Long dead, of late suspended

 

“WHEREFORE, the Prayer for Preventive Suspension insofar as the following incumbent officials of the Municipal Government of Porac, Pampanga, are concerned, namely, respondents: 

            JAIME V. CAPIL, Mayor

            FRANCIS LAURENCE V. TAMAYO, Vice Mayor;

EMERALD VITAL, Licensing Assistant/then OIC Business Permit and Licensing Office;   

            Sanggunian Bayan Members

            Rohner Buan;

Rafael Canlapan;

Adrian Carreon;

Regin Clarete;

Essel Joy David;

Hilario Dimalanta;

Michelle Santos; and

John Nuevy Venzon

is hereby GRANTED...”

THUS, the Ombudsman ordered on Oct. 7, 2024 the wholesale suspension of the elected local officials of Porac for gross neglect of duty vis-a-vis the illegal operation of a Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) hub in Barangay Sta. Cruz that came to light only with the raid of its premises by the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission last June.

Suspension orders from the Ombudsman have been so routinary that they hardly draw any attention but that of their subjects. So, why has this particular one become divertingly discomfiting, to the point of being bannered in some digital publications?

                                          The late Porac Councilor Regin Clarete. FB photo

One for the books, Guinness’ included mayhaps, is the Ombudsman’s inclusion in its suspension order of councilor Regin Clarete who died in May 2023, and succeeded to his post in September of that same year by his sister, Myla Clarete, who, as the lone councilor untouched by the suspension, assumed office as acting mayor on Oct. 11.

Pray, tell, how does the Ombudsman expect the dead councilor to serve his suspension? While this apparent inadvertence by the Ombudsman makes the joke of the day, it has not escaped the more astute to see it as a joke on the Porac populace itself.

For one, the suspension order was signed on Oct. 7, the penultimate day of the filing of the certificate of candidacy. Running for six months, the suspension ends in April, a month before the elections. The reelectionist mayor, et al clearly put to a disadvantage there, deprived of availment of the LGU’s resources. 

More telling, acting Mayor Clarete, while not a candidate for any position in next year’s polls, is the sister-in-law of Mike Tapang, who is all-out to wrest the mayoralty from Capil in 2025.

So, who’s laughing?

 

Beauty pageant, proxy war in Pampanga’s 3rd District

 

                                           Dr. Hazel V. Tumang 

                                           BM Mica Gonzales

A PAGEANT of beauty. So, the contest for Pampanga’s 3^rd District congressional seat has come to be bruited about. For the best reasons – aesthetically, most obviously, with both lady candidates blessed with that face that launches a thousand swoons, that smile that makes the heart aflutter, that regal bearing that can stir any Wurtzbach-wannabe into a paroxysm of envy.   

Enough hyperbole. Their pictures, randomly picked from the web – unphotoshopped, give the full measure of pulchritude mere words can only approximate.     

A battle of brains, too. The more substantial of factors in consideration in just about every competition. The tale of the tape, education- and career-wise, thus:

Dr. Hazel Velasco Tumang, 39, otolaryngologist specializing in conditions affecting the ears, nose, and throat (ENT), as well as head and neck surgery. Degree in medicine, post-graduate residency training and internship at the Far Eastern University–Dr. Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation, QC. Physician Licensure Examinations, Aug. 2012. Philippine Board of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Diplomate Examination, June 2018.

Affiliations: Phil Medical Association, Pampanga Medical Society, Central Luzon ENT, Philippine Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Medical practice: Marian ENT Clinic, Mexico; Green City Medical Center, City of San Fernando; Pampanga Metroeast Medical Center, Sta. Ana – all in the third district of Pampanga.

Alyssa Michaela “Mica” Mercado Gonzales, 30, incumbent provincial board member representing the 3^rd District. Degree in business administration-major in management at the University of Asia and the Pacific, secondary education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. Attended Ateneo Law School but shifted to managing the family business.

Work experience: Corporate treasurer and chief financial officer of her family’s AD Gonzales, Jr. Construction and Trading Co. Inc., a leading AAA-category company.

By, and of, the candidates’ credentials alone, political oddsmakers will be hard put to set the lines on the probability of the outcome of the 3^rd District congressional contest.

  

What can ultimately tip the odds for either Tumang or Gonzales is patrilineage, both being their fathers’ daughters.

Proxy war

Mexico Mayor Teddy C. Tumang was yanked out of office by order of the Ombudsman in August 2023 over alleged anomalous purchases of road construction materials from a single supplier in 2009 and 2010, and faced indictment on 64 counts of graft and seven counts of malversation of public funds.

Tumang was subsequently subjected to House investigations and even spent time at the House custodial center for contempt.

House Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales made it a point not to sit in any of those hearings, to be fair. However, the point was nonetheless well taken by folks back home – but for Gonzales’ being the second most powerful man in the House, why would an all-too ordinary graft case in a town merit a full-blown congressional investigation? Especially given that Tumang, in his 2022 campaign for his third and last term as mayor already served notice that he would run for the seat Gonzales would be vacating. A political threat there, taken most seriously, dealt with most decisively.

Even as Tumang ruminated on his fate, reverberated across the district a clamor for a congressional investigation of allegedly defective flood-mitigating projects reportedly contracted to the senior deputy speaker’s eponymous AD Gonzales Jr. Construction and Trading Co.

A complaint centered on short-of-specification sheet piles subsequently lodged with the Ombudsman against the family-owned company was as quickly dismissed for “lack of evidence.”

The dismissed evidence which, complainant Mexico ABC president Terence Napao pointed out, turned up when floodwaters wrought by the southwest monsoon and Typhoon Carina in late July and early August scoured the flood mitigation projects still bearing tarpaulins naming the contractor as “AD Gonzales Construction and Trading Co.”

By happenstance perhaps, a number of the complaints against Tumang were earlier dismissed.

It does not take a seasoned political spinmeister to weave the persecuted victim card around Tumang, and assign the role of villainous persecutor on SDS Gonzales.

How this shall impact on their daughter’s candidacies, only the election results can determine.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2013 lookback: Dynasties, duh!

 

IT IS a surprise that there are still some people getting surprised – aghast! – at members of same families trooping to the Commission on Elections to file their respective certificates of candidacy for the 2025 polls starting Oct. 1.

So, what else is new? I dusted a piece published here May 20, 2013 just after the mid-term elections that year. Then, as now, elections have remained more family affair than exercise of a public right. Here goes:

“NO TO Mag-INDA-Now.”

Punning perfection from Pampanga’s moral minority provided the high definition, indeed, impacted the meanest meaning, to political dynasty in the province. Alas, it failed to catch the imagination, much less inflame the conviction of the electorate. Most miserably, at that.

Did I say minority? Minimality, more aptly, as suggested by their actual number. But that makes yet another story. Anyways… 

The Pineda juggernaut an irresistible force. Among Ed Panlilio’s spirited stand…well, all spirits, amounting to nothing but token resistance.

Not just mag-inda – mother Gov. Lilia G. Pineda and son vice governor-elect Dennis aka Delta winning by the widest margins, but really mi-inda-inda – daughter Mylyn and daughter-in-law Yolly also getting re-elected as mayors, unopposed – veritably for the former, virtually for the latter.

Mag-INDA-Now! A dynasty well-entrenched there. Appended insinuations of the Ampatuans notwithstanding, indeed, lost in the triumphant shouting. Across Central Luzon, reverberating.

Realpolitik now: Matriarchal in Pampanga becomes patriarchal in Bataan, conjugal in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija, and fraternal in Tarlac.

All four Garcias won in Bataan: the father, incumbent Gov. Tet Garcia traded places with son, 2^nd District Rep. Albert Garcia; son Jose Enrique Garcia was re-elected Balanga City mayor, and daughter Gila Garcia won the Dinalupihan mayorship.

Laid by the wayside of the Garcia blitz are the Payumos – ex-SBMA chair Tong Payumo losing anew in the first district congressional run; his Harvard-educated son Tonito failing in his bid for the provincial board; his nephew, incumbent Dinalupihan Mayor Joel Payumo, losing in his gubernatorial quest; Joel’s brother, ex-Mayor Jose Payumo III knocked out in his return bout for the mayorship.

In Bulacan, both husband Gov. Wilhelmino Alvarado and wife 1^st District Rep. Marivic Alvarado ran – and won, but of course – unopposed.

Though opposed, Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio Umali and wife 3^rd District Rep. Cherry D. Umali managed to bury their rivals in landslides.

The once powerful Josons shut out in the races for governor, vice-governor and the first congressional district, managing wins only in their bailiwick of Quezon town and in the provincial board and Cabanatuan City council.

No sibling rivalry but mutuality in competency leading to victory was the case in Tarlac. Gov. Victor Yap lived up to his name anew, in avalanche win over Cojuangco kin Isa Suntay and incumbent Vice Gov. Pearl Pacada.

A walk in the park for incumbent 2^nd District Rep. Susan Yap with 120,822 votes to erstwhile Public Works director Pepe Rigor’s 34,696.

No contest too for San Jose Mayor Jose Yap, Jr. over the substitute candidate for his murdered rival, Rudy Abella.

All is not lost though for the anti-dynasts, taking heart in the fall – and how! – of the House of Gordon and the Clan of Magsaysay in Olongapo City and Zambales.

Incumbent Olongapo Mayor James Gordon, Jr., lost in his bid for the first congressional district seat. His wife, former Vice Gov. Anne Mary Gordon failed to succeed him in an internecine battle with their nephew Bugsy de los Reyes – both losing to Rolen Paulino. Brian Gordon, son of Dick, also lost in the vice mayoral contest.

Kin JC de los Reyes failed in his Senate bid. And with Dick himself finally excluded from the Magic 12, thorough becomes the Gordon debacle.  

Shut out of the Senate too were Ramon Magsaysay Jr. and niece-in-law Mitos Magsaysay. 

Mitos’ children Jobo and Vic-Vic shared her loss, failing in their respective bid for the first congressional district seat and the vice mayoralty post of Olongapo.

Back to Pampanga, all is not lost too for the moral minimality, with aspiring dynasties nipped in the bud this Monday past.

Come to think of it, voters in two towns took heed to calls of “No to Mag-INDA Now,” literally. In Bacolor, Mayor Jomar Hizon got his re-election but his mother Atching Lolet was frustrated in her vice mayoral aspiration. In Magalang, Koko Gonzales won a council seat even as his mother, LP official bet Elizabeth, came in third and last in the mayoral contest.    
No to mag-igpa too, apparently with the father, Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo failing to capitalize on his John Lloyd stock against comebacking Cong. Rimpy Bondoc for the fourth district congressional seat, and the son, Patrick losing in his own run to succeed him.

No conjugal rule in Sto. Tomas: the husband-and-wife tandem of former Mayor Romy “Ninong” Ronquillo and incumbent Vice Mayor Gloria “Ninang” Ronquillo losing to history-making re-elected Mayor Lito Naguit – first three-termer ever, and running mate Mark Arceo.

It’s vote-one, take-out-one in Angeles City in the case of Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin, Jr. winning a council seat while his senior, Cong Tarzan losing his mayoralty bid. Ditto Atty. Brian Matthew Nepomuceno landing Number 2 in the council while uncle Blueboy losing to Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao in his congressional comeback run.

Though both Pamintuan father – Mayor EdPam, and son – councilor Edu made a successful return. Same thing in Mabalacat City with Mayor Boking Morales re-elected for the umpteenth time, and his son Dwight, now neophyte alderman. Minus, daughter Marjorie Morales-Sambo who got beaten in the vice mayoralty race.     

Now, what does this add up to?

Utterly lacking in the requisite socio-economic, political, even anthropological and psychological background for an exegesis of the issue at hand, I can only guess: It is not that voters love some families less, but that they are mesmerized by other families more. Duh?  

 

 

Mayor Vi declares CSFP: For Fernandinos Only

“SISIKLAB YA pung alang patna ing lugud ku para kareng Fernandinos. Kaluguran ke pu ing siyudad San Fernando kasi keni ku pu mibait, keni ku pu meragul, keni ku pu mikaisip, keni ku pu megaral, keni ku pu mekapakyasawa, keni ku mekapagnegosyu, keni ku minasensu, keni ku pu mika-apu, keni ku pu magserbisyu, at keni na ku rin pu mate. I am a proud Fernandino through and through.

Tune ku pung Fernandinu king isip, pusu, amanu at dapat. Dapat pung marapat, dapat pung tapat, at dapat pung mayap.

Kekatamu ya ing San Fernandu, kaluguran ta ya ing San Fernando. Ing City of San Fernando, karen ya mung Fernandino.

Ikayu ing tagumpe ku. Aku ing tagumpe yu, itamu ing tagumpe ring susunod a henerasyun ning City of San Fernando.

Aku pu y Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag, ing kekayung mayor, ing kekayung ima, ing babaing ating tune siklab ning lugud kareng Fernandino.

Tandanan ta mu pu Fernandino ka, kayabe ka.”

EXCLUSIVE TO Fernandinos only. Thus, re-electionist Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag declared Pampanga’s capital city, in a not-so-subtle jab at her probable rival for the mayoralty – resigned 2^nd District board member and former Lubao town Mayor Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab.

In San Fernando she was born, grew, studied, married, succeeded in business, became a grandparent, serves, and yes, will die.

Hence, Caluag claimed as birthright the exclusivity of love for the city in the flourishing finis to her state of the city address (SOCA) delivered on Sept. 19 at the Kingsborough International Convention Center. Indeed, an arrogation unto herself of the very theme of the SOCA – Siklab Ning Lugud: Ing Tagumpe Ning Syudad San Fernando – the explosion of love only she, a Fernandino, can ignite for the city to triumph.

The SOCA itself, alas, devolving more into song-and-skit entertainment than serious deliberation on city governance. Aye, absent the official, if routinary, city council session called to order by the presiding officer then dispensing with the agenda to give way to the mayor’s SOCA, and the call for adjournment at the end of hizzoner’s speech. Vice Mayor Benedict Jasper Lagman reduced to a mere spectator seen craning his neck to have a better view of the stage where the mayor starred as though in some zarzuela of old.

To be fair, Caluag did a perfunctory litany of claimed accomplishments but this did not impact as much as the showtime part of the event.

But why would anyone even care, when TikTok is all that matters. CN Photos

 

 

SOCA à la Vilma

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- Do you hear the people sing? Yes, loud and clear. But it ain’t no scene from Les Misérables. Yes, madlang people, It’s Showtime and all that jazz as only Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag could – deliver her State of the City Address with all that glam and glitz. Thus, the pageantry that was Siklab Ning Lugud: Ing Tagumpe Ning Syudad San Fernando at the Kingsborough International Convention Center here on Sept. 19. 

                                                                                                                   CN Photos  

 

Politics, as is

 

REALPOLITIK. The “realist’s determination to treat politics as they really are and not as the idealist would wish them to be.”

The buzzword in the Kissinger era in American diplomacy has long descended from its rarefied niche in foreign policy to the street level, to its very roots – politics as practised, as is, where is.

So, the Colombia cartels conceived in coca and cannabis and birthed narco-politics. Reigned supreme, ruled absolutely the drug lord here. The elected reduced to mere vassals doing the lord’s every bidding, disempowered to sheer figureheads, albeit, well, extremely well compensated.

There is more to the politics of vice other than that taken to perfection by Clayton Olalia in the Province of Pampanga, lived fully by the late Tiger Lagman in the City of San Fernando and Ric Zalamea in Angeles City, and relentlessly pursued now by Vicky Vega-Cabigting with Jay Sangil tenaciously clutching at her ankles.

As a matter of course, the politics of vice meanders to different channels.

Bingopolitics capitalizes on the penchant of the barrio folk for their much beloved game of chance. Nothing to lose for the folk here as the cards come free – from the politico, and everything to gain with prizes galore, from electric fans and gas stoves to refrigerators and flat-screen television sets – ever windfalls even to the Pelco-disserviced brown-outed masses.

Raffle-itics is another very popular game now played in the pre-campaign hustings. All attendees are given designated numbers drawn against corresponding prizes, no more than the usual bingo fare.

Far, far superior – fearsomely graver, the moral minority is always wont to insist – to the two above is tambiolitics – after the tambiolo (the usually bottle-shaped rattan contraption) holding the bulitin (small balls numbered 1 to 37) used in drawing the winning combinations in the illegal numbers game.

Tambiolitics is but our euphemism for what suspended-priest-wanting-to-be-governor-again Eddie Panlilio derisively calls – in your face, Atching Baby – jueteng politics.

But how could you, Among? There’s no jueteng, there’s only STL (small town lottery) in Pampanga. Was that me, or did I just hear Senior Supt. R’Win Pagkalinawan’s strong protestation?       

The now-dispensation-seeking Panlilio himself introduced a brand of politics with his entry to the gubernatorial race in 2007 – clerico-politics.

The cry of clerico-fascism in the exclusive Catholic campuses in the ‘60s though did not resonate in the Panlilio administration at the Pampanga Capitol. It rather devolved into putativism vectored on his provincial administrator.

Religion as the people’s opiate going the way of Marx’s grave, the boob tube, the silver and digital screens took over as the addictive hallucinogens of the masses. With an even greater tama, er, high, er, intense effect. 

Whence rose, and now dominates, cinepolitics.

No matter the reel bida turning real villain once voted into office, moviestars make the very first of the people’s choices in any election they enter. Erap in Malacanang. In the Senate, there’s Jinggoy, Agimat, and Leon Guerrero (then as now, and joined by the hood named Robin, aka Sili, whatever that means). In the House, Lani and Lucy, Mikey too. Ate Vi in Batangas. Jorge Estregan Ejercito in Laguna. A host of others in provincial boards and city councils, not the least of whom is the beautiful Marang Morales in Angeles City.

More in the ways than in the who now is butterflyitics. We all learned from the elementary grades of butterflies going after the nectar of fresh flowers. The wilting and the wilted hardly meriting the slightest flitting. So goes the political party-goer too. At a Senate hearing, the once famous Lt. Victor Corpuz had a rather impolite term for this: political prostitution. Pimpolitics then, anyone?

Trending now is tarpaulitics. The stock-in-trade, aye, the only way of the epal – the publicity-obsessed credit-grabber, in street lingo. It’s just something no one can escape from, given the scale and scope with which every politico – current, wannabe, has-been, and never-been – has impacted his image into our consciousness, polluted our thoughts, and cluttered our environment.    

I most certainly though would rather be pestered by epalitics than fall prey to ampatualitics.

Yeah, that brand of politics in Mindanao that votes with bullets rather than ballots, and memorializes mediamen in backhoe-dug and –filled-up, unmarked graves.

And they say it’s only politics?

(Reprinted from Zona Libre, Feb. 6, 2013)

Capitol digs out CSF's filth

 

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda has mobilized the resources of the provincial Capitol in a joint undertaking with the Department of Public Works and Highways in Central Luzon to declog the drainage systems along the flood-prone thoroughfares in the city.

Typhoon Carina and the monsoon rains last July onto August and this month inundated the city with the depth of floodwaters unseen in recent years, that is prior to the current city administration.

Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda goes hands-on in declogging operations. Daniel Ombina/Pampanga PIO

“Andami na pong nagrereklamo, lalo na sa business sector. At kailangan na rin ho sigurong pagtulungan talaga. Kailangan na rin hong mabigyan kaagad ng solusyon. At sayang ho, maunlad na lungsod tapos sa ganitong problema, hindi ho natin kaagad mabigyan ng solusyon,” said Pineda during the action planning at the Capitol with the DPWH on Monday, Sept. 2.

                  Clearing JASA canals of debris. Jaja Galang/Pampanga PIO

On Wednesday, backhoes, dump trucks and other heavy equipment with enough manpower opened canals along the Barangay Dolores stretch of Jose Abad Santos Avenue revealing hardened silt, debris of concrete, wood, and steel, plastic, plastic and more plastic that rendered drainage totally useless.

By Thursday, the Capitol-DPWH team had cleared 185 meters of the drainage canals along JASA, still a long way to go in this stop-gap measure of the provincial government at flood mitigation in the city.

There are still Lazatin Boulevard, notably at its junction with JASA, and the MacArthur Highway segment at the government center in Barangay Maimpis to be cleared. 

Complementing the drainage clearing, former board member and current executive assistant to the governor Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab mobilized beneficiaries of the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) program to clear clogged drainage canals in Barangays San Pedro Cutud, Dolores, and Sta. Lucia.

 

                  TUPAD mobilizer Mylyn-Pineda Cayabyab. Contributed photo

“Makatulong po sana ito para maibsan kahit papaano ang mga pagbaha sa barangay. Pagmalasakitan po sana natin at panatilihing malinis ang mga daluyan ng tubig,” said Pineda-Cayabyab of her initiative.

Aside from the declogging operations, the Capitol and the DPWH have also agreed to undertake medium- and long-term actions include upgrading structures so these could take in bigger volumes of water, and constructing urban drainages that serve as catchments.

 

Gov. Pineda looking at one proposed anti-flooding measure. Daniel Ombina/Pampanga PIO

These include the installation of a pumping station that would drain to Gugu, a creek that has turned into a river after a series of Mt. Pinatubo lahar flows in nearby Bacolor town.

"Nagpa-design po ako sa DPWH at nagpabigay po ako ng estimate kung magkano, at pagtutulungan po namin ang funding para mag-operate po kaagad ang pumping station na ‘yan," the governor said. 

This, even as Pineda has gone to lengths to appeal to the residents to practice proper waste disposal.

Where’s city hall?

The ongoing declogging operations in the city by the provincial government, sans any presence from the city government, has not gone unnoticed to the public.

The social media and traditional word-of-mouth communications are abuzz, ranging from allegations of arrogation of municipal/city powers by the provincial government unto itself, on one end, to accusations of abdication of by the city government of its powers, on the other.

             Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag handing out DSWD relief. CSFP-CIO

Amid the Capitol operations, it did not help any that city hall did not come out with either press release or post of flood-mitigating measures of its own in its very active social media page, not even in Tiktok that is the highly favored means of social communications of Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag.   

                  Declogging of city canals by the city engineer’s office. CSFP-CIO

On Friday, Sept. 5, the CSFP-CIO posted photos of what it said were declogging operations undertaken by the city engineer’s office from March to August this year. The depth of the flooding wrought by Carina and the monsoons upon the city raising questions of their authenticity, if not inutility. 

            Disapproved items in the supplemental budget. Contributed photo   

Followers of the mayor have accused the city council of “tying her hands” with its disapproval of a supplemental budget she requested late last month, in the wake of the onslaught of Typhoon Carina and the monsoons, for a P5 million allocation for clearing, desilting, and declogging of waterways in the flood prone areas of Café Rustico-St. Jude in Dolores, PLDT to Gulf Gasoline Station on the CSF-Lubao Road, PLDT to Lelut Baculud in Sto. Nino, 7-11 (convenience store) to Prime Water in Lourdes, and the Assumption Creek in Del Pilar.

Measly as it is, by engineering estimates, the requested allocation did not cover the main thoroughfares of JASA, Lazatin Blvd., and MacArthur Highway which flooding effectively brings traffic to a complete standstill for hours on end.

 Continuing declogging operations at JASA. Daniel Ombina/Pampanga PIO