Destroy the Church? What nut!

DEFENSELESS ROME at the mercy of the rampaging barbarian horde, the seat of Christendom ready for the sacking, for scorching, for reduction to rubble.

The populace cowering in terror, their armies having long abandoned them to the slaughter. Who stands against the impending mayhem and murder? None but the Santo Papa, in his full papal regalia meeting the Barbaro at the very gates of the Holy City. Whereupon heaven opens, San Miguel Arcangel with flaming sword descending, scaring the wits out of the invaders. And Iglesia Catolica Apostolica Romana was saved.

The earliest tale of the invincibility of the Catholic Church I heard from my maternal grandmother, Rita Pineda Canlas vda. de Zapata, as part of my catechetical studies at age 4.

It did not matter that my Apu Rita did not even know the characters in the story, neither did she care of its veracity. All that counted was that it came from the cura parroco of her youth, the saintly Padre Daniel and served as an affirming moment of her Faith. And assured that I, her beloved apo, believed and would live up to that Faith.

I was already in high school, in the seminary, when grandma’s story found flesh in the encounter of Attila the Hun and Pope Leo I at Mincio – outside Rome – where the pontiff successfully convinced “the scourge of God” to withdraw from all of Italy. No Archangel Michael appearing in the clouds there, but “divine intervention” still cited – at least by my History professor Ciso Tantingco – in the famine and disasters visited upon the Hun tribes that gave Attila the scare to call off his invasion and plunder of Rome.

In those formative years, Attila’s story made one manifestation of gospel truth on the impregnability of the Church, as in Matthew 16:18: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Thus, the Church not only surviving but triumphing over every persecution, its persecutors cast to damnation: from its earliest days in the pagan Rome of Nero onto Diocletian and Galerius, to the Visigoths of Alaric, from the reign of empires and authoritarianism, to the spectre of communism. 

Stalin

“The Pope! How many divisions has he got?” Famously, and haughtily, asked Stalin dismissing the relevance of the Vatican in the post-WWII restructuring of Europe.

Less famously but as disdainfully, he told Churchill: “God is on your side? Is He a Conservative? The Devil's on my side, he's a good Communist.”

But, apparently, not good enough when it comes to sustainability: Stalin’s pride -- the monolith that was the USSR – totally disintegrating on its 74^th year. Though outliving the Soviet supremo by 38 years.  

Afflicted with the worst case of odium fidei – hatred of the Faith – was Hitler who subjected Catholics – second only to the Jews – to his persecutory perversity. The Church having stood up and spoke against the Fuehrer even at the very beginning of his ascendancy.

Hitler ended a suicide in a bunker under the rubble of Berlin; his thousand-year Reich lasting but a decade.

Truly, G.K. Chesterton with his usual paradox: “Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all its conquerors.”

Indeed, as that anecdote -- currently trending in the web – of Napoleon boasting to a Cardinal how, if he, Bonaparte, so desired, could destroy the Catholic Church in an instant. And the Cardinal responding with a laugh: “We the clergy, with our sins and stupidity have been trying to destroy the Church for 1,800 years. What makes you think you can do better?”

That the Church has not imploded with all the vicious battering from within, incessant through the ages – from the heresies to the schisms, the forgeries, the decadence of the medieval papacy finding its zenith in the depravity of Alexander VI, the excesses of the Inquisition, the impact of the Reformation, all the way down to the cases of priestly paedophilia – can only bespeak of, aye, witness to, its divine foundation.

The Rock

Taking on Matthew 16:18, St. Augustine wrote in Interpreting John’s Gospel:

“Peter, because he was the first apostle, represented the person of the church by synecdoche…(W)hen he was told ‘I will give you the keys of heaven’s kingdom…’ he was standing for the entire church, which does not collapse though it is beaten, in this world, by every kind of trial, as if by rain, flood and tempest. It is founded on a Stone [Petra], from which Peter took his name Stone-Founded [Peter] – for the Stone did not take its name from the Stone-Founded but the Stone-Founded from the Stone…because the Stone was Christ.”        

How providential for this to be written on Corpus Christi Sunday, imbuing a deeply personal meaning to that truth long revealed and ever revealing: The Church is the Body of Christ. We are the Church. We are the Body of Christ.

Then, who can be against us? Indeed, not even the devil can destroy us?

Lest I lapse into some Catholic conceit, and dare all self-proclaimed wanna-be-destroyers of the Church to “Bring it On,” let me just leave it to Luke 1:52: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, he hath exalted the humble.” 

The arrogance of power. Hubris, it is called in Greek tragedy. Finding its full meaning in Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

So shall it come to pass. Have faith.         

 

 

           

Bottom feeders

AS UNCHANGING as the seasons, climate change notwithstanding: the exodus of politicos to the winning side at the end of every presidential poll.

So much for party politics, with the personality always taking primacy. All pretensions to party advocacy reduced to…well, pretensions.

So Manuel Luis Quezon ranted: “My loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to my country begins.” God bless him.

Party loyalty is oxymoronic here; loyalty to the country is as true as Judas’ devotion to Christ. Where politicos are concerned.

The pre-eminence of the individual politician over his party, inherent in Philippine political history. Thus, Nacionalista Party-Roy Wing, Liberal Party-Kalaw Wing, Liberal Party-Salonga Wing in the not-too-distant past.

Thus, during the hello-Garci-days-of-Glory, a Liberal Party sundered by anti-GMA and pro-GMA flanks winging to Lito Atienza on the right and Frank Drilon on the left. Venerable old Jovy Salonga tottering at the fulcrum.

On another plane, witness how political parties here are hitched on the tides and fortunes of their founders.

The Kilusang Bagong Lipunan was an invincible monolith at the time of the Marcos dictatorship only to crumble to dust after EDSA Uno.

The sainted Cory Aquino took Ramon Mitra’s Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino to the promised land, then pulled the rug from under him and emerged with Fidel V. Ramos’ Lakas-Tao that evolved into Lakas-NUCD-UMDP and then to Lakas-CMD.

Come, gone, and come again is Joseph Estrada’s Partido ng Masang Pilipino.

As instant as its coming was its going for Lito Osmena’s Promdi.

A virtual party of one is Miriam Defensor’s Reform Party, runner-up in 1992, fourth placer in 1998, fifth and last in 2016.

While Aksyon Demokratiko did not die with Raul Roco, it failed to elect its single national candidate – Mark Lapid – to the Senate. Ah, yes, Aksyon provided forever Mabalacat City Mayor Boking Morales his umpteenth win.

Speaking of Boking, his dalliances with political parties are said to be as storied as those with the mothers of his kids – losing in 1992 under both Lakas and LDP, winning in 1995 under Lakas, 1998 and 2001 under Lingap-Lugud Capampangan, 2007 under Kampi, 2010 and 2013 under Kambilan and 2016 under Aksyon.

That the Philippine electoral praxis has made a mockery of party politics is an understatement.

So channeling the boy who cried wolf, I segue to these relevancies anew:

PRINCIPLED politics is a contradiction in terms: mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed, for in politics “no one acts on principles or reasons from them.”

There is that generalization arising from the fixity of our intellectual habits that deems the recurring characteristic trait of a segment of one species as representative of that species, if not of the whole genus.

Thus, taken on the whole, politicians are “…the vilest and the narrowest of sycophants and courtiers that humanity has ever known; their sole end basely to flatter and develop all popular prejudices, which, for the rest, they but vaguely share, never having consecrated one minute of their lives to reflection and observation.”

And, Monsieur Leroy Beaullieu did not even live long enough to read of the Filipino politician, writing as he was of the French kind in the 1890s. So what’s the difference between a Filipino politician and dalag? One is a voracious filth-feeding bottom dweller. The other is a fish.

Expediency and exigency, utility and interests – self-serving, vested interests, are the fundamental matters whence politics breeds.

In no single recent issue – political, naturally – are all the above “matters” most instanced than in Davao City now.

Disserving the deserving

LOBBYING BY anonymity. This is really one for the books. But then, that’s going way ahead of the story…

“We are calling on our presumptive President Rodrigo Duterte to consider appointing Dr. Alvaro as the next president of CDC. It is a known fact in the business, socio-civic and political circles that he is the best man to lead Clark and spur it to further development.”

So “a group of traders, investors and local officials from Pampanga” endorsed Dr. Irineo “Bong” Alvaro, Phd, -- “top Kapampangan businessman and Angeles City son” – as successor to the now nominated Transportation and Communication Secretary Art P. Tugade.

So Sun-Star Pampanga headlined this Saturday.

“The best man to lead CDC and propel it to further, much needed and awaited development,” pushed the group of the president of BBI International Leisure and Resort Development Corp. which operates the grand Midori Clark Hotel and Casino, and is also set to construct a giant water theme park at the Clark Freeport.

Aside from his sound business sense, Alvaro has a doctorate degree in public administration from the Angeles University Foundation, definitively arming him with “the experience, expertise and capability to run CDC, with the big plus of integrity, as the former three-term Angeles city councilor and city administrator was never tainted with corruption or any other issues as a public servant.”

Iterated the group: “Dr. Alvaro has never been connected to graft and corruption when he was a local official and public servant. He has the integrity, character and acumen needed to run Clark. A big factor here is that Dr. Alvaro knows all and is adept with issues concerning the CDC and the Freeport.”

And reiterated for emphasis: “Having Dr. Alvaro at CDC will spell out the difference for Clark and the entire North and Central Luzon growth corridors. He is a strong advocate of development with the heart for the people and of course, business and progress for all. We hope that our incoming president would consider his appointment through a request we would formalize soon.”

Yes, Dr. Alvaro is all that. I cannot agree more. In fact, he is more than that.

Dignity became Dr. Alvaro during the incumbency of Mayor Francis “Blueboy” Nepomuceno when he opted to resign as city administrator rather than acquiesce to the “extra-legal imposition of the Kumander Sumulong-type taxation at Fields Avenue” reportedly perpetrated by the mayor’s three closest stooges known for the initial AMP. Indeed, “Alvaro AMPed,” so we wrote here then of the resignation, equally dishing out an opprobrium of Mr. Blue and his minions, and an encomium of Dr. Alvaro.

No question about it. Dr. Alvaro has what it takes not only to be CDC president. He has the making of one damned good CDC president.

No, I am not rooting for Dr. Alvaro’s appointment. I – and this paper – have no business lobbying for whomever to whatever capacity in government. That is beyond the pale of the press.

The CDC presidency is fair game to the media. Ours is an adversarial – mostly, but fair – always, relationship with the state-owned body, religiously observed from the presidency of Tito Henson to Romy David, from Rufo Colayco through Serge Naguiat, Babes Singson, Manny Angeles, Tony Ng, Levy Laus, Benny Ricafort, Ping Remollo all the way to Tugade. None of them was spared the vitriolic ink of The Voice, Sun-Star Clark, Pampanga News, Luzon Banner and Punto! All of them were equally given their day in print, the positive developments they effected gaining unlimited mileage.  

But we respect the right of any group or any person to raise to the pedestal whomever they want to. To each his own hero or saint, we say.

Impropriety though is written all over this headlined Alvaro lobby. So, who is doing the lobbying?

“A group of traders, investors and local officials from Pampanga… which requested not to be named yet prior to its coming out in the open soon.” So reported Sun-Star Pampanga.

The cloak of anonymity media readily blanket news sources under clear and present danger of reprisal by those they expose. It warrants no reason then for this lobby group to ask that they not be named – even, as yet – with their cause of Dr. Alvaro’s ascendancy to the CDC presidency being least perilous, and most pleasing, to their physical, social, or moral well-being.

By coming out in the media faceless, this group showed they cannot even own up to any and all of the things they said about Dr. Alvaro. Thereby nullifying their very own advocacy.        

Theirs, as much in form as in effect, is an unnamed, unsigned petition. And what idiot, what more Duterte, would give that his least consideration, even if gospel truth be there inscribed?  

Besides, the incoming president himself has said any endorsement from politicians for any position in his government will automatically disqualify the endorsee.  

Rather than serving some good purpose, this lobbying only grossly disserved the truly deserving Dr. Alvaro.

Mabiasa na ko mang mamasang balat kendi, as the resident streetside filosofo is wont to say. Can’t dig that? It translates to “Learn how to read candy wrappers.” Go, figure.     

 

     

    

Changeless

WE’VE SEEN it coming.

Yeah, the promise of change that surged into the tsunami that crested with the victory of Rodrigo Duterte appears now to have smashed into and broken by the wall of differential sameness.

That is if we go by the frenzied political horse-trading already in full swing in Davao City and the first choices to man Duterte’s cabinet.

Nacionalista Party, which could not make a definitive choice for vice president in the recent polls, thereby declaring a libre zona which let loose Bongbong Marcos, Alan Peter Cayetano, and Sonny Trillanes upon the electorate, is the first political party to ink a "coalition for change agreement” with Duterte’s PDP-Laban.

Its immediate prize – the choice of Las Pinas Rep. Mark Villar for secretary of the  Department of Public Works and Highways. The designee is the son of NP president Manny Villar, 2010 presidential also-ran and real estate mogul ala The Donald.

Still struck by the C-5 Road imbroglio that smeared the Villar spouses, not a few netizens now smirk at the designation of their hijo at the DPWH as akin to Dracula being made blood bank CEO. Even worse, a pedophile put in charge of an orphanage.

In the last elections, the once formidable monolith that was Lakas-CMD had only one candidate on the national stage – senatorial loser Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez.

But this did not prevent the now party du jour, PDP-Laban, from forging a “covenant of unity” with the emaciated Lakas, with Romualdez and presumptuous House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, PDP-Laban sec-gen, doing the signing.

Hyped Romualdez: "The agreement is about working for change. We will work together under the Duterte presidency to push people’s interests."

Push people’s interest. Yes, starting with the liberation of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from hospital arrest. What higher interest for Lakas than that!

At the same Alvarez pre-debut event, GMA’s once Transportation Secretary hailed the support extended to him by his incoming House peers from the Nationalist People's Coalition, the National Unity Party, the Great Ferdinand’s Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, and the 40-strong Party-list Coalition Foundation Inc. (PCF).

Gushed Alvarez: "In behalf of the Duterte Administration, we would like to sincerely thank you for your support and we have a lot of things to do to execute the changes that the Duterte Administration have promised to the Filipino people. We hope that the days to come, we shall be united in pursuing the legislation needed to effect the necessary changes."

Changes? If it be truly necessary and in pursuit of the interest of the people, it will not – most certainly – come from these House antiquarians finding common ground with Imelda Marcos, regally and unrepentantly holding court at Alvarez’s bash. 

Yes, what change could come out of playing the traditional post-election sport called balimbingan? Of butterflies flitting from one flower to the other, seeking the sweetest nectar? Of plain political prostitution, in all its graphic obscenity. Of the party pooper in the last elections becoming the party boy in the next? Of political opportunism.

Actually balimbingan has devolved into something worse. Now, politicos don’t change parties like they change clothes. They need not to, really, as they just come as they are, walk into just any party and laugh their way into the graces of the party in power.

And then there are the initial choices for the Duterte cabinet.

I can only maintain guarded pessimism with Digong’s brightest San Beda classmate and cussing-kin Art P. Tugade – no, that middle initial does not stand for his ejaculatory delight.

Notwithstanding, the kilometers of print I churned out lambasting Tugade’s presidency at the Clark Development Corp., I still hope for the basic goodness, for the patriotism in the man to come to the fore at the DOTC. Even at the expense of eating crow.       

Recycled from the GMA shelf – not that anything’s bad with that – are Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo given the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.; Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro in a role reprisal; peace negotiators Jess Dureza and Bebot Bello, also in their familiar roles. 

From the FVR times: Securities and Exchange Commission chair Perfecto Yasay to serve as the acting Foreign Affairs secretary.

I applaud the designation of Manny Piñol at the Department of Agriculture. Evene before his foray in politics that landed him the governorship of North Cotabato many times over, I have known and worked with the once sports commentator and writer of Manila Bulletin, most prominently in the 1992 FVR campaign.

As to Ampatuan lawyer Salvador Panelo as presidential spokesperson and the Maid Miriam-slammed hands-on-ears Vitaliano Aguirre at the Department of Justice, I can only hope Duterte was just in one of his poker-faced joking mood.  

Change is coming? Believe at your own peril.

Thinking 2019

THE ACRID smoke of battle has barely settled and already some wags are looking forward to the next elections. At least that’s what we’ve been hearing at the local scene.

So, who was it that said politicians think of the next election while statesmen think of the next generation? His truth indubitably established with the one that defined the statesman as a politician long interred. Yes, species gone to extinction, the statesman hereabouts.

Alive, awake, agog as our politicians ever are, fast forward to 2019, so we oblige then.

With tradpol-killer-dubbed Ed Pamintuan graduating as Angeles City hizzoner – with the highest honors ever, if we go by the laudations of Dan Concepcion and Alexander Cauguiran – it’s Vice Mayor Bryan Matthew Nepomuceno at the pole position in the next mayorship grand prix. That’s a no-brainer.

But guess who’s being paired with him? Councilor Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin, that’s who!

Which, in effect, trivializes, if not negates, EdPam’s demolition of the city’s long-running, alternately ruling dynasties: besting the incumbent Blueboy, uncle to Bryan in 2010; and trouncing the comebacking Tarzan, father to Pogi in 2013.

And where will that situate EdPam? In direct collision with the other Carmelo Lazatin Junior – Jon-Jon, the new kid in the congressional block.

Instantly rekindled are thoughts of 1998 when VM Blueboy, personally handpicked by Pamintuan in 1995, ran against him and won in the 1^st district congressional race. The twist is it’s not the Nepo that tandemed with Pamintuan this time that he’d be up against, but a dynast just the same.

As to the Lapid dynasty, with the father Lito ignominiously losing in Angeles City and the son Mark way off the mark in his shot at the Senate, the unholy spirit of politics shall take them back to the home district.

With Gov. Lilia G. Pineda having accomplished her full course, the Bida may just script a Pagbabalik ni Leon Guerrero sa Kapitolyo or produce one for Mark, having served too as governor. Or either of them can contest the 2^nd district congressional seat, with the infirmed GMA having served her last term by then. Best – or worst, depending on the fandom index – case scenario: the father gunning for governor, the son for congressman.

Whatever, a Lapid will most definitely run for Porac mayor with Carling de la Cruz by then graduated. It could be the youngest, now first councilor Meynard.   

It will not only be the Lapids that shall seek a stop to the ascendancy of Vice Gov. Dennis Pineda to the Capitol throne in 2019, deemed as no more than a bequeathal from his, and our, beloved Nanay.  

Notwithstanding his recent public declaration that the governorship is “far from (his) mind,” re-elected 4^th District Rep. Juan Pablo “Rimpy” Bondoc has always been known as having cast a moist eye at the Capitol. If only to fulfil his father Don Emigdio’s unrealized dream.            

Come to think of it, there’s really something “Capitolistic” about Rimpy when he’s grounded in some position of strength as he proved when he ran for governor in 2004 after triumphing anew in the 4^th district – unopposed – in 2001. Whence he comes in an even stronger position now after avalanching, absent the formidable Iglesia Ni Cristo bloc votes, his Pineda-fortified rivals Jerry Pelayo of Candaba in 2013 and Junjun Tetangco of Apalit in 2016, both esteemed presidents of the Pampanga Mayors League at the time of their running.

Tagged as vice governor to Rimpy is twice re-elected Bacolor Mayor Jomar Hizon. That is if the Pampanga’s Best matriarch would not have her hijo favorito make a run for the governorship itself. 

Even given the unlikelihood that is a separate district for Angeles City, ousted incumbent 1^st District Rep. Joseller “Yeng” Guiao of Magalang is seen to have no walk in the park in his comeback bid.

With vote-richer Mabalacat City taking the place of Angeles City in a gerrymandered 1^st district, forever-Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales may just find the compelling motivation to finally get himself out of city hall.

After topping the provincial board contests in the past two elections, all that Engr. Dinan Labung needs to run for the House in 2019 is a waiver from his ninong, Oscar S. Rodriguez, and avenge Oca’s recent loss to Cong. Dong Gonzales who, courtesy of the INC bloc votes, also dealt Dinan his loss in 2007.

Back to the 2^nd district, a Congresswoman Pineda – either the Nanay or the mayora, Mylyn – are sure shoo-ins in 2019.

But then, GMA anointing either unica hija Luli or former Cong. Mikey is being poised, at this early, as a strong probability, given the need to preserve what little remains of the political stock still obtaining in the Macapagal name.  

With all these scenarios already being bandied about, is it still too early to talk politics?

Why, the elections are already a week short of three years from now.     

      

Political landscaping

WHAT HAVE Cong. Yeng Guiao, Cong. Oca Rodriguez, Mayor Junjun Tetangco, BM Cris Garbo, and ex-Mayor Buddy Dungca have in common?

One, they all lost in the recent elections: in the 1^st, 3^rd, and 4^th congressional districts, in the Mabalacat City and the Bacolor mayorships (in the order as the names appeared above).

Two, and more telling, they all famously enjoyed the full support of Gov. Lilia G. Pineda, and all the political potency that unfailingly comes with it.

Still they lost.

Comes now the eureka moment of some armchair political sayang-tists crying: “Pampanga’s political landscape has changed!” Not the least implying the Pineda political monolith has irreparably cracked.

Changed? Duh! Cracked? Duh! Duh!

Lilia G. Pineda is governor, unopposed. Dennis “Delta” Pineda is vice-governor, unopposed. Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab is Lubao mayor, unopposed. Dare anyone challenge any of them now?

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is 2^nd district congresswoman, unopposed. No matter expending her mandate in the hospital rather than in the House.

All three board members of the 2^nd district – Tonton Torres, Art Salalila, Jun Dimson – won unopposed under the Gov’s Kambilan banner.

All three board members of the 3^rd district – Dinan Labung, Rosve Henson and Junior Canlas – ran and won on the platform “Nanay’s Choice, Delta Boys.”

Of the two winning 1^st district BMs, one belongs to Kambilan – Cherry Manalo, the other – Benny Jocson (Ind), had the Pineda mom and son in his campaign posters.

So one of the two 4^th district BMs – Pol Balingit (NP) is dyed-in-the-whole Bondoc man. But the other – comebacking Nelson Calara (UNA), had had some konek with the Pinedas in his SP past.

What better proof of the permanence of the Pampanga political landscape than Mabalacat City Mayor Boking Morales? He, who has been mayor since 1995 and just re-elected to his second term – as city mayor – in 2016! A span of 21 long years there!

So it was the star-crossed Cris Garbo that the Pinedas supported! So it was Boking that had more – and bigger – tarpaulins with the Pinedas’ mugs beaming beatifically beside his.

Pigeonhole now Pampanga’s elected mayors. Bona fides in Kambilan: Mylyn in Lubao, Carling de la Cruz in Porac, Dagi Salalila in Sta. Rita, Nardo Velasco in Sasmuan, Anette Flores-Balgan in Macabebe, Edgar Flores in Minalin, Leonora Wong in San Simon, and the unopposed Asiong Macapagal in San Luis – eight in all.

With the Liberal Party – which as everyone knows aligned with the Gov for these polls: Bon Alejandrino in Arayat, Dan Guintu in Masantol, Teddy Tumang in Mexico, Norberto Gamboa in Sta. Ana, Dante Torres in Guagua and Edwin Santiago in the City of San Fernando – six.   

With the NPC, with VG Delta as chair of the provincial chapter: Peter Nucom in Apalit, Malu Paras-Lacson in Magalang – two.

All by his lonesome in Lakas: Darwin Manalansan in Floridablanca.

All alone too in Aksyon Demokratiko, but self-professed loyalty to the Pinedas: Boking in Mabalacat City.

Being first-time mayor and an independent candidate, Candaba’s Danilo Baylon we tag as stray chick, ready for the Pineda picking, and nurturing.

Only two mayors can really be considered out of the Pineda coop: Bacolor’s Jomar Hizon (LP) after a bitter war of attrition with Pineda protégé Buddy Dungca and Bondoc thoroughbred neophyte Mayor Johnny Sambo (NP) of Sto. Tomas.

Kambilan, NPC, LP, Lakas – multi-parties with multi-directions but spelled one way in Pampanga: P-I-N-E-D-A.       

A change in the political landscape? Duh! Duh! Duh!

More of the same too even in politics played as familial sport.

Mayor-father and councilor-son in Mabalacat City – Boking and Dwight, as well as in Angeles City – EdPam and Edu.

Brothers, the elder as congressman – Carmelo “Jonjon” Lazatin II; the younger as city councilor – Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin Jr.

Magalang Mayor Malu Pecson-Lacson is sister-in-law of her VM Norman Lacson.

More intramural than internecine is the elections in Macabebe with re-electionist Mayor Anette Flores-Balgan beating her brother former Mayor Bobong whose son Vince was re-elected vice mayor. Re-elected too as councilor is Balgan’s daughter Bembong.

Vice mayor brother – Dexter David, and councilor sister Fritzie victorious both in Porac.

Doble pusuy in Floridablanca with three-term Mayor Eddie Guerrero doing a Duterte – fielding his daughter Dr. Leck for his post and sliding to vice mayor, and miserably losing both.

Apalit’s Junjun Tetangco running for congressman and his wife Jen for vice mayor met similar disastrous results.

In Mabalacat City, Cris Garbo losing his mayoralty bid while daughter Win-Win proved his name right for the city council. 

Only one Sangil in the Angeles City council – comebacking Jay, his aspiring younger brother Teta and the re-electing Uncle Max falling by the wayside.

It’s strike three for the Lapids: the father Lito avalanched by EdPam in Angeles City; the son Mark, far off the Magic 12 in the Senate; and the brother Rey, missing the cut at Number 9 in the eight-man Porac sangguniang bayan, where the other son, Meynard though managed to land.   

Only the faces change. With the infrastructure in place, the landscape remains the same.

More than the surf's up beyond Baler

BALER, Aurora – Thanks to its “magnificent waves” this once somnolent town found itself etched in the world surfer’s map.

Seasonal though – November to February, when the waves crest to nine feet and even higher – surfing’s sustainability as top tourist draw for Baler made a valid question. So what is there in Baler, other than its waves, that shall lure even the unadventurous and less-sporty?

More. Much, much more. Pampanga mediamen discovered over a week back. At a time when the mighty Pacific Ocean is at its serene best, read: waves so gentle they would not even overturn a paper boat.

Purposely, the Department of Tourism Region 3 and the Aurora Tourism Office billeted us outside the surfers’ paradise that is the Sabang Beach area – at a boutique resort called SeaSta in Barangay Cemento, long ways from the town center.

But 100 arthritic steps from the resort is the Baler fish port, perfect site to view sunrise, though the early morning clouds deprived us of what is bruited about as one spectacular sight.

A short bird’s flight are the spectacular rock formations and tiny islets, with the well-paved road serving as the perfect viewing deck.

Why, the rock formations make a scenic constant along the stretch of the coastal highway leading to other Aurora towns, notably to Dipaculao with its 20-kilometer long beach in Dinadiawan with its white sand that approximates Boracay’s. A good thing though that Dinadiawan’s 23 hotels and resorts did not follow the bara-bara template of the country’s top beach attraction.

Besides the beaches, Baler’s agricultural base is now being pushed in the service of tourism too. At the Buenavista Farm, one can pick calamansi, pet the goats – the most photogenic ones, so it is blurbed – feed the native pigs, and thereafter refresh with fresh coco water, direct from the fruit, and calamansi jam on bread. Products that the farm sells too, wholesale or retail.

Herbs, guapples and pomelos, tilapia straight from the pond, and soon honey from its own apiary, plus upland rice – both in grains and as coffee, and turmeric powder are what Azbahaen Farm Resort offers.

Yes, products added to Baler’s staples of sabutan items, such as hats, fans, mats, slippers, table runner, place mats and bags. And food stuffs like suman, Nanay Pacing’s peanut butter and coco jam, pako salad, bukayo and pakumbo and banana chips.

The usual and more comes with tripping the past heroic through Baler’s historical trail, starting off at the San Luis Obispo de Talosa Church – we were privileged to have prayed at the wake of esteemed prelate Bishop Julio Xavier Labayen at the time of our visit, giving it a deep spiritual dimension – to the Maria Aurora Aragon Quezon house, to the marker of the Lt. Gilmore Rescue party (1899), to the Quezon Park and the Museo de Baler. 

Then, there’s Costa Pacifica – a destination on its own with its luxurious appointments, great food and location – right at Sabang Beach.

Rains prevented us from a host of other activities as a seaborne tour of the Dicasalarin Cove and the Artists’ Village thereabouts, plus the lighthouse; a trek up Ermita Hill and down the Dima-dimalangat Islets; and splash at the Ditumabo Falls in San Luis.

But then, as the seasoned traveler holds, “Don’t do overdo it the first time, so there’s some to come back for the next time around.”

Yes, sated as we are, for now, with Baler and Dipaculao, plus – on the way home to Pampanga – the Millennium Tree, purportedly Asia’s oldest and largest balete, in Maria Aurora town.

      

         

The virtue in losing

TRUE TO her name, so graciously conceded Sen. Grace Poe the presidency to Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

And instant was change of heart for not a few of those who disparaged her during the campaign, now professing to vote for her in 2022.  

Yes, for Poe and the rest of the losers – from the national to the local levels – the world has not ended. Clichéd in “Hope springs eternal,” or in the philosophy of the kanto: Habang may buhay, asa ka pa.

The also-ran can find solace in the rumination of Pulitzer Prize-winning The New York Times columnist William Safire in his The First Dissident subtitled The Book of Job in Today’s Politics, thus:  

“Is suffering a defeat good for a political person? The run for office is a short run, and the loser is not likely to find comfort in talk about the long run. But can rejection at the polls be fairly presented as what condolence-bearers sardonically call ‘a character-building experience’?”

Losing an election early in political career is deemed constructive. As Safire says, “a therapeutic trouncing introduces a little real humility into candidates who must at least profess humility.”

I do not know if wide-reader Mabalacat City Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales has even heard of Safire, but he makes the poster boy for the language maven’s wisdom.

Deemed the “sure winner” in the Mabalacat mayoralty contest of 1992 – what with a formidable war chest, the support of the contending Lakas-NUCD and LDP parties – he had Fidel Ramos on stage at his opening salvo and rival Ramon Mitra in his miting de avance, the INC bloc vote, not to mention his youthful appeal and on-stage bombast – Boking lost to the self-effacing, Dr. Catalino Domingo.

Humbled at the polls, bourgeois Boking attuned, if not immersed, himself in the ethos of the rural poor who comprised a clear majority of the Mabalacat constituency. Handily winning in 1995, he has not vacated the mayor’s seat since. Notwithstanding his Comelec-decisioned defeat in 1998. Notwithstanding the mandated three-term limitation.

Even in its transformation from mere municipality to component city, Mabalacat has kept its constancy with the Boking mayoralty.

That constancy finding even greater permanency in Monday’s election results, to wit: Boking’s 40,147 votes way over and above the combined votes of all his rivals – Board Member Cris Garbo with 17,710, former VM Noel Castro with 10,788, and fiery Boking-basher Pyra Lucas with 5,807.    

This, notwithstanding Boking’s flip-flop-flip in filing-withdrawing-refiling his certificate of candidacy.

This, despite Boking’s suffering the loss of the sanctioning grace of Pampanga’s powers-that-are.   

Perceivably, what Safire called the “law of political return” applies well to Boking, inhered in, aye, ingrained as he is with the “comeback quality.”

“Defeat, if it does not destroy them, tempers leaders. After reaching deep within for internal resources, they can rightly claim to have grown as a result of what the voters have taught them,” Safire holds.

Thus: “In the art of comeback, one lesson is not to insist that voters admit they were wrong last time, even if their choice of candidates turned out to be inept or corrupt in office. On the contrary, the putative comebacker should compliment the electorate on having been right in spotting his own shortcomings in policy or personality or presentation, which have been corrected – with no compromise of principle, of course. Last time losers should assert with pride that they have learned enough to become next time’s winners.”

So characteristically Boking. Finding the greater virtue in losing. Then never stop winning.

The INC blot

THE INC vote is out.

And the wailing and gnashing of teeth has begun...

Hold on to your hankies, guys. It ain’t over, as they say, till the fat…er, curvy, lady sings. And yeah, Elvis may still be in the building.

Keep the faith, hope against hope. There’s still two (or three?) more samba before E-Day. Only God – and Ka Eduardo, plus his Sanggunian – can be absolute if the pasiya leaked Wednesday is indeed the final decision.

2013 is not too remotely past to remember that a later pasiya superseded an earlier one, also a few days before the polls in Pampanga.

Cong. Tarzan Lazatin was the proclaimed choice for the Angeles City mayoralty race, only to be replaced by incumbent Mayor Ed Pamintuan in the final INC ballot.

In the fourth congressional district, the INC blessing for returning Cong. Rimpy Bondoc was withdrawn and conferred upon Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo, aka John Lloyd.

So, asa pa tayo more. Hope springs till damnation strikes, as some wit says.

Okay, even granting a candidate’s deprivation of the INC vote is finally final, this isn’t any fool-proof guarantee of certain victory to the chosen one.

Aye, there’s as much hit as miss with the Iglesia vote. Pelayo losing miserably to Bondoc, just one of them.

In 1995, even absent the INC vote, Cong Oscar S. Rodriguez reclaimed the third district congressional seat from 1992 nemesis Andrea “Didi” Domingo.

In his first run for the Mabalacat mayoralty race in 1992, then Vice Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales was all invincibility with the INC vote but still lost to the unassuming Dr. Cati Domingo. (Invincible indeed, Boking on paper then. What with the backing of two national parties contending the presidency: his opening salvo graced by Lakas-Tao with Fidel V. Ramos backstopped by incumbent President Cory Aquino; his miting de avance at the platform of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino spearheaded by Speaker Ramon Mitra.)    

Why, Ramos himself was denied the INC blessing in 1992 but still won, albeit by simple plurality. The INC-chosen, Danding Cojuangco a poor third, behind runner-up Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

The Senate is replete with as much winners as losers unrewarded with the INC vote. Top-of-the-mind flash shows Sen. Lito Lapid in 2007, who, it is bruited about ceded his INC-preferred-status to his son Mark then re-electing governor of Pampanga.

Notwithstanding the putative strength of the INC in the province, Mark, of course, landed dead last behind Comelec-proclaimed winner Among Ed Panlilio, and ultimate winner-via-electoral-protest Lilia G. Pineda.    

In his first win, after two successive failures, for an Angeles City council seat, Jay Sangil landed No. 5 sans the INC ballot. In his next two victories, he was gifted with the bloc votes though he landed ranks lower than fifth.

So it was reported that Councilor Amos Rivera failed to make the grade in the current INC list. So what’s new? Rivera, in similar straits, won – with plenty to spare – in 2013.

In the last barangay elections, Rodelio “Tony” Mamac did not have the INC backing. The odds against Mamac, already formidable, were made even insurmountable by the open support given his rival by Mayor Pamintuan, and, more telling, by the ruling political interest in the whole province. Just the same, the retired bemedalled police officer kept his stewardship of Angeles City’s premier barangay Balibago.

So the INC has kept off Mamac in the 2016 vice mayoralty race in favor of Atty. Bryan Matthew Nepomuceno. Same difference, Sir, as in 2013 when the T-Mac aspired for the same post and came second. Different results wished for this time though.

With these sample instances, I am just saying candidates who fail to get the church’s endorsement need not necessarily be pronounced dead-on-the-spot politically. Dead-on-arrival, neither.

The certainty of the INC vote – already suspect, is further cracked in the wake of the family feud that turned into internecine strife that rocked the sect  in mid-2015. And apparently far from being settled.

In the blog INC Silent No More, Antonio Ramirez Ebangelista recently posted “The Controversial INC Bloc Vote: Obeyed-No-More” with caveats to politicians seeking the sect’s blessing, to wit:                     

…(S)a pagkakataong ito, ang mga kapatid ay HANDANG BUMUWAG SA KAISAHAN at maghalal ng kandidatong KAYANG MANINDIGAN SA NARARAPAT anuman ang maging kahinatnan nito.

…(H)indi gaya sa mga nagdaang halalan kung saan buo at solido ng boto ng Iglesia, ngayon ay alam ng lahat na basag na ito at maraming mga kapatid ang nagpahayag na hindi nila susundin ang ie-endorso ng liderato ng INC. Sa kasaysayan ng Iglesia, ngayon lamang nagkaroon ng ganito napakatinding krisis sa liederato, at dahil sa lantad na ang mga ebidensya ng katiwalian, dadaanin namin sa pagboto ang aming gagawing malawakang protesta.

That’s some blot in the INC block that makes these elections even more interesting.

The fate we choose

AT NO time in Philippine electoral history has the basest in the Filipino character emerged in all its blackness than in this election at hand. Arguably, I must concede.

Even as the breadth of ignorance has always vastly covered the political field, nothing compares to its expanse this time, unreason and illogic the standard rule of exchange from the longest disquisitions to the shortest one-liners. To the inordinate advantage of the brute over the sapient.

Indeed, to paraphrase some philosopher: “By simply going on being absurd, a thing can become godlike; there is but one step from the ridiculous…” to the insane. 

Yes, and there is never a lack, on the contrary always a surfeit, of fanatical fools to behold eminence in tomfoolery. As we see now, they who find hilarity in the hideous, propriety in profanity, righteousness in absolute wrongs.

While vitriol has always formed part of the campaign arsenal, the past has nothing that can approximate the level of toxicity attendant to the current political discourse.

Indeed, the bigotry and hatred of high partisanship this time already abutting on depravity.

What one wished not on one’s worst enemies, is now routinely cast upon anyone differing from one’s choice for the presidency – from murder and mayhem, to rape of the entire family, infant members not excluded. Melai Cantiveros, Renee Julienne Karunungan, you are not alone. I feel you.

Why, rape – in rigor mortis, notwithstanding – has ceased as heinous degeneracy to become no more than a stand-up joke! All protests to its inhumanity dismissed with a condescending “Shut up!” Verily in character with one who has resorted to bluster to get the better off blunder. 

Yes, and what can one make of one who announced to all and sundry that for all he cared, his candidate can kill anyone he deemed an enemy of public order, rape all the women he wanted, even his own wife, and still would not budge from voting for him! 

Ah, to what absurdity have we indeed reduced ourselves!

Even the sacred lessons from the Bible, now no more than fair game to the truth-twister’s spin.

So God did not call the qualified, but rather qualified those whom He called – from the stuttering Moses to the adulterous David, from the cheating Jacob to the womanizing Samson, from the denying Peter to the persecuting Paul. So one imperfect candidate’s hordes now preach in the web.

So shall God too qualify the cursing, womanizing, self-confessed murderer then?

Not so fast, ‘tards. The qualification from God – as the Good Book also holds – comes after the remorse, atonement, recompense and renewal of those He called.

When but a simple apology, much less repentance is inextricable from the one He now supposedly to have called and be still the chosen one, then God could have as easily qualified Beelzebub himself.     

Ah, to what abyss have we sunk!

So how can we then vote, as we should – to quote Baruch Spinoza – with the full “… use in security all (our) endowments, mental and physical, and make free use of (our) reason”?

Alas, we have always pined for the honorable might-have-been.

Woe unto us to soon be ruing the despicable might-not-have-been.

Such is the fate we choose.  

          

On leadership

LEADERSHIP – the word as well as its application – has been so much abused and misused that we now have a warped sense of it. So shallow is our notion of leadership that we automatically affix “leader” to any elected official, to presidents and chairs of just about any organization with at least two members.

So long as there is one to command and another to follow, there exists leadership. There too bogs down our concept of the word. For leaders and followers do not make the whole dynamics of leadership. There is the third element of goal.

From the book Certain Trumpets, the thesis on the nature of leadership by Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills, I quote: “The goal is not something added to leader and followers. The goal is the reason for the other two’s existence. It is the equalizer between leader and followers. The followers do not submit to the person of the leader. They join him in the pursuit of the goal.”

Wills further expounds “…the leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leader and followers…all three elements (leader, followers and goal) are indispensable.”

Critical indeed is the requisite of a goal shared by both the leader and the followers in the holistic perspective, in the true nature of leadership.

Sadly, it is there – in the element of goal – that political leadership in the Philippine context is much, much wanting and thereby we the people almost always suffer.

More often than not, in fact as a matter of practice, the goal – as translated to interests – of the leader does not match, if not altogether contradicts, the goal or the interest of the followers.

No self-respecting presumptuous leader would ever accede to that. Thus, we all hear our so-called political leaders on the campaign trail vow their very “sacred honor” to the interests of the people. See those screaming streamers posted around: Bayan ang Bida, Serbisyong Tapat, Serbisyong Totoo, Serbisyong Todo-todo, Paglingkuran ang Bayan, ad nauseam.

Behold what political leaders do after getting elected! Conveniently forgetting their campaign promises, dishonoring their very vows to work for the interests of their constituency.

While honor may still obtain among thieves, it is a rarity among Philippine politicians.

So how and why do they get away with it? I mean thieves getting positions of leadership and robbing us, the followers, blind.

It is in the manner we choose our leaders. As a rule, Filipinos vote with their emotions, rarely with their intellect. Comes here the magic word charisma.

We are mesmerized by anyone with a flashy lifestyle: moviestars, entertainers, athletes, the pa-sosyal crowd, the perfumed set. Instantaneously, we stamp the word charisma on celebrity.

From the essential “divine grace,” the meaning of charisma has been so twisted that it is now a synonym to just about anything that is “attention-compelling” even to its essential antonym of “infamy”. Yeah, the infamous we now call charismatic.

And so we appended charisma on Joseph Estrada. To invest “divine grace” in one who makes the grandest mockery of the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Commandments of God is the most detestable sacrilege, the most damnable blasphemy. But did we know any better? (Shades of the same charismatic character no leading the pack of presidential pretenders. With his public flouting of the Fifth Commandment to boot!)

Star-struck, blinded by the flash of celebrity, bewitched by their larger-than-life personae, we readily elect fame over capability, choose passion over vision, favor make-believe over hard reality.

Erap was deposed, tried, imprisoned, convicted and pardoned. Erap nearly won the presidency a second time, but for the death of the sainted Cory Aquino that catapulted her son to Malacanang.

Again, Santayana’s damnation is upon us: We are a nation that cannot, that refuses to remember the past. We are a nation damned.

In the 1970s, a great political mind distilled the nature of Philippine politics thus: “Personalist, populist, individualist.” Then he went on to arrogate unto himself all the powers that can be had, and more – elevating himself to the pantheon of the gods, assuming the mythic Malakas of Philippine folklore with, naturally, the beautiful Imeldific, as his Maganda.

A keen student of history, Ferdinand Edralin Marcos took unto his public persona semblances of the charismatic leaders of the past: his World War II exploits – later proven false – invoked Napoleon, if not Caesar; his political philosophies gave him an aura of the Borgia and Medici clients of Machiavelli; his vision of a New Society paralleled Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal; his patronage of the arts that of Frederick the Great of Prussia.

Marcos even exceeded himself in self-cultivating an image of being his country’s hero-in-history in the moulds of Napoleon of France, Bolivar of Latin America, Lincoln of the USA, Garibaldi of Italy, Lenin of the Soviet Union, Ataturk of Turkey and Mao of China.

A wee short of divine rights, Marcos took upon himself a Messianic and Mosaic mission for the Philippines: Save the country and its democratic institutions from anarchy, lead the people to prosperity.

Indeed, what other Philippine leader did possess “charisma” greater than Marcos? Still, what happened to this nation?

Why, 30 years after the end of Marcosian misrule, the man remains a force to reckon with. His Junior is all but officially proclaimed vice president of the republic, on the right trajectory to reclaim the family heirloom. The dead man himself, still a burning issue in the presidential debates.

Which only goes to show as much the abysmal quality of leadership as the blinded followership in Philippine political practice. (Update of a piece first published here in August 2009)      

It has to come to this

SEETHING IN righteous anger over his maculated persona, comeback-wishing Cong. Dong Gonzales, nuked nemesis re-electing Cong. Oca Rodriguez with the most serious, if not insulting, accusation ever impacted on one publicly esteemed as the very avatar of good governance – thievery.

Cong Dong’s J’accuse moment replete with all the elements of a courtroom drama – television cameras and mics, phone recorders, voluminous legal documents, newspaper clippings, and hundreds of photocopied checks spread over a table. Aye, a table hardened by evidence?

It was too great an opportunity to miss. Thus the front page photo accompanying our banner story last issue: Oca is a thief!

There was just something that looked eerily familiar in the photograph. Yea, the photocopied checks. Which spurred some search in the internet, finding the answer in acaesar.blogspot.com where I stored past columns dating back to 2006. Here, dated Saturday, June 15, 2013:

 

It has to come to this

THE GODSON seethes.

Pampanga 3rd District Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales has taken his losing cause to the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) charging his nemesis – and wedding godfather – City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez as having purchased, wholesale and retail, his victory in the recent polls.

In his 10-page protest, Cong Dong alleged that Cong Oca caused his hand to sign and issue “numerous” checks in favor of as numerous payees just a few days before the elections, charged to the account of the City of San Fernando, Pampanga and the Municipality of San Fernando, Pampanga with the Land Bank of the Philippines, San Fernando Branch.

Cong Dong said that on May 10, 2013 at the city’s Heroes Hall, Cong Oca handed out “financial assistance” each in the amount of P5,000 to his so-called scholars at the Don Honorio Ventura Technological State University.

Numbering some 1,000, the supposed scholars, Cong Dong alleged, are residents not only of the City of San Fernando but also of other parts of the third district of Pampanga.

“The indiscriminate issuance of the above checks and the distribution of ‘financial assistance’ to numerous recipients, beneficiaries and/or scholars just a few days before the elections obviously constitute massive vote buying,” Gonzales charged, citing Cong Oca as having violated Section 261 of the Omnibus Election Code, which prohibits any public official or employee, including barangay officials, from releasing, disbursing or using public funds during 45 days before a regular election.

Also flouted, he added, was Comelec Resolution 9585, which implements Section 261 of the Omnibus Election Code that prohibits the release, disbursement and expenditure of public funds effective March 29, 2013 until May 13, 2013.

Were it not for Cong Oca’s “acts of massive and widespread vote-buying,” Cong Dong could have easily won last May 13. So believed his lawyers, citing his two previous landslide victories as proofs positive of his sure triumph over the comebacking Cong Oca.

“Having been elected twice already for the same position in the 2007 and 2010 elections, the sudden loss of some 87,376 votes is simply unexplainable and statistically improbable.” So the lawyers said.

The godfather speaks.

"It is all too ironic that he is protesting what he himself precisely did during the campaign and days before the election. I think he is very guilty of that, driving him to desperation. We never bought votes and we stand by our previous statement that we were never beaten by his money.” So was Cong Oca quoted in the local papers, in effect accusing his godson of projecting his image unto his godfather, of outsourcing the blame for his defeat on him.

Cong Oca turned the tables on Cong Dong on the very issue of scholarship assistance, blasting his godson as "an official who corrupted education."

Firing away thus: "It is very sad to note that he corrupted education. Saan ka makakakita na pati kindergarten binigyan ng P800 tapos scholar na. Iyung iba naman, P10,000 per family. We have proof and evidence too of such activities during the pre-election days but we kept it to ourselves para walang gulo. Besides, it is not my character na manira ng kapwa at mag-akusa. Indeed, his protest is very, very ironic. Pero kapag hindi niya itinigil ang kalokohan na iyan, kami naman ang magsasampa ng mga kaso laban sa kanya."

How did it ever come to this? Godfather versus godson? Politics sundering all spiritual bonds.

Politics has no relations to morals. Yeah, Machiavelli, as right today as then. 

YEAH, BACK to one ending. To start a new beginning toward a different ending?