Remembering EDSA

THE HOLDING OF the Bangus Festival has significantly enhanced the people’s livelihood in the city, according to a study I read two years ago.

Conducted by an independent research firm, whose name I could no longer remember (I don’t even have a copy of that study now), the study found that after the holding of the Bangus Festival in 2002, local fish vendors enjoyed a 30-40 percent increase in revenue by selling Dagupan bangus.

The volume of bangus production in Dagupan also increased significantly. From 1999 to 2001, the production of bangus stayed dormant at 2,325 metric tons a year. After holding of the first festival in 2002, the total bangus production went up to 2,635 metric tons or a 13 percent increase.

According to the City Agriculture Office, bangus production in 2003 reached 2,830 metric tons or 22 percent increase from year 2001. These figures only show the production of fishpond operators. Fish pen operators have no current record but normally they produce three times more than the fishponds.

The tourism industry in Dagupan was also boosted due the local, national and international publicity that the festival generated and never experienced by the city in the past.

In terms of its environmental impact, the festival created a higher awareness level for the protection of our river system; intensified mangrove re-vegetation projects and continuous implementation of clean-up campaign in the entire city.

As Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez had said during his talk in Tokyo in 2003, the Bangus Festival was an innovative international marketing strategy because it heightened global awareness of the city’s main produce, the bangus.

This year, the city government will replicate this feat, not so much to get a space in the Guinness Book of World Records but for the world to know that Dagupan City is still growing the tasty bangus.
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TODAY, we remember the day 19 years ago when then strongman Ferdinand Marcos left Malacanang for a self-exile in Hawaii.

There was street dancing and celebration not only in Metro Manila but in most cities nationwide as soon as Radio Veritas then announced Marcos’ flight. Suddenly, Marcos was gone. Suddenly, democracy was restored and people began to hope for a new day.

That was 19 years ago.

But 19 years hence -- 19 years of freedom from the clutches of dictatorship – a great number of our people still wallow in abject poverty. Those who have barely enough continue to hold on tightly to a thin strand of rope, hoping they would be able to get out of the economic quagmire they are in.

Clearly, for 19 years, we have not succeeded in creating more livelihood opportunities for our people. We have not liberated our people from poverty and make them live less deprived lives.

Likewise, we have not been able to stabilize politically. Coup attempts and other destabilization plots continue to hound our government.

Finally, the level of corruption has continued to increase and has become more daring. It has also crept from the highest echelon of government down to the lowest level. There is now too much distrust on the government and in it’s capability to improve people’s lives.

Overreacting? I’m not.

Unless President Arroyo makes a more decisive move in the anti-graft campaign by sparing no one -- including her closest political allies -- we will still be in the same pathetic situation 19 years from now.

ENDNOTES: Oops! I have wrongly written in Tuesday’s column that Windows will run Mondays and Fridays. It should have been Tuesdays and Fridays… Bayambang Mayor Leo de Vera is now in the thick of preparations for their town fiesta this year in honor of its patron, St. Vincent Ferrer. The fiesta, among other activities, will highlight a Binasuan Night. Many Pangasinenses may not know it, but Binasuan, a colorful folk dance where a dancer balances three glasses filled with rice wine, originated in Bayambang.

QUOTE: Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.-- Buddha