ENTERTAINING, TO say the least of SunStar-Pampanga’s banner story of the
Arayat local government unit seriously considering to file libel raps against
ABS-CBN rising out of the network’s primetime series FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano.
"Ipinapakita
nila na kuta kami ng mga terorista, na ang Mt. Arayat ay kuta ng mga terorista.
Hindi lang dito sa Pilipinas, pati sa ibang bansa pinapalabas ang ‘Ang Probinsyano’
kaya ‘yung mga kababayan namin tumatawag sa amin (The
(show) is depicting our town as a terrorists’ lair, that Mt. Arayat is a haven
of terrorists. The show is aired not just in the Philippines but outside of the
country that is why a lot of our townmates are calling us),” so was Mayor
Emmanuel “Bon” Alejandrino quoted in the SSP
story.
Recent episodes of the show dealt with a
fictional terror group nesting in Mt. Arayat which, Alejandrino said, portrayed
his town as a "haven or breeding ground for terrorists and hoodlums."
This, the mayor lamented, “smeared the
reputation of Arayat as a wholesome and peaceful town,” and negated his
administration’s strides in erasing “the stigma of Arayat as home of
terrorists."
The sangguniang bayan earlier passed a
resolution condemning FPJ’s Ang
Probinsyano for its “reckless portrayal of the town” that “has caused not
only the local government unit in a state of distress but also the Provincial
Government of Pampanga.”
Alejandrino thus slammed former Pampanga
governors Lito and Mark Lapid, making their showbiz comeback after disastrous losses
in the last polls as protagonists in the series: the father as chief, the son
as foot soldier of the terror group.
Raged Alejandrino at the Lapids: “Wala silang malasakit sa bayan namin at sa
buong Pampanga. Sana sila mismo kinontra nila dahil dati silang nanungkulan
dito at dapat alam nila ang totoong sitwasyon dito at kung ano ang magiging
epekto ng palabas sa bayan namin (They have the least concern for our town
and for the whole of Pampanga. They themselves should have opposed (the bad
portrayal of Arayat) as they once served here and are supposed to know the real
situation and how the show will affect our town).”
De-Lapidation
No karmic cycle maybe, but full circle certainly
have gone the Lapids, as well as Alejandrino, here.
The dilapidation of Pampanga by the infamous
quarry scam in the nine years of the Bida
ng Masa and the single term of his hijo
at the Capitol, whereby the provincial coffers dwindled even as private estates
and mansions with fleets of luxurious vehicles escalated in Porac, came to a
full stop with the de-Lapidation of the province in 2007, at the ascendancy of
the Reverend Governor, Eddie T. Panlilio, who, in his very first day in office
collected P1 million in quarry revenues. Definitively impacting there the graft
and corruption in the Lapids’ collection of P115.6 million in 11 years. Do your
math now: all it takes is three months and 11 days for Among Ed to equal the Lapids’ 11-year quarry (non)performance.
Returning to their showbiz home ground, albeit
on the aptly named idiot box, Lapid and son – if we take Alejandrino’s drift –
are back devastating Pampanga anew. The image of peace and prosperity of
Pampanga shattered by that nationally televised and internationally beamed, if
only fictional, terrorist lair in Mt. Arayat.
For Alejandrino, the real has come all too reel.
Of art imitating life, all too perversely.
It was not in the fastness of the mountains that
I interviewed the then-supremo of the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan in the 1980s,
but Mt. Arayat historically stood as the sanctuary of revolutionaries.
And Alejandrino was engaged in a revolution, his
HMB though outsized, out-popularized, and out-propagandized by its splinter
group the New People’s Army.
But no terror group was his – being masa-based rather than massacring,
mostly agri-engaged, socially-grounded, even constructing village chapels,
resorting to the gun “only in the pursuit of justice for the people.”
(How did I know? I had full access to the
supremo. So, that when Alejandrino was presented to the media after his capture
by the then-provincial PC commander Col. EQ Fernandez, I was promptly taken in
for interrogation soon as he acknowledged my presence.)
Come to think of it now, more than the smear on
his town and Pampanga, what drew the ire of Alejandrino against FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano is its utter perversion
of the part Mt. Arayat has played in our history.
The redoubt of revolutionary movements degraded
into a terrorist lair! Sheer sacrilege.
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