OFF-THE-AIR

The last time I was in Congressman Gener Tulagan’s farm in Rosales town was in 2003. From where we parked our ride, we had to walk then on a muddy earth dike surrounding a freshwater fishpond to reach Kaaron Gener’s bahay kubo, which was strategically built in the middle of the farm.

Last week, I had a chance to visit the farm again when I covered President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s visit to the town to hear Mass at the grotto. To my surprise, its surroundings have changed a lot that I thought I was in a resort.

From the highway, there is now an access road wide enough for light vehicles to travel on. Inside the farm, there is also now a wide parking space where visitors can safely leave their vehicles. On the way to the bahay kubo are one-room bamboo cottages that may be used by guests staying overnight. Then, there is a covered function hall, where indoor games and small seminars may be held. Beside it is a screened structure that looks like a restaurant. To top it all, there is now a swimming pool.

I never had a chance to go to the bahay kubo again. But from a distance, I could see that it has now more amenities than before. After all, it is where Kaaron Gener and wife spend the night whenever they are in town.

But what makes the place attractive is its very rustic setting. It has tall acacia trees and vegetable gardens, aside from the hito, tilapia and dalag ponds that dominate the scenery. It must be truly refreshing and relaxing to spend a weekend there, away from the hustle and bustle of urban living. No wonder, Kaaron Gener worked very hard for its development. It is in this place where he must have been recharging in the past many days after his tension-filled sessions in Congress.

From what I gathered during a short conversation with Kaaron Gener, he built his farm with the technical support primarily of the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. These agencies have helped develop his farm into a model farm to serve as the province’s show window on how technology and proper farming methods can enhance agricultural and fisheries productivity.

As everybody knows by now, Kaaron Gener is a farmer’s son and he himself grew up helping his parents in the rice fields of Talang in San Carlos City. By having a model farm, he wanted to show Pangasinenses a sample that farming not only helps in the food sufficiency program of the government but it can be a good source of income, too.

We will not be surprised if in the coming days, farmers, government officials and even politicians, will frequent Kaaron Gener’s farm to see for themselves what can be replicated in their own places. During her visit, President Arroyo herself expressed her admiration of the place. She was especially attracted by the papaya plants bearing several fruits and even had her photo taken beside one those plants.

And who else would be a better endorser than the President?

ENDNOTES: A fake anti-biotic was discovered in a hospital run by the provincial government. This isn’t the first time. We just hope no one at the Urduja made a lot of money out of it. . . A friend, Mary Ann Tamayo, who is now working in Baltimore, Maryland, celebrated her birthday last week. Happy birthday, Mary Ann. She used to work with the defunct Helping Foundation in the city until she was “pirated” by Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez to work in his office to jumpstart the computerization of the Sangguniang Panlungsod. But because she is so good with computers, she was noticed and eventually hired by the One Stop Business Center of the city government. How did she find her way to the land of milk and honey? Talent, determination and luck. I’m so proud of you, Mary Ann.

QUICK QUOTE: He who knows enough is enough will always have enough. — Lao-tzu

(You can reach Gabriel L. Cardinoza at windows@digitelone.com)

Two weeks from now, city hall employees will have to queue up before a computer terminal four times a day to time in and to time out.

This is because the city government has acquired five biometrics-based timekeeping devices that will require each employee to have one of his or her fingers scanned for the computer to register the actual time the employee arrived in or left the city hall.

Biometrics (bī´´ō-met´riks), according to Webopedia (www.webopedia.com), an online encyclopedia dedicated to computer technology, is an authentication technique that relies on a person’s measurable physical characteristics that can be automatically checked.

These physical characteristics could be the person’s face, fingerprint, hand geometry, retina, iris, signature, vein, and voice.
At the city hall, the biometric system will make use of an employee’s fingerprint. The computer first reads the employee’s fingerprint from a scanner; identifies the employee and registers the exact time he or she arrived in or left the office.
The new timekeeping system will now throw away the blue logbooks, where many employees have been writing for years 8:00 a.m. or 5:00 p.m., when they actually arrived in their respective offices at 9:30 a.m., or have left their workstations before 5:00 p.m.

It will also effectively eliminate the bad practice of some employees timing in or out for their officemates, even if that officemate actually reported in the afternoon or did not report at all.

Noting this habitual tardiness and the blatant falsification of daily time records, it was actually Mayor Benjamin Lim who first announced the use of biometrics in the city hall many months ago.

But it was Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez, while the acting city mayor last week, who ordered the immediate purchase of these devices.

The vice mayor knew too well what biometrics can do in ensuring that employees report to work on time. In the entire city hall complex, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan has been using the computerized device from the time the mayor made the announcement and this has produced good results, in terms of the SP employees’ work efficiency.

Since then, when somebody calls the SP office at 8:00 a.m. someone decisive is already there to answer the phone. And when somebody comes to the SP office as early as 8:00 a.m. to transact business, someone is already there to attend to him or her.

From the SP experience, the new system is foolproof, in the sense that the data could not be tampered. But some employees still have a way of dealing with it: some come to the office very early and still in their shorts to time in and just arrive in the office by noon to time out.

But the vice mayor could not be outwitted: He installed closed-circuit cameras that would record the day’s office scene to easily identify employees who just time in and then go home.

This meant certainly meant additional expenses using people’s money. But this was a good buy and a sound investment at that. After all, it is the people in the end who will benefit from the improved quality in the delivery of services at the city hall.

QUICKNOTES: The Pangasinan Star now has a website (http://www.freewebs.com/pangasinanstar). But we still maintain our blog (http://pangasinanstar.blogspot.com), because it is here where we keep our archives… Suddenly, I don’t feel safe in Pangasinan. With the rash of highway robbery and killings in the past weeks, I suddenly realized I am not safe right in my own backyard. And I’d like to quote what the late Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez said when he survived an ambush in the mid-70’s: “What’s happening to our country, General?”

QUICKQUOTE: Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. — Abraham Lincoln