Push back

PAMINTUAN TO push for Central Luzon development.

So bannered local media of Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan’s recent appointment as chair of the Regional Development Council-3 by President Duterte.

“I will serve the region during my last term as mayor of Angeles in coordination with all 17 other RDC chairpersons in the country and their governors and mayors all in the same tempo as the national agencies of government through their regional representatives will direct the path of economic growth and national goals.” So was Pamintuan quoted in iorbitnews.com.

The circumlocution there neither distraction nor detraction to the energy, ay, the impetus, with which Pamintuan takes this humongous responsibility. Further taking on greater weight, given Pamintuan’s other assignments as president of the League of Cities of the Philippines and adviser to the GRP negotiating panel in the current peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDFP. Not to mention being mayor of not just any usual Philippine city but an international one that is Angeles.

Ay, there’s the rub, nay, the bitter irony. As Pamintuan pushes for the development of the region, he gets a push-back from his city.

The discovery of shabu laboratories/factories in the city’s posh villages early last year have been – concededly – covered, okay, amply compensated, by the strides taken in the war on drugs – in the apprehension, incarceration, as well as extermination, of drug fiends and the mass surrender and subsequent rehabilitation of drug dependents. The city police office and its director even getting some recognition from Camp Olivas for that feat.

Tokhang for ransom

So sadly, only for the city to regain notoriety as crime laboratory with what could be the first case of the modus operandi dubbed “tokhang for ransom” that was committed in October last year yet but only surfaced in the media this weekend past.

Reports said a group led by a still-unnamed SPO3 knocked on and then barged in the residence of a South Korean businessman they accused of drug involvement. The house was ransacked – over half million pesos in jewelry and personal effects were later listed as missing, the bizman identified as Jee Ick-Joo taken by the men and has not been heard of since.

It was the victim’s wife that raised the alarm to the police, but only after succumbing – partially – to the demands of her husband’s takers with P5 million. They wanted P4.5 million more and when she pleaded she did not have any money to pay the ransom, she was curtly told “game over.”

No need to imagine the tension gripping the city’s Korean community in the wake of this kidnapping. So palpably sliceable by even the dullest blade, as some wag idiomatized. It drains anew Koreatown’s collective memory of all heinous crimes inflicted upon its nationals, from kidnap-for-ransom and extortion to murder.

For the locals, especially the Chinoys, renewed terror from their own brushes with KFR groups, the most prominently recent but a little over a year ago – that of a hardware and construction supply store owner.

As GRP panel adviser, Pamintuan is rightly talking peace to end the 50-year insurgency in the country. Just as mayor, peace is coming to scarcity in his city.

Disorder

And where peace wanes, its conjunctioned partner usually also diminishes. Aye, order is miserably failing in the streets of Angeles. Noticeably so in the conspicuous absence of hizzoner during the holidays. Not that Pamintuan should be taken to task for taking a truly well-deserved Christmas break though. 

But then, traffic aides have turned as inutile as those traffic signs posted everywhere in the city.

The No Left Turn at the end of just about every steel railing bisecting MacArthur Highway serves as an invitation rather than a deterrence for vehicles to do otherwise. With those ridiculously acronymed ACTETMO-vested – successor to the more absurd TTMO? – characters by the roadside absolutely doing nothing to correct the infractions, much less apprehend the errant motorists.

And that Parallel Parking Only fronting Angeles University Foundation and its medical center finding synonymous with Diagonal Parking Also, with cars, tricycles and jeepneys parked crisscrossed on two lanes of the four-lane highway.

So what happened to the enforcement of Tow Away Zones?

Yes, the Holy Angel University even donated a tow truck to the city in a PR event as its CSR to help ease traffic in the city.

And after the as-much-publicized towing of parked vehicles along the side streets of the city to open up detour and alternate routes, those streets are again in dire need of clearing.

Is it just me, or did peace and order in the city really nosedived in the absence of Pamintuan?

If it did, then there’s cause to worry. Really, really worry.

Pamintuan is set again to pack his bags for Rome, site of the next round of GRP-CPP/NPA/NDF peace negotiations. And barring the completion of talks there – with a peace pact – his advisory functions shall continue, thereby taking time off his mayoral duties.

Then, there is his RDC-3 chairmanship which makes him virtual governor of  Central Luzon tasked to coordinate, integrate, consolidate and monitor the implementation of development plans and programs in all seven provinces, 14 cities, 116 municipalities and 3,102 barangays.

And more, as top gun of the LCP to look after the welfare of the cities, especially in the equity of the distribution of development packages coming from the national government.

The Pamintuan persona has verily turned four-dimensional, which, his mouthpiece correctly said “adds laurel (sic) to Angelenos and Kapampangans.”

Even as I am confidently convinced that Pamintuan is par for the multi-faceted course, it would be a pity if he falls short, even if only a weeny, in his performance of the very role for which he was overwhelmingly elected by the people.

Pamintuan owes, and is owned by, his Angeles constituency first. Having a binding contract with them with his election, never mind the political one he bandied about during the campaign.

Let he be reminded that every disturbance of the peace, every disruption of order in his city is a breach of that contract.

And may it never be said that the best peace adviser, the greatest LCP president and the most successful RDC chair, is no better than his most immediate predecessors at city hall.