Caluag is one vigilant voice
Vilma Caluag is the president of Association of Barangay Captains in the City of San Fernando and as the law mandates she automatically become a member of city council. Recently I watched her on a Facebook video as she was making a manifestation with regards to the passage of a supplemental budget. I didn’t catch the total proceedings in that council meeting but the issue seemingly revolved on the appropriation of funds for the purchase of relief items for the constituency. In a deliberative body, one single voice is not ideal for governance. One vigilant voice though is necessary at times and Caluag is playing that role. She is not obstructionist in my definition of her, rather she is a fiscalizer.
To recall she failed in her quest for mayor pitted against
incumbent Mayor Edwin Santiago in the last elections. Few weeks before the election day, I met her husband Melchor who himself was a former village captain in Barangay Dolores and as expected he was all praises on wife’s accomplishments. ‘I firmly believe that the San Fernando constituency will feel and experience a dramatic change for the better once my wife Vilma will be elected mayor, I remember him saying this. He described his wife to be a determined, persevering and hands-on individual who wouldn’t mind to walk an extra mile to achieve her desired goal.
‘Mr.Max, our family is no longer wanting for more. Me, Vilma and our seven children, the three already are professionals and the other one graduating in college this year we should be contented in life’. And you may want to ask why Vilma would still venture in higher politics. And he answered his own question. ‘She is her own person’!
The husband is totally correct on the description of his wife. There’s a saying that ‘the archetype of the woman runs deep in the human psyche.’ That’s somehow Vilma can be described. She doesn’t run away from any challenge wherein she firmly believes she can attain that goal if packed with perseverance and determination.
To some of her colleagues, she maybe a pain in the neck, but maybe to other members, she resonates their miffed voices.
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Members of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) held their press conference last Tuesday at the ballroom of Quest Hotel in Clark Freeport and there’s nothing really much that was aired there that the public haven’t heard already. I was expecting that discussions should have been localized, like for example how Clark Freeport can recover from the financial shock it experienced in past two and half months. As it is the losses of locators is so huge if what relief packages, a stimulus maybe, the national government is planning.
Stay home, wash your hands frequently, keep social distancing, wear face mask etc etc.etc are always what we hear from government. There’s really nothing wrong on those repeated lines. Nakakasuka na. Wala na bang bago?