From Cong to Kap

OLD SOLDIERS make the very antithesis to old politicians, in at least one instance.

Old soldiers never die, they simply fade away.  As Gen. Douglas MacArthur immortalized in his farewell speech to the US Congress circa 1951.

Old politicians never fade away, they just die. As…okay, take your pick of all those curmudgeons hogging the hustings from Aparri to Jolo, and everywhere in between, every election year.    

Like this year, this very May.

Deader than dead, thus readily consigned to political limbo after his epic loss to Atty. Edgardo Pamintuan in the Angeles City mayoralty contest in 2013, Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin, first ever three-term city mayor and four-term representative of Pampanga’s 1^st District, has risen, flexing his muscles anew for the barangay elections, with the chairmanship of Balibago, the city’s premier village, as one more addition to his championship belts, so to speak.

So, who was it who likened old politicians to old boxers? Ring the bell and they rise, if only to shadowbox.    

But not this Lazatin prizefighter. His age of 80++, notwithstanding. In fact, making the very ground of the feasibility of his candidacy. Indeed, quite possibly of his very winnability.

How can one simply put aside Cong Tarzan’s hundreds of bills filed, a number ultimately enacted into law, in his long stint at the House?

Easily come to mind at least two, both conversions: Of the Municipality of Mabalacat into Mabalacat City, and the Pampanga Agricultural College into the Pampanga State Agricultural University. That makes Cong Tarzan as famous for siring children – two juniors themselves rising in the political firmament: sitting Pampanga 1^st District Rep. Carmelo “Jonjon” Lazatin, and incumbent city councilor Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin -- as for fathering a city and a university. Beat that.

“By the grace of God, by the sovereign will of the people, we are now a city!” So, joyfully screamed the tarpaulins put up by the also famously fathering Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales after the overwhelming result of the cityhood referendum in Mabalacat.

The once-forever and now-future mayor was but two-thirds right. “By the act of Cong Tarzan” should have been placed there, between God and people. Lest my faith be misconstrued, there’s nothing theological, but everything political there, whether impressions or implications.

How can one simply set aside Mayor Tarzan’s long service to the people of Angeles, which redounded to their well-being, socially, moreso economically? The city earning direct taxes from SM City Clark instead of it being but a part of local government’s share in the gross income earned as locator in the Clark Freeport.  

“The last battle,” not a few opinion influencers would readily impact upon Cong Tarzan’s getting into the barangay fray, as though he were the grizzled lion in winter.  

Others laugh this off as some reductio ad absurdum – okay, Direk Ronnie Tiotuico, a reduction to absurdity – noting how the former congressman, former mayor diminished his political stature to the lowest level of local politics.

“Pang-derby ne, liban na pa ing bularit.” As some sabungero would put it. As Cong Tarzan knows only too well, being, himself, a cockfight aficionado. But to the man who truly serves, no position is too small or too insignificant. 

And that is what matters most to his thousands of loyal supporters: the service of their man institutionalized in a cursive L inside a heart inscribed “Mula sa Puso.”  

Hence, his losing notwithstanding, instead of fading away, much less dying, Cong Tarzan fights on. Serves on. Lives on.

May forever.