isn’t it?

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The city government’s Public Order and Safety Office has assumed last week an additional task: to run after litterbugs. This job used to be with the Market Division of the City Treasurer’s Office. But the group became infamous and controversial when complaints mounted against them, especially during those times when they had to be ruthless in confiscating items being sold in illegal stalls and by ambulant vendors in the downtown area.

Butch Gutierrez, POSO traffic supervisor and now head of this anti-littering group, says that he has already conducted a series of meetings with the 11 members of the group. Tomorrow, they will have an information dissemination campaign in the public market to familiarize market goers and vendors with the different environmental ordinances of the city, before they will start apprehending violators.

This is quite a tall order for Butch and we can only wish him good luck.

Let me just share some observations and insights in the implementation of campaigns like these. The most difficult stage is usually in educating the people about the ordinance. There is always that tendency to look at the campaign as a ningas cogon no matter how sincerely you are enforcing it.

Then, of course, there is also that notion among the people that when they are apprehended, they can run away from it anyway because they can easily find a ninong somewhere to bail them out.

Simply put, campaigns like these involve changing people’s attitude, which cannot be done overnight. There is therefore a tremendous amount of patience and consistency that is needed here.

But with what the POSO has shown in successfully enforcing the city’s comprehensive traffic ordinance, especially in its “no-mercy, no-friend” attitude for traffic violators, there should not be any reason at all why Butch cannot also succeed in the anti-littering campaign.

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Dagupan City police chief, Supt. Noli Taliño, has reported that his campaign against illegal drugs continues to gain ground. From January to July this year, 50 persons have been arrested and some 128.03 grams of shabu worth P153,636 have been seized.

With President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s order for a more vigorous campaign against illegal drugs in the country, I will not be surprised if one day, Noli calls for a press conference to announce that a shabu laboratory has been discovered in Dagupan City.

The street level trafficking of shabu in the city may not be that extensive yet, largely and maybe because illegal drug pushers know that the city is under Noli and his men’s watchful eyes. But who knows if in one room in one of the structures in the city’s downtown and residential areas, somebody is manufacturing shabu?

Often, it is in least expected places where these illegal activities thrive. Remember the country’s biggest shabu bust two years ago? Who would have imagined that a shabu shipment worth almost P1 billion would land in the pristine beaches of Infanta town?

ENDNOTES: The Pederasyon ng Sangguniang Kabataan of Dagupan City will hold “Jog and Walk For A Cause Laban Sa Droga” on July 26 at 7 a.m. The assembly point will be at the city plaza… The Department of Foreign Affairs regional consular office will be at the Dagupan City People’s Astrodome on July 26 & 27 as part of its mobile passport program. Passport applications will be processed on the first day and released the next day.

QUOTE: Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there's love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong. -- Ella Fitzgerald