As Convid19 Lock Down continues, Crimes Spike

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Thanks that Dagupan City Mayor Brian Lim did not stonewall the acrimonious clamor especially in the social media to postpone in abeyance the traditional vaunted Bangus Street Party to be held on April 6 to May 20 this year.

The recalcitrant mayor blinked and announced in a March 13, Executive Order that “Bangus Festival 2020 is postponed until further notice”.

He was hell bent before to hold the “charivari” despite other Pangasinan towns and later Governor Amado Espino, III announced that he and the Sangguniang Panlalawigan all forthcoming barangay fiestas including Sangguniang Kabataan activities in the province.

 The procrastination of Lim ensued before SARS Corona Virus became a clear and present danger and before President Rodrigo Duterte announced in March 16 the enhanced community quarantine of the entire Luzon Island.

The bangus city mayor ambivalence not to suspend the street party raised howls from members of the traditional media.

Sunday Punch Op-Ed  Ding Micua hit on his March 18 Random Thoughts’ column the still single Lim who is probably in his early 40s. Excerpts:

“Dagupan is not an island that it can go against the tide to fight COVID-19. Maybe Mayor Brian Lim thinks he has every reason to balk at the order of the President because his staff has already spent so much time preparing for this year’s festivities. But he cannot sacrifice the health of the people just to prove that the Bangus Festival under his administration is better than Mayor Belen’s. 
Even Dr. Rosario Pamintuan, chief of the regional disease surveillance unit of DOH Region 1, suggested to the management of Bangus Festival and LGU Dagupan to rethink their steps amid the current national public health emergency posed by COVID-19.
Hopefully Brian-Red will have a change of heart after they see how the U.S government is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic”.

But Aksyon Radyo Commentator Joel Balolong was unforgiving by assailing that the mayor was compromised not to cancel the event because some of his trusted men had taken the cut from sponsors who will pay for the aesthetics and shows of the party.

Whether the vitriol of Joel, a harsh critic of Lim, was true or not I saw the softening and acquiescence of Lim to the adverse mainstream and social media members’ criticism about the menace brought by this lethal pandemic that killed already thousands of lives globally.

If Lim insisted to have this street carnival many of us in Dagupan City and those who regularly attended this mammoth party in Northern Luzon could be likened to those Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Union (LGBTQ) who were infected by the virus because they insisted to attend the street party in Miami , Florida U.S.A .

The organizer of the LGBTQ event insisted to hold thousands gays to converge and frolic amid the growing menace of the killer pneumonia disease.

“The Winter Party Festival, an annual weeklong LGBTQ event held in Miami, drew thousands from across the country, when it kicked off earlier this month.

But though it ended March 10, in the week following the event several attendees have tested positive for the Corona Virus, according to the festival organizer,” nbnnews.com reported.

It said one by one, state and cities have begun to prohibit large crowds in an attempt to curb the virus spread. In Washington State, several countries have banned crowds over 250 people, while New York City has implemented a similar ban for gatherings over 500. On Monday, President Donald Trump announced new guidelines which advised against gathering of more than 10 people.

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A branch of prominent chains of drug store in the mammoth Pangasinan province that compete with the renowned Mercury Drug Store had been a target of a burglary recently in the wee hour.

The St. Joseph Drug Store in Lingayen, Pangasinan was robbed where the theft used a construction hammer that created a hole on the door where they wiggled in to consummate their greed.

Media man Mon Untalan, a resident of the Capital Town, informed me in my “bunker” here in Cotabato Province that the bad guys, he suspected lived in the nearby squatter area, stashed  away three hundred thousand pesos in cash and assorted medicines.

"ito na ang epekto ng walang hanapbuhay,walang sinasanto ang kumakalam na sikmura," Mon quoted one of the  kibitzers as police investigated the robbery.

Motorized tricycle drivers and their family in Pangasinan and other parts of the country avoid starvation because of the loan sharks, we colloquially called 5-6, who lent them amid the one month enhanced community quarantine imposed by the Philippines president.

Hernan Cabunot, 26, said before Corona Virus 2019 (Covid19) spawned its deadly disease to people here and abroad  he earned a net of five hundred pesos daily in Dagupan City.

“I am earning one hundred pesos more than the four hundred pesos of Amboy because I ferry passenger in a university belt,” he cited to this columnist in a telephone call while referring to fellow driver Manuel Rivera, 35, whose routes are in different areas of the 171,271 populated (2015 Census) coastal city.

Will crime rates hike if they could not borrow another set of monies from the loan sharks like those turbaned Bombay who now hesitate to lend?

“It could happen,” he said especially if the local government units in the barangay and town could not feed their constituents like him and his family despite President Duterte exhortation to the LGU to use their funds.

This what I feared, the more the lock down prolonged versus the dreaded phantom pandemic Corona Virus, the more poor Filipinos commit theft, robbery, and homicide to survive starvation

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)