The politics of farce

NUNQUAM ITERUM! So, we raise our voices hoarse at each anniversary of the declaration of martial law. Terrified, more so now at the specter of its possible resurrection in Marcos Junior. So, rightfully, should the sins of the father be visited upon the son?

Never again! So, we may equally shout at both EDSAs too. Given where it has led to – from the tragedy that was Ninoy to the farce that was Noynoy, from the joke that was Erap to the NBN-ZTE deal that was Gloria, from the butchery that was Digong to the emerging thuggery that is Sara.

Indeed, Marx, of historical entities repeating: "the first as tragedy, the second as farce.”

And the farce goes on. Just look at the buffoonery in the five-ring circus that is the Senate and the House. Which makes me think all the more of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Sr. Not so much for his tyranny, as for the breadth and depth of his keen understanding, if not mastery, of Philippine politics. Thus:

MORE OFTEN the politician neither legislates nor administers so much as he intervenes and mediates.

He achieves a personalized relationship with his constituents as individual persons, more anxious about doing things for each of them rather than for all of them. A bridge, a school, or a rural development project, although important, is not enough. Has he been approachable? Has he managed to place a son in a Manila office?

Where was he when a fire broke out or a typhoon came? How personally generous has he been with the needs of certain influential leaders? If he fails in these personalist tests, he fails as a politician.

Are the people to blame for this state of affairs? Hardly, for conditions are such that the majority depend on the government. But are the politicians, who are simply responding to the situation as they see it? I would say Yes.

Within the undeniably practical limits of political survival, politicians can and should try out some innovations that will transform the political culture from being populist, personalist and individualist to being more nationalist, institutional and socialist, in the strict meaning of being more conscious about the needs of society and the national community…

One reason for the pervasiveness of corruption is that in being part of the system, everyone it touches seems to benefit…The corrupt politician who is at the same time accessible to his constituents has more chances of staying in power than an honest one “who has not done anything.”

He probably takes his legislative or executive work more seriously, concentrating on collective goals to the detriment of political “fence mending,” but he is more often judged by the populist, personalist and individualist standards of the political culture.

A true politician should be able to lead his constituency in a precarious present toward an uncertain future, but he dares not initiate or innovate unless he can be sure it will not cost his position.

It is easy to condemn him for lack of moral courage, but what good is a businessman without a business, a politician without policy? “I must see where my people are going so that I may lead them,” an Athenian politician was supposed to have said. There are certain conditions, however, in which this attitude cannot be a useful principle of democratic leadership.

AS TRUE today as 55 years ago when penned in Today’s Revolution: Democracy.

Populist. Personalist. Individualist. Marcos Sr. distilled the essence of all that is wrong, aye, the very evil of politics in the country. Proof positive once more of the Great Ferdinand’s mastery of the political domain.

Even more – testament anew to the persistent prevalence of politics as plunder in the Philippine praxis. Indeed, Santayana, by our disremembering, we are nation deserving of our damning.

 

 

Oca: Isang Istorya ng Pakikibaka

 

PINAGKAITAN SIYA ng kapalaran na maging martir ng armadong paghihimagsik upang kaipala’y biyayaan ng kasaysayan ng takdang papel na gagampanan sa patuloy na pakikibaka tungo sa ganap na kalayaan at pambansang demokrasya. 

Pakikibaka – ito ang buod ng kasaysayan ni Oscar Samson Rodriguez. 

Pakikibaka – ito ang mismong ubod ng kanyang buhay.

Buhay na wari’y sadyang pinilas mula sa pambungad na bersikulo sa unang kapitulo ng mapagpalayang ebanghelyo nina Karl Marx at Friedrich Engels – ang Communist Manifesto — “Ang kasaysayan ng lahat ng naitayong lipunan ay kasaysayan ng pakikibaka – pakikibaka sa pagitan ng mga naghahari at pinaghahariang uri…”

Pakikibaka. Uring anak-pawis na ang kamusmusan ay tigib sa hagkis ng karalitaan, sa hagupit ng kalakarang piyudal, sa giyagis ng paghihimagsik. 

Pakikibaka. Kayod sa araw, aral sa gabi. Sa limang kahig, iisang tuka. Kalam ng sikmura’y hindi na ininda. Sipag, sikap, tiyaga, tiis, tikis – pinuhunang pawis, luha’t dugo makatapos lamang sa pag-aaral. 

Pakikibaka. Alab ng damdamin, puyos ng dibdib sumiklab, nagngalit mula paaralan tungo sa lansangan. Nagningas, lumiyab sa digmang bayan. Ka Jasmin isinilang, sa rebolusiyonaryong kilusan pumailanlang. Bartolina ang sinadlakan. Sa pusikit na kadiliman, isang dipang langit ang tanging tanglaw. Rehas na bakal na pampiit, paninindigang makabayan pinaalab pa nang higit. 

Pakikibaka. Sandigan ng katotohanan, saligan ng mga karapatan, tanggulan ng bayan. Kampeon ng mga inaapi’t pinagkakaitan ng katarungan. 

EDSA Uno. Bagong pulitika – paglingkuran ang sambayanan binuhay, pinairal sa Kapitolyo, sa bawat takbo sa Kongreso. 

EDSA Dos. Atas ng kabayanihan muling tinupdan ng magiting na prosecutor ng bayan. 

Pakikibaka. May hihigit pa kaya sa dusa’t pighati dala ng delubyo ng Bulkang Pinatubo? Sa gitna ng kawalang pag-asa, sa harap ng panawagan ng mga eksperto kuno, kasama na ang noo’y senador na Kapampangan daw, na hayaan na ang kalikasan at lisanin na ang lalawigan, matatag siyang nanindigan na ipaglaban ang lahing Kapampangan at hindi ito pababayaang mabura na lamang.

Pakikibaka. Patuloy na pakikibaka. Mula sa kanyang kabataan hanggang ngayon na ang timon ng pamahalaang lokal ay kanya nang tangan. Tangan tungo sa kadakilaan. 

Ang istorya ni Oscar Rodriguez ay kaganapan ng pagsanib ng isang indibiduwal na buhay sa takbo ng kasaysayan. Na siyang piling pagkakataon ng kabayanihan. 

“Ang mga bayani ay may kaukulang panahon, kung paaanong ang kapanahunan at mga pangyayaring umiiral ay lumilikha ng mga bayaning kailangan nila.” Ana ngang isang makabayang makata sa kanyang pagpapakahulugan sa konsepto ng “bayani ng kasaysayan.” 

Ang istorya ni Oscar Rodriguez kung gayon ay marapat lamang na maisulat. Hindi para sa kaluwalhatian ng kanyang pangalan. Kundi sa mga aral na dulot nito – ang sidhi ng pangangailangan sa pakikibaka sa pagbabago ng lipunang Pilipino. 

At ang aral ng kasaysayan mismo: “Ang kahapon ay saligan ng ngayon, ang ngayon ay haligi ng bukas.” 

(Talumpati na aking binigkas noong Setyembre 19, 2006, araw ng kapanganakan ng kagalang-galang na Oscar Samson Rodriguez, nagsilbing kinatawan ng ika-3 Distrito ng Pampanga at punonglungsod ng San Fernando kung kailan aming inilunsad ang aklat na pinalad kong naisulat – Oca: Isang Istorya ng Pakikibaka, ang salin sa Tagalog ng orihinal ko ring inakda – About Oca: A Story of Struggle.)

Cruzada perpetua (2026)

 

AQUI EN la Pampanga hay mucha piedad pero poca caridad.

It has been seventy-four years, this 2026, since that lamentation over the “wealth in piety but poverty in charity” expressed by Bishop Cesar Ma. Guerrero, the first to occupy the bishopric of San Fernando, noting “the stark class differences between the rich and the poor, the strife between the landlords and the tenants, and a deteriorating socio-political-economic situation bordering on socialism.”

These were manifest situations of the imperative of revolution in his See. And a revolution did indeed obtain then in Pampanga, with the Huks already “at the very gates of Manila.”

Marked as apostates pursuing the establishment of a “godless” society, the Huks naturally had to be stopped, and their ideology uprooted to “save the country and preserve Mother Church.” A strategic policy of the Cold War placed the Church at the bulwark of the war against communism.

It was at the very cauldron of that simmering social ferment that the now-canonization-bound “Servant of God” Bishop Guerrero organized the Cruzada de Penitencia y Caridad – the Crusade for Penance and Charity – in 1952.

In revolutionary praxis, the Cruzada served the ends of a counter-revolution. The conscientization of the oppressed masa that was the spark to start the inevitable prairie fire, doused by the sprinkle of holy water, the heart soothed by hymns and prayers, the soul seared with the promise of redemption, of eternal bliss in the hereafter. So long as the hardest of toils, the worst of privations, indeed, all injustices and oppression be borne as Christ did with His cross.

Unrepentant communists would readily see it as the affirmation of that Marxist dictum: “Religion is the opium of the people.”

Images of the Virgen de los Remedios and Santo Cristo del Perdon were taken all around the Pampanga parish churches and capillas where they stayed for days, the faithful seeking their intercession and intervention through nonstop prayers and nightly processions.

A hymn to the virgin was composed with peace as recurrent refrain: “…ica’ng minye tula ampon capayapan / quing indu ning balen quequeng lalawigan / uling calimbun mu caring sablang dalan / ding barrio at puruc caring cabalenan / agad menatili ing catahimican…” (…you gave us joy and peace / to the mother of our province / when taken in procession / in all the barrios in the towns / peace descended upon them…) Forgive the poor translation.

The charity end of the crusade – lamac – was institutionalized – all the barrio folk, even the poorest of them, contributed some goods that would accompany the images to their next destination and shared with the neediest there.

The Cruzada in effect became an equalizing and unifying factor among the faithful, regardless of their socio-economic situation. And relative peace did come to the province. For a time.

The breadth and depth of the devotion to the Virgen de los Remedios of the Capampangan moved Pope Pius XII to approve her canonical coronation as the patroness of Pampanga on September 8, 1956.

Since then, without fail, no matter the rains and high water, the Capampangan faithful flock to the annual commemoration of the canonical coronation. (Covid-19 made the exception in 2020, and limited attendance in 2021 though. And with the persistent flooding, the rites restricted to the repository chapel of the image). In a ritual of renewal of faith in their Lord of Pardon, of rededication to their Indu ning Capaldanan (Mother of Remedies), in celebration of their Tula ding Capampangan (Joy of the Capampangan).

Seventy-four years hence, that “deteriorating socio-political-economic situation bordering on socialism” may have been arrested – the communist insurgency virtually as dead as Marx and Mao, Joema Sison too, if not deader.

“The stark class differences between the rich and the poor, the strife between the landlords and the tenants,” though still obtain. In various manifestations, in the farms and factories, in the mills and in the malls – as much the wages of sin, as the sin of capitalism – from workers’ exploitation to farmland-grabbing, from contractualization to union-busting.

So, did the good Bishop Guerrero’s Cruzada of peace through charity and prayers fail?

So, we do still come in prayerful celebration every Sept. 8, in thanksgiving, in supplication.

O Virgen de los Remedios / damdam ca qng quequeng aus / iligtas mu que’t icabus / qng sablang tucsu at maroc / ibie mu ing quecang lunos / ‘panalangin mu que qng Dios. (O Virgin…/ hear our pleas / free and save us / from all temptation and evil / grant us your compassion / pray to God for us).

The Cruzada can only continue.

(Updated piece on Pampanga’s patroness, the Virgen de los Remedios, first published in the now long defunct Pampanga News, July 6-12, 2006)

That masterplan

 

                                                                                  Punto FB Page 

 “WE already have a master plan; it’s just never been executed.”

Atop the Aquino Bridge (or is it the Agana Bridge?) which partially collapsed due to strong river currents and torrential southwest monsoon rains, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. may have rued over what could have at least mitigated flooding and its concomitant destruction in vast areas of Central Luzon.

“We are only executing it now. We have had a master plan for decades, but walang ginawa. Hanggang ngayon lang. Ngayon lang natin sinisimulan,” he iterated, if only, perhaps, to underscore the consequence.

Marcos Jr. though did not give specifics to the masterplan he referenced during his Tarlac City visit on Sept.2. 

PBBM with Sec. Dizon and Tarlac officials at Agana Bridge. Mayor Susan Yap FB Page

Separately, Department of Public Works and Highways Secretary Vince Dizon said as much, and more: “Puro away at puro salitaan… ang dami nang plano, now it’s time to execute.”

And explicitly, Dizon said the president’s marching order is clear: Stop talking and start executing flood-control plans – in the context of the Candaba detention basin proposed as a potential solution to flooding in Central Luzon but was not implemented due to what he said as “political infighting.”

Forgive Dizon for misreading the cause of the masterplan’s failure to launch. He was two years and 24 days yet from his appointment to DPWH when that happened. The now-disgraced Manuel Bonoan forced to resign on Sept. 1, 2025.

Aye, that was a day over a year ago. Some augury obtaining there? Anyways…

August 7, 2023. Pampanga Provincial Capitol

President Marcos Jr. was presiding over a situational briefing in the wake of severe flooding due to the southwest monsoon rains enhanced by consecutive tropical cyclones Egay and Falcon. (Déjà vu, just like of late). 

As former Public Works Secretary Rogelio “Babes” Singson, president and CEO of Metro Pacific Tollways Corp., was presenting a proposal to turn portions of the Candaba Swamp in Pampanga and the San Antonio Swamps in Nueva Ecija into water impounding facilities, Pampanga 4^th District Rep. Anna York Bondoc without so much as a bye-your-leave interjected: “Hindi po kami papayag sa impounding sa Candaba Swamp, that is a wrong concept and we are not going to allow that. Diyan sa Candaba, diyan nag-umpisa ang Hukbalahap movement, if you want a security problem sirain nyo yang hanapbuhay ng lahat ng magsasaka sa Candaba, magwa-walk out po kami dito.”

Bondoc resurrecting the Red bogey there, as though it could still instill terror from its post-Soviet grave.  

To his credit, the president did not indulge the un-parliamentarian’s impudence.

“If there are people who will be displaced, I will personally guarantee each farmer that they will be transferred to another location that is equally good to ensure they won’t encounter difficulties or losses,” Marcos Jr. maintained, even as he noted that dredging is a temporary solution that is “exceedingly costly.”

“In the longer term we really have to study what we are going to do in terms of impounding. We have to study it well because if we don’t do anything, [flooding] will keep on happening even if [the rivers are] dredged,” the president averred.

And lectured on: “Kaya nga hindi na bumababa yung tubig dahil napuno na sa ibaba, it is not something that we are doing intentionally, it is something that happened dahil napakalakas ng ulan doon sa itaas. Instead of arguing, what do you suggest?”

With Singson clarifying that Candaba Swamp alone can store excess water which could be released once the Pampanga River drains, thereby preventing massive inundation, the local government executives committed to support the proposal.

The president’s last word during the briefing: “The location of water impounding is not a political decision, it is a decision made for us by nature. Kailangan nating sundan ang takbo ng lupa, ang takbo ng tubig. Hindi dahil pabor yung isa, malapit sa presidente yung isa. It doesn’t work that way.”

And that was the end of it.

Alas, three years and 26 days after, we hear Dizon say, today, Sept. 2: “Now it’s time to execute.”

We can only hope he’s on the same page as the president.

As for Bondoc, that moment of insolence has become the albatross around her neck, reeking at every flooding over the loss of what might have been. 

 

It never fails...It never happens

NAG-MESSAGE NA po ang kalikasan! Huwag na po tayong bumoto ng mga magnanakaw!

Sana maala-ala ninyong dulot ito ng mga magnanakaw na politiko sa sandaling kaharap na ninyo at susulatin/bibilugan ang balota sa susunod na eleksyon.

Sana tag-ulan ang eleksyon. Ang bilis kasi natin makalimot, eh.

Save nyo lahat ng video at photo ng baha. Yan ang gawin nating kodigo sa election.

Huwag tayong makalimot kapag election maging matalino sa oras ng pagboto!

Madala na sana tayo sa wakas, tayong walang kadala-dala.

Keng eleksyon, pakaisip-isip tamu.

Pota ngeni mu ing muwa mu. Sana keng eleksyon eka mula-mulala.

IT NEVER fails, after any major calamity or disaster – voters venting vitriol on incumbents, vowing vengeance in the next elections.

It never happens, anyway – the usual suspects getting as easily re-elected. 

For, as I have written and rewritten in columns past --

… In the pursuit of our electoral exercises do we, as we should, to quote Baruch Spinoza, “… use in security all (our) endowments, mental and physical, and make free use of (our) reason”?

Reason, my ass. Reason is at its weakest when passion is at its strongest. This is borne in Philippine elections: always visceral, rarely, very, very rarely cerebral. There lies a chasm as unbridgeable as sin between man and God.

Fettered on patronage, the electorate makes the vote a commodity to trade for some favor, given or promised, or to directly sell for cash. The outrageous outburst of Gouverneur Morris at the time of the infancy of the American nation comes of age anew: “Give the vote to the people who have no property, and they will sell them to the rich, who will be able to buy them.” Not only able but willing and raring to buy them.

Factored on popularity, the electoral choices tax the intellect of the gnat. Were a brain pool of the country’s elected officials established – in the Senate and the House, infamously – it most surely would fit the head of a pin.

Fault not the elected. Damn the electorate.

So, we have clowns and idiots in the Houses, so we are the clowns and the idiots ourselves. An iteration ad nauseam: We just don’t deserve whom we elect. We are whom we elect.

The booboisie, as H.L. Mencken put it, is us. And our vote, that “great right grossly abused, and has become, in practice, a grave wrong.”

 

 

 

Gone in 3 days: What if

LUBAO, Pampanga -- “Sa DPWH, hinihiling po namin ang agarang pag-inspeksyon at pagkilos sa nasirang slope protection sa gilid ng Sto. Cristo Dam. Mahalaga pong matiyak ang kaligtasan ng ating mga kababayan at maiwasan ang paglala ng pinsala, lalo na sa panahon ng malakas na pag-ulan. Umaasa po kami sa inyong agarang tugon at aksyon. Maraming salamat po.”

So, Vice Mayor Jhay Montemayor posted on his FB page on Tuesday, Aug. 25, with a video of the dam and photo of two houses – one unfinished, the other occupied – on its embankment.  

On Friday, Aug. 28, a video of apparently the occupied house collapsing and swept by rampaging floodwaters from the Sto. Cristo Dam was uploaded by Rockwell Piñgul De Leon and instantly went viral.  

Amid some anguished wailing, cry the questions of what-ifs and what-might-have-beens.  

 

 

Sto. Cristo Dam: Same quagmire, a year apart

 

“IPINAKITA PO namin ni Gov. Nanay kay [DPWH] Secretary Vince Dizon at mga opisyal ng National Irrigation Administration ang pinsala na tinamo ng Sto. Cristo Dam sa Lubao mula kahapon, Aug. 28.

“Sa kasagsagan ng malakas na ulan, inanod ng rumaragasang tubig ang mga puno at putik mula sa kabundukan ng Zambales mountain range, dahilan kung bakit nagbara at lumiko ang tubig na tumangay ng apat na bahay sa kalapit na baryo. Ipapakumpuni po ang dam. 

“Kakailangan din po na magtanim ng mga puno sa itaas. Nagpapasalamat po kami kay Secretary Vince sa agarang inspection na ni-request po ng ating governor.”

Thus, posted Vice Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda on his social media page on Aug. 29, with corresponding pictures of the inspection. 

There is something uncanny about the vice governor’s post, some feeling of déjà vu with the photos, some recurrence in the same spot from only a year past.

 JULY 2025                

 

DAM NOT IN DANGER

LUBAO, Pampanga – The National Irrigation Administration Pampanga-Bataan Irrigation Management Office has denied reports circulating in social media that the Sto. Cristo Dam in Barangay Sta. Rita here is in danger of collapsing due to soil erosion. The agency assured residents that it continues to monitor the dam for the community’s safety.

On July 23, sandbagging operations on an eroded slope protection were undertaken by NIA- PamBat IMO, along with the DPWH 2nd District Engineering Office, Sta. Rita barangay council, Bureau of Fire Protection, Philippine National Police, and irrigators association members. NIA-3 FB page

 

NANAY GOV STRESSES SENSE OF URGENCY IN DIKE ROAD REPAIR

LUBAO, Pampanga -- “Tingnan mo naman ang mga taong masasalanta… yung pananim, yung agrikultura, yung mga bahay at ari-arian nila. Kung mawa-wash out ito, ano naman ang mangyayari sa kanila?”

Checking it herself, Gov. Lilia "Nanay" Pineda impacts the sense of urgency in the immediate restoration of the collapsed portion of a dike road near the Sto. Cristo Dam in Barangay Sta. Rita here, to be followed by a long-term, sustainable solution.

With Nanay Gov in her on-site monitoring were officials of the DPWH, NIA-PamBat IMO, PNP, the local government of Lubao, the chiefs of the provincial engineering, environment and natural resources, and disaster risk reduction and management offices. Governor Pineda remains proactive in ensuring the safety and welfare of all Kapampangans amid these natural calamities. Pampanga PIO

DPWH CHIEF ASSESSES DAMAGED DIKE ROAD, IMMEDIATE REPAIR SET

LUBAO, Pampanga — “It’s a critical situation if we don’t act quickly. But rest assured that this will be attended to by the government, including NIA and DPWH.”

DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan on July 25 personally made a personal assessment of the damaged dike road in Barangay Sta. Rita here, a day after Gov. Lilia “Nanay” Pineda raised alarm over the imminent danger to life, property, and livelihood of the surrounding communities.

The governor called on the DPWH and the NIA to carry out immediate measures on the eroded slope of the dike near the Sto. Cristo Dam which is under NIA management.

Following the on-site assessment, Bonoan confirmed that NIA, in coordination with the provincial government, is prepared to carry out immediate and necessary repairs and rehabilitation works on the affected sections of the dike. 

Among the immediate measures the governor called for was sheet pile shoring where interlocking steel or concrete sheets are driven into the ground to create a continuous wall for earth retention and support in eroded areas…

 SEPTEMBER 2025  

REPAIR WORK AT STO. CRISTO DAM

LUBAO, Pampanga – On Sept. 26, as part of precautionary measure for oncoming super tropical storm Opong, Lt. Col. Dederick M. Relativo, acting chief of police, personally inspected the water level of Sto. Cristo Dam, inadvertently named Sta. Rita Dam due to its location in Barangay Sta. Rita. Posted in the police’s FB page is a photograph of the cop chief and an aide at the dike by the dam. 

Last July 24, mainstream media carried this photograph of the dike damaged at the onslaught of storms Dante and Emong and the southwest monsoon, which looks like a reproduction of the first photo sans the persons.

On July 25, then-DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan did an on-site inspection, with equipment and material, principally sheet piles, for the dike repair on hand. 

On July 28, heavy equipment were reported to be at work at the site as shown in this CLTV-36 photograb. Sheet piles embedded into the bank not even halfway the dike level show work accomplished for two months. The Editor 

 

AND THEN, but for the assurances of NIA heard in perfunctory meetings, nothing more was publicized of the rehabilitation of the Sto. Cristo Dam. Until the southwest monsoons this week impacted it anew into the public consciousness. 

So, yesterday, Aug. 28, Dizon stood, looked, and made a point where his now disgraced predecessor Bonoan did the same but a year ago. 

And the same Sisyphean rigmarole rolls on. And on. And on.