By Mita Q. Sison-Duque
 

TIME holds parallel perspectives. Years ago when we first brought our children home from Washington, D.C., an incident at that time stands out in memory. A little boy of 5 or 6, one of twin boys had this to say about a well-loved old hometown.
 

“Mom,” he said as we drove our children around Lingayen the very first time. “Is  this the Lingayen of all your stories?” “One and the same, son.” “This one?” “We’re here!” “The one you said had all these heroes walking the streets? I don’t see any…” “At some time in the past, yes, they did. Not your superheroes…” “Oh…” his voice trailing off a little disappointed. “Real heroes found in historic books.”
 

Still unimpressed, he asked more. “The one you said is… beautiful?” he questioned as he looked around when my husband drove the length of the boulevard turning the bend behind the Capitol. Upon seeing the expanse of the beach, he agreed. “The beach is there, all right.” “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Silence. “Well… Mom…” he answered after some pause… “I guess so, if you love it.” Minutes later, overheard as he sat scrounged beside his twin brother and his siblings… “Looks a rotten egg to me…” he said in a whisper.
 

“Rotten egg” in the developing vocabulary of a 6 year old means undeveloped. And time marched on, ready or not. During the spurt of time it took to develop a boy into manhood, symbolically and in parallels, was the time it took a town to evolve into a city-worth town.
 

Today that small town breaking off from the images of what that little boy has gathered, has grown into what it is today, a busy, bustling capital town whose time has come to be a city. Like the young man now a Doctor of Medicine, who is on the threshold of a promising career in Medicine with God’s blessings and help, the palpable energy of an almost city is unmistakable, the mornings of a city met in its proper place. It’s about to happen. It’s long in coming. Lingayen City, God Bless her.
 

One inspirational thought is that if Lingayen can give birth to one president out of 14 in the Republic among millions of Filipinos in a historical period of more than 100 years, certainly, she can muster enough criteria and decorum to become a capital city. Not only because time has come, but also because she has earned well.
 

Lingayen, holds a historical tradition. In early history it is the town in Pangasinan where Martin de Goiti first landed and settled down up the close of the 15^th century. It is here General Homma of the Japanese Imperial Army and the Lingayen Force of Lt. General Yuichi Tauchibahl’s 48^th Division landed and eventually where the Liberation Forces headed by Gen. Douglas Mc Arthur landed along the expanse of the Lingayen Gulf. And although Lingayen has always been the capital town some erroneous impression had lingered on that Binalatongan, now San Carlos was the capital. It was of course a misconception brought about by several factors. First, Binalatongan was  part of the Dominican Province in the area and therefore the dateline of all documents and historical records were datelined Binalatongan. Binalatongan was also part of the ‘encomienda’, the landholdings of the King of Spain and logically was the choice for the capital.
 

Another reason is that the town had the largest population. But when the Spanish Alcalde first came to Spain, he chose the Pueblo of Lingayen to set up his government soliciting help from the town principales, the prefix ‘Don’ attached to their names. The organization of Lingayen as the First Pueblo was a major success and established her as the head or ‘Cabesera’ of the group of new towns, and has thus remained the capital town of Pangasinan.
 

Fast tracking it to the present, the ‘Cabesera’ of the province of Pangasinan, has stayed by the wayside in the order of becoming a city, time behind San Carlos, Urdaneta, Alaminos and of course, Dagupan City, the chartered city. Imagine an Olympic torch passed from the Olympic flame, and Lingayen was not on its route for the past years. But in the spurt of time since a young boy now  a fine gentleman had his observations, the torch has passed to the ‘Cabesera’s’ hand. The Olympian, if he were to pass through Lingayen, would enter through Malindong from Dagupan City and Binmaley, a healthy industry lining both sides of the winding corridor which houses Lingayen’s furniture industry and the artisans of hand carved wooden furniture. Nipa huts of the past have all but disappeared from view to give way to beautiful homes with impressive landscapings, all with the original context of previous homes. Architecture has contributed greatly to the terrain, as has several modern gasoline stations run by uniformed servicemen, and convenience stores and clean rest rooms, interrupting pleasantly the route leading to Avenida Rizal East and into town.
 

The old boulevard, the Maramba Boulevard named after an earlier governor, Gov. Daniel Maramba, is undergoing major landscaping through the initiative of the governor of Vision and Action, Victor Agbayani, scion of the late well-love Gov. Aguedo Agbayani. Unexplained deep crevices along the boulevard which could pass for water basins are reclaimed to give way to what promises to be flowering parks and walks leading all the way to the Capitol and the government complex, the Malong Building and executive buildings. A stone’s throw away to the left is the Hall of Justice and the Sison Auditorium where once in the past, a prophecy that a son of Lingayen was one day destined to be the President of the country, was promised by one distinguished elder of the province.