FERNANDINOS are excited with the highly touted coming of Megaworld’s multi-billion peso project dubbed “Capital Town Pampanga”.
Some relatives of the family who are planning to retire in the illustrious City of San Fernando sought my opinion about buying residential lots in the place.
I responded by citing my experience and information in that particular area of the capital town, now CSF.
For purposes of a healthful and residential abode, I would not stay there unless a massive rehabilitation of San Fernando River is done and sustained.
Pedestrians crossing the Baluyut bridge look down on the famous river and deduce what life it would be in, around, and the immediate neighborhood.
Particularly so at Megaworld property in Sto. Niño which used to be the bastion of the historic Pasudeco. The place was the scene of a massacre, the depositary of foul smelling cane bagasse, and the exploiters of workers of the sugar industry in old Pampanga. People sense a bad vibes around as they smell the armpit of the city when the wind blows across the murky river.
I am hopeful Megaworld has a ready solution to the pervasively bad odor coming from the clogged river. As a frequent visitor to the barangays adjacent Pasudeco, I had seen dead and decaying animals on a fermentation mode in the dying waterway. On rainy days the detritus move downstream slowly along with human waste of the rich and the poor. The river, a great social leverer serves as a huge sewerage system of CSF.
I told a relative abroad that for nearly a century the estate used to be the compound for hundreds of truckloads of sugarcane waiting to be milled. The place which absorbed the sweet-sour juice of decaying sugar waste has become a huge warren for termites. This is not disinformation to interested lot buyers but a recollection of facts.
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I feel sad whenever former City Mayor and ex-Congressman Rodriguez was not seen in important events of the City. Could it be he was not invited for whatever reasons?
His former benefactor, incumbent City Mayor Edwin Santiago, may be grateful for his mentor’s assistance and tutelage, and so his cohorts’. But they do not seem to find Oca’s presence in the city affairs inspiring.
Despite Oca’s seclusion and quietude, EdSa feels threatened by his former patron, and rightly so. Rodriguez is a party man. He heeds what his group tells him.
If the Liberal Party tell him to run for city mayor, chances are he will follow the party. This what Santiago and company feel about Oca’s seasonal hibernation. I do not wish another Oca-Dong return bout. I am afraid they will slaughter each other.
EdSa may be ahead of Oca in unofficial polls. But a future contest between the two hinges on a mutual issue: their health. It is common knowledge that Oca has a heart problem (not Atching Loleng) while EdSa flies to Japan for regular check up. CSF Vice Mayor Jimmy Lazatin is reported to be eying the City Hall in case Santiago fails to answer the bell. Lazatin supporters however demand to see the color of his money.
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On behalf of his media friends, I wish to thank Levy P. Laus for his expression of thoughtfulness each Christmas time. SSP impresario Jun Sula as usual is doing a great PR job for the great Kapampangan leader. Kudos to Jay Pelayo 1V for uniting Pampanga-Tarlac media workers and coursing their energy to engage peers and rival groups in the business. “Outfought but never outnumbered,” should be their motto.
