Once upon a press club

1949. No one remembers the exact date but it was at the now-extinct San Fernando Restaurant in the capital town that the Pampanga Press Club was founded. 

There are also variants on the mediamen who actually formed the PPC. Eight names though are constant: Silvestre Songco, Romeo Arceo, Emerito de Jesus, Alejandrino Songco, Lino Sanchez Sr., Tomas San Pedro, Gregorio Sangil, and Armando P. Baluyut.
Coming soon after were Renato “Katoks” Tayag, Antonio Torres, Benvenuto Maglaqui, Ulpiano Quizon, Fred Roxas, Ben Gamos, and Hector Soto, the oral chronicler of the club’s early history.

Then followed Lito Pangilinan, Joe Roman, Lino Sanchez, Jr., Ram Mercado, and Max Sangil.

Eight. Seven. Five. Those first three batches we acclaim as the old guards of the PPC. But for Fred, Lino, Ram, and Max, all have written their 30s. 
The first “official headquarters” of the PPC was Camp Olivas, as it was the primary beat in the province, being the headquarters of the 1^st Military Area, comprising all the provinces north of Manila and covering all the major services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Sited in Olivas, the PPC provided more than an historical footnote to the transformation of the military geography in northern and central Luzon – from 1^st Military Area to 1^st Philippine Constabulary Zone, to 3^rd Regional PC-INP Command, to 3^rd Regional PNP Command, to the current 3^rd Regional Police Office.

The 8 Fathers

At Olivas, Beting Songco of Manila Times-Mirror-Taliba was the primus inter pares, famously for institutionalizing journalistic “SS” with his ever present “three of the fatalities have remained unidentified as of press time” on top of identified casualties at every report of Huk-PC encounters.
For all his sensationalized style, Beting had this aversion to tabloids. This was most manifest with a horrified Beting spitting out “Bastos!” at a picture – taken with a zoom lens – of an American girl peeing on a rice paddy along a highway captioned “American girl watering Philippine soil.”
There is not much of Romy Arceo I came to know of other than that he was editor of The Quezonian at the then Manuel L. Quezon Educational Institution, now MLQU. He came into local journalism with his brother-in-law Emerito de Jesus.
‘Marito of The Evening News covered the defense beat and soared to the post of Department of National Defense Usec for Munitions during the Diosdado Macapagal administration. It was during his PPC presidency in 1958-1959 that the PPC club building at the Capitol Compound was completed on a land leased by Gov. Rafael Lazatin to the PPC for 50 years.
‘Marito went on to become mayor of Bacolor and president of the Pampanga Mayors League at the time of Gov. Estelito Mendoza.
Toto Songco of the Philippine News Service started the PPC building construction as club president in 1957-1958. During the Marcos era, he headed the regional office of the National Media Production Center.
Lino Sanchez, Sr. of The Manila Times was known for his penchant for scoops. In the midst of coverages, he routinely disappeared for no apparent reason surprising his peers with the next day’s Times carrying his stories they did not know about.
It was Lino that coined “Huklings” in reference to young Huk partisans.
I got close and personal to Don Tomas San Pedro who opened his Pampanga Newsweek to my first column sometime in 1978.
Bren Z. Guiao, when he was governor, had the habit of teasing Don Tomas with his journalism roots traced to the latter’s Luzon Courier in the late ‘50s, only to remind him of his unpaid salary.
As broadcaster of dzAP, Don Tomas was most remembered for his thorough reading of the news, complete with “Continued on page…”
Yoyong was the best Sangil where writing is concerned. No apologies to his younger brother Max and his son Jay. At the Philippine News Agency where he was stringer, Yoyong wrote oh-so-slowly but oh-so-surely, his syntax and grammar ever in perfect synch.
Yoyong served as provincial information officer of the Capitol during the stint of his cousin, Gov. Juanita L. Nepomuceno, and later consultant to his Porac townmate Lito Lapid in his turn at the governorship.  
Don Armando P. Baluyut founded Central Luzon’s oldest running newspaper, The Voice in June 1954. A poet laureate with the nom de plume Arpiba, Don Armando never became president of the PPC – an “anomaly” corrected thrice over by his son Lincoln’s three terms in the presidency.

LAST TUESDAY, Aug. 28, the PPC celebrated its 69^thanniversary and induction of its new set of officers led by the double-termed, double visionary Deng Pangilinan of dwRW and Balacat News.

Anniversaries being milestones from where we look back, as well as we look forward, if only for balance, be it existential, intellectual, emotional give more than enough reason to reprint above the first chapter of the book Of the Press (1999), my “non-definitive” history of the PPC.
The PPC prides itself as one of the oldest, if not indeed the oldest, press clubs in the whole country, predating the organization of the National Press Club by three years.

As in the era of print and broadcast, the PPC stands tall anew in the dotcom age, being the first press club to ever set up and operate its own news portal – iorbitnews.com – which celebrated its second anniversary also last Tuesday.

Blessed am I not only to have been a part, and one-time president (1990), of this the grandest press club in the country but moreso, for having personally interacted with most of the founding fathers, worked with the succeeding generations of journos, and still be part of the continuing story of the PPC.

Traffic flaw

 NOWHERE NEAR breaking the internet, but already a tsunami of rejoinders and emoji reactions has been unleashed in the wake of a post in my Facebook on Aug. 22, at 11 a.m.

The post consisted of three pictures taken within the same downtown San Fernando area: 1) a red-plated service vehicle of the City of San Fernando illegally parked on the road; 

 2) the said vehicle blocking a correctly parked black pick-up truck; and

3) three unmindful, smiling traffic marshals literally a spit away from city hall, one of them pointing to the one lensing them. 

And captioned thus: ABUSADO SA SAN FERNANDO. May nagpark na CSWD na service sa daan, hinarangan ang pick-up namin na nasa parking slot. Iniwan yung sasakyan kasi daw inutusan sya ng boss nya. Yung mga marshals nasa tapat ng may city health hinayaan lang syang magpark sa daan. Tinuro pa ko ng isang marshal when he saw me taking a photo. Tapos lumapit, sabi bakit daw ako nagpicture e pinatawag na nila yung driver. Sabi ko hinayaan nilang magpark dun kaya ko sila pinicturan. Sabi nya nakabreak daw sila nun. 

Pinaghintay pa kami ng pagbalik ng driver ng CSWD service. Sabi ng guard sa Quirino Yap hardware, lagi daw ginagawa nung driver na yun yung mag park lang kahit saan. At pinapabayaan naman ng mga marshal. Mayor EDSA, nganga.

By Saturday, Aug. 25, the post had over 400 reactions, over 200 comments, and 450 shares.

At this writing, 7 a.m., Aug. 28, it has generated 624 reactions, 397 comments, and 739 shares. Of the reactions, 176 bore the emoji for angry while 34 were for sad. The comments were, but for two, all damning.

Hornet’s nest

The post stirred a virtual hornet’s nest – with the city traffic marshals at the receiving end of stinging rebuke, biting sarcasm, harsh denunciation, and outright damnation from an enraged community.

Aye, what could only be a long simmering suppressed anger over similarly sordid individual experiences of the netizens with city traffic marshals now come expressed in an outburst of collective outrage. 

A number did indeed narrate of unfair treatment received from the marshals – ticketing them for traffic infractions while letting go of others who did the same, from helmetless motorcycle riding, to counterflowing, to illegal parking.

May pinapaboran. May palakasan.    

Pag kilala de ede dakpan. Balamu aku kanita akalingwan namu meg-helmet ning angkas ku dekap dana kami agad. Pero reng aliwa ku kaagnan a lalabas eda la dikpan ‘gang ela maka helmet

Sobra la kahigpit keng eda kakilala. Kagad dalang darakpan. Pero nung kakilala dala kahit na patong-patong pa ing violation mu ala mu karela.

Mga aso-aso kasi mga ‘yan sa gobyerno pag kabaro nila o mayaman bulag sa patakaran o rules ng gobyerno na pinapatupad nila.

Aye, the red plate is a license to abuse, if not a badge of arrogance. 

The greater number – in apparent exasperation – were judgmental. The city traffic marshals generalized as either clueless laggards and nincompoops or uniformed extortionists.

Ang lalaki ng mga tiyan, alam na this. It can’t get as telling as this on that picture of the three marshals.     

Aww, if only curses could kill, the traffic marshals would have been deeply buried in the avalanche of bugok, gago, bolang, alang marine, kotong, tamad, busog-lagay, animal that the netizens heaped upon them.

Ay, among the first reactors was one – could be one of the three marshals – that said I did not know the “real” story, that they were the ones that even looked for the driver of the service vehicle, and called the uploader “walang utang na loob.”

I replied that in the first place, they should not have allowed the vehicle to park on the road, as it was patently illegal. So, his comment was “out of bounds.”

With my reply getting an instant thumbs up from IBP-Pampanga president Atty. Gener Endona, that pro-marshal comment instantly vanished from the thread.

EdSa

Inevitably, the buck could only stop at Mayor Edwin “EdSa” Santiago. As indeed, a number of netizens shared the post with the mayor and Vice Mayor Jimmy Lazatin, as well as with Raffy Tulfo and CLTV 36. Presumably expecting concrete action on the issue. With Santiago though, I cannot help but presume pa more. And tell the netizens: Asa ka pa.   

Not a few took the mayor to task for totally discarding the promise of his masa-centered Tsinelas ng EdSa in his first term, and making a mockery of his current  “Fernandino First” program with the local elite and their lackeys in government as first and foremost in perks, privileges, if not profligacies. 

And as inevitably, comes that yearning for the days of yore of Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez – as some netizens cared to remember – when all was well and in order in the streets and cleared sidewalks of the city owing to Project Habitat headed by city attorney Gen. Ramsey Ocampo.

Oca did it. Why can’t Edsa?

That’s rather asking for the sweetness of apples in the sourness of lemons.     

Meanwhile, the outrage continues. The numbers on my post still rising. 

Feuderalism

“IT WILL take more than quiet words to change this status quo protected and secured by political dynasties who will not yield their monopoly of political power and the economic elite that established a new monarchy, the monarchy of the moneyed, and will not — never — give up their throne.”

On Saturday, former Chief Justice Reynato Puno raised the spectre of class conflict as driving, and dividing, force in the resistance to the shift to federalism.

Furthered Puno: “Their factotums are everywhere, ensconced from within the government and encompassed by business interests organized as cartels and oligopolies, with [an] evil eye [cast on] crusaders for change.”

From within the government, there was Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia earlier telling the Senate: “Expenditure will be immense if we go to federalism, and we estimate that the fiscal deficit to the GDP [gross domestic product] ratio can easily jump to maybe 6 percent or more, and that’s really going to wreak havoc in terms of our fiscal situation.”

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez seconding: “If Ernie [Pernia] is right, if we don’t manage this correctly, this can end up to be a fiscal nightmare. So, I think the legislature, in its wisdom, can sort those issues out.”

Dominguez candidly: “I had a long discussion with them (consultative committee) and, quite frankly, I was more confused than when I started.”

Then, there was Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana declaring the country is not yet ready for federalism as the people have a scant knowledge of the system.

No, Puno did not say the three senior Cabinet secretaries are in fact whom he meant as “factotums” of the political and economic elite resisting federalism. He did not have to. 
Correct is Puno in admitting to the general public’s ignorance of federalism, as Lorenzana earlier acknowledged. Hence, his push for a massive public information campaign.

Said Puno: “We should tell the people that federalism will end the culture of undue dependence on the central government, their compelled mendicancy from distant government officials who are unaware of their problems, hence unable to provide their solutions.”

Again, correct is Puno. But ending “undue dependence on central government” can only worsen local political patronage, thereby further entrenching the political dynasties.

As things stand now, that “distant government” that is the national level is ably, if dubiously, bridged by the local government units, dominated by families of politicians. What Puno calls “compelled mendicancy” is institutionalized pauperism on local grounds, feeding on political largesse.

And with federalism’s grant of greater fiscal and taxation powers to the regions comes more funds for the LGUs to sustain political patronage.

Even the idiot in me can comprehend that. So, what is there in federalism for the political dynasties to resist, Puno? Further buttressing as it shall their “monopoly of political power.”

Utopian is Puno at best then: “Federalism is for freedom for our poverty-stricken countrymen, in our different regions, real freedom to direct their political and economic destiny, and save them from a future of futility.”

As, it shall not be the people in the different regions that shall exercise that “real freedom” under federalism but the elite who hold socio-economic and political control in these regions.

Why, federalism will even make that control easier to maintain – what with senators elected per region! Much reduced from its national scope, senatorial elections would translate to much lesser expense for the local oligarchies in purchasing the victory of their chosen candidates, their own kin naturally.  

By another name, federalism is feudalism.

Its decentralization of government to 18 regions/states parallels the established fiefdoms of old – ran by the lords to the manor born, in strict hereditary line. Just like the political dynasts of our time.

Where the fiefs contended in crafts, commerce, trade, even territories, many times leading to pocket wars among them – thereby giving rise to warlordism – the regions shall now compete for investments, foreign and local, with the least potentials of development among them falling by the wayside. Just think: How shall fare calamity-devastated Eastern Visayas against Central Luzon with its international airport, two seaports, infrastructure network, ecozones, expanse of agri lands, vast human resources?

Dense as I am so I cannot see the least possibility of federalism ever saving the poor regions of the country from what the erudite ex-CJ Puno said as a “future of futility.”

Thick as it is, I have of the mind though that the feud that federalism wrought within Duterte’s Cabinet, and its close correspondence to feudalism, birthed here some mutant I can only call “feuderalism.” 

Alam na this...

“PRESIDENT DUTERTE is not GMA. Okay? And he is very strong in [his] anti-corruption [campaign]. So, the fear of Senator Lacson is misplaced.”

So asserted Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno in a media forum at the Philippine Daily Inquirer headquarters last Tuesday.

This, in reaction to apprehensions expressed by Sen. Panfilo Lacson of a resurgence of the pork barrel system after Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo vowed that no member of the House would get a zero budget, as a number did at the time of the ousted Pantaleon Alvarez.

More than allaying Lacson’s fears and assuring the public that the monstrously corrupted Priority Development Assistance Fund shall remain in its unconstitutionally marked grave, Diokno may have effected some Freudian slip there.

Elemental syllogism: Duterte is not GMA. Duterte is anti-corruption. Therefore, GMA is…what Duterte is not.     

Alam na this…yeah, even the tambay sa kanto would know.

“IT WAS pure speculation. They were assuming that those metal – there was nothing."

As much cryptic as syntactically disjointed was President Duterte’s summary dismissal of the claim of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency that P6.8-billion worth of shabu was smuggled inside the four magnetic lifters found in Cavite.

"Yung sabi nila na (What they said that) they found the metal but they opened it but [there] was none,” the President said, cautioning – without addressing any specific agency or individual – against making such "assumptions."

It was PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino himself that reported of the “smuggled shabu” missing from the magnetic lifters they found in a raid at a warehouse in General Mariano Alvarez, Cavite.   

"I am not convinced. Next time you do not go into a speculative contents (sic)," Duterte stressed.

Aquino’s “speculation” stemmed from the four lifters matching the two earlier intercepted at the Bureau of Customs lot which carried 500 kilograms of shabu, to wit: "It's just the same. The same, exactly the same. It’s magnetic lifter, which has a power supply. It also has cables, the same cables. The color of these magnetic lifters, the same.” 

Yeah, Aquino engaging here in some abductive reasoning of the duck test: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then… OMG, it can’t be a chicken.   

From allegorically to literally animalish now, with dogs lending credence to Aquino’s duck inference: PDEA said traces of shabu in the magnetic lifters in Cavite caused their drug-sniffing canines to sit down beside them.

At a House hearing Tuesday however, Customs chief Isidro Lapeña said the four magnetic lifters tested negative of shabu after swab testing conducted by a joint team of Customs, Philippine National Police, and PDEA personnel.

Not surprisingly, given the President’s hands-down conclusion, Aquino was a no-show at the House hearing to defend the PDEA findings. Neither was the sniffing dog there.

Alam na this…Need we state the obvious pa?

“HINDI NIYA kaya, that’s my honest opinion ko lang. Kung sino lang sana diyan, in the likes of Escudero or Bongbong Marcos.”
President Duterte expressed anew his desire to step down, and with it, his utter disdain of Vice President Leni Robredo: ““I think deep in my heart, if you follow the succession and Robredo takes over, hindi niya kaya.”   

It takes but the intelligence of a gnat to see that the President’s preference for Sen. Chiz Escudero or Ferdinand Marcos Junior is as much as an abomination – Duterte’s – of Robredo, as an abhorrence – Duterte’s too – of one Alan Peter Cayetano.

Ain’t Cayetano Duterte’s running-mate in 2016, while Marcos that of the now dearly lamented Miriam Defensor Santiago’s and Escudero was Sen. Grace Poe’s?

And he failed to pop even if only in Duterte’s succession daydream!

Alam na this…yeah. Only the dense Cayetano does not. Or pretends, numbly if not dumbly, not to.

  

Dredge, Dredge, Dredge

IN THE olden days, when the roadside open canal got silted, it was simply dug to allow the free flow of rainwaters towards the creek or river where the canals were usually connected. It worked.

In modern times, roadside canals are usually covered. And when they filled with silt, the roads are raised. The water trapped, spilling over every which way but to the creeks that have vanished – buildings over them, and the rivers, themselves heavily silted and constricted by encroachments.

It does not take a civil engineer to see the wisdom of the old, its practicality in addressing the flooding problems.

On the contrary, all it takes is a veterinary medicine graduate-turned-contractor and elected mayor to push for road-raising at all costs – to his constituents’ sufferance of the dire consequences.

Thus, it was this weekend past, and still is at the start of this week, in my hometown of Sto. Tomas – heavy flooding precisely, ironically too, in the very areas where the road was “improved.”  

Epal-ized as “a priority project of Cong. Rimpy Bondoc,” along with Mayor Johnny Sambo, et al, the “rehabilitation/improvement of Sto. Tomas-Minalin Road” consisted in part the raising of the approaches to Tete Batu, the bridge at the boundary of barangays Sto. Nino (Sapa) and San Vicente.

By some one meter were the approaches elevated, running some 200 meters to north, and abruptly cut with a sharp incline to the existing road.

Came the monsoons this weekend, the rainwaters trapped where the “improvement” ended, spilling to the houses by the road rendered impassable to all but the souped-up monster-wheeled 4X4’s of the off-roading mayor and his cohorts.  

Ah, if only curses could kill, our vet-turned-contractor-turned-mayor would be but a memory, his very ashes already scattered on the floodwaters of his town by now.      

Mewala ne ing sapa. Mababo ne ing ilug. Tinas me pa ing dalan. Mibusalan la ring canal. Talagang dilubyu ing quecang pantunan!

Nanay knows best   

It is not enough for the Duterte administration to just Build, Build, Build.

Money – tons of it – spent in the construction of roads and bridges goes down the drain, literally, at every onslaught of the monsoons and their consequential deluge.

The wisdom of the old is not lost to Gov. Lilia G. Pineda as she has incessantly called – since her first day at the Capitol in 2010 – for the dredging of the Pampanga River and its tributaries.

Late last month, “in response” to the governor’s call, Public Works and Highways Secretary Mark Villar “ordered the desilting and clearing of the waterways of Pampanga River and improvement of its water-catching capacity” with the immediate deployment of two dredgers. So, media dutifully reported.  

In a subsequent hearing on disaster management in Congress, Pineda pushed the ante for new and bigger dredging machines for year-round operations at the mouth of the Pampanga River.

Said the governor: “Puwedi naka maglakad keng mouth ning Pampanga River (You can already walk at the mouth of Pampanga River).”

“Can you imagine, Pampanga River is 264 kilometers from Nueva Ecija and meandering even through parts of Aurora and all of these waters drain at the mouth of Pampanga River which is choked. What will happen to us?” Pineda explained.

And she would not leave all costs to the national government, ascertaining the Capitol’s help in the purchase of spoil sites for the silt that will be dredged to avoid stockpiling it on the embankment and washed away, back to the rivers, when the heavy rains pour again.

Yeah, even in the field of infrastructure and disaster mitigation, that truism “Nanay knows best” stands on solid ground. 

Name dropping

CIA. DMIA. The name game is in play again.   

Just this Tuesday, Aug. 7, the Angeles City sangguniang panlungsod passed twin resolutions toward the same intent – the Clark airport be (re)named after the first Macapagal president. 

Resolution No. 8, S-2018 (PR 804-08-18) requesting President Duterte “to revert the name of Clark International Airport to Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.

Among its whereases: “Since 2003 the airport was named DMIA in honor of the past President of the Philippines…until it was change (sic) to CIA in 2012…

…To avoid confusion and to maintain the tribute given to the late President, it is requested that President Duterte change the name of the airport from CIA to DMIA.” 

Resolution No. 8, S-2018 (PR 805-08-18) “enjoining” members of the House of Representatives and the Senate “to enact into law the official naming” of the CIA to DMIA.

Among its whereases: “Through this resolution, the Angelenos hereby express their disapproval of the decision by the Clark International Airport Corp. to rename DMIA to CIA.”

Revert. Rename. Operative but essentially conflicted words in the city council resolution there. Prompting the eternal chicken-or-egg conundrum.

To revert CIA to DMIA means the latter came first. Did it?

Not if we go by the airport’s history, its most recent at least.

The term “Clark International Airport” made its debut in Executive Order No. 192 issued by President Fidel Ramos on July 27, 1994 creating the Clark International Airport Corp. This in effect kept to the airport’s international aviation code CRK.

Contrary to the city council resolution, it was not “since 2003” that the airport carried the DMIA name. 

In 2001 during the incumbency of Dr. Emmanuel Y. Angeles, the Clark Development Corp. Board passed Resolution No. 07-08 stating thus:
“RESOLVED THAT, Management’s recommendation to rename Clark International Airport to Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in honor of the late President Diosdado Macapagal, be APPROVED, as it is hereby APPROVED, subject to required legislation.”
However, Angeles’ board and all succeeding boards through his successors at the CDC within the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo – Tony Ng, Levy Laus, and Benny Ricafort – all failed to effect the “required legislation” for the DMIA – be it an act of Congress or a presidential executive order.

The airport though carried the name DMIA just the same.

On October 14, 2011, the CIAC Board – with acting chair CDC president Felipe Antonio Remollo – approved Resolution No. SM-10-05, Series of 2011 that:
“RESOLVED THAT, the restoration of the name ‘Clark International Airport (CIA)’ to refer to the Clark Aviation Complex within the Clark Freeport Zone to enhance its international acceptance and to preserve its historical significance, be APPROVED, as it is hereby APPROVED. 
“RESOLVED FURTHER THAT, Terminal 1 will be named as DIOSDADO MACAPAGAL TERMINAL (DMT) in recognition of the legacy of former President Diosdado P. Macapagal as the first Kapampangan to become the (sic) President of the Republic of the Philippines.”
Rationalized CIAC president-CEO Victor Jose Luciano then: “We will project Clark as Clark, including its history.”

Cauguiran’s dare

In early 2012 at a forum among local government units and the freeport and airport officials, Alexander Sangalang Cauguiran – not yet the CIAC EVP then, if memory still serves right – stood to question that history and champion the DMIA cause, thus:

“Let us rise from the last vestiges of our colonial past…How can an American pilot who died in a plane crash in Panama in 1919 supersede the greatness of President Diosdado Macapagal, the father of land reform, the emancipator of the peasants from the bondage of the soil?
“Downgrading the name Diosdado Macapagal is against the guidelines of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines pursuant to RA 10086 that strictly forbids the renaming of public places already named after presidents to people of lesser importance.
“You spoke of international acceptance, of the popularity of Clark over DMIA, using the analogy of Bangkok better known than Suvarnabhumi, of Hongkong preferred over Chek Lap Kok, of the practice in Asia of naming airports after their location rather than people, as in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.
“You spoke of the naming of airports after people as practiced more in the West, as in JFK and La Guardia in New York, as in Ronald Reagan in Washington D.C.
“I could not care less however way they name their airports, that is their prerogative. But naming our airport is also our prerogative, following our own laws and guidelines.”
Now, if only the city council resolutions have even but a quarter of Cauguiran’s passion and reason in impacting the DMIA cause for the airport …But that’s asking too much of them, mired as they are in lapses in grammar and syntax, not to mention typos – Reso No. 8, S-2018 (PR 804-08-18) named the president as one “Rodrigo Roa Dutuerte.”     

Pandering

That the city council resolutions came to the fore within two weeks of the ascendancy of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the House speakership beclouds the issue with political pandering.

Far from plain coincidence that the first attempted naming of the Clark airport to DMIA came in 2001, GMA still the fresh whiff of perfumed air in the wake of the banishment of the foul presidency of Erap Estrada.   

As it was with GMA as president, so it is with her as Speaker.

To be fair though, this suckering up to the powers-that-are-here-and-now in the matter of the airport name game is non-exclusive to GMA.

In July 2013, midway into the presidency of BS Aquino III, then-1^st District Rep. Joseller “Yeng” Guiao filed House Bill No. 321 seeking to rename CIA to Corazon C. Aquino International Airport to “ensure its development as the Philippines’ next premier international airport.”

The twin-airport system between the CIA and NAIA pushed by Guiao himself along with other stakeholders assumed a different configuration with his bill: Cory in Clark, Ninoy in Manila – that is no twinning, it is coupling.

CIA. DMIA. What’s in a name? So long as the flights keep on coming. And going. On time. All the time.  

(Source data from acaesar.blogspot.com under the titles Name game (March 2, 2012)and Clark ain’t it (March 3, 2014))

  

Cauguiran runs, EdPam in a fix

“AFTER MUCH thought, I have decided to help shape the future of Angeles City by running for mayor in 2019.”

So, announced over the weekend Alexander Sangalang Cauguiran before barangay leaders and supporters gathered at his home in Carmenville Subdivision, Barangay Cutcut.

In effect, the current president-CEO of the Clark International Airport Corp. merely re-amplified his political intent earlier declared – in mid-March this year – at the Balitaan forum of the Capampangans In Media, Inc., dutifully bannered in this paper thus: “Clark airport prexy eyes AC mayoralty.”

And prompting us to churn out here “AC 2019” – the letters standing as much for Angeles City as for Alexander Cauguiran. 

“Among mayoralty aspirants, so far, Cauguiran’s name is consistently mentioned as the most qualified to replace Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan, who is serving his third and last term as the city’s chief executive.” So, read the press release attendant to the latest announcement.

We did one better with our Zona piece that: “Whatever, only Cauguiran appears to hold the moral ascendancy to Pamintuan’s anointment.”

If only for “…engineering the spectacular victories of his comrade Ed Pamintuan in the battles for the Angeles City mayoralty against the long-established aristocratic political dynasts that were Francis ‘Blueboy’ Nepomuceno and Carmelo ‘Tarzan’ Lazatin, ex-mayors and ex-congressmen both; and the putative hero of the masses that was former Pampanga governor and former senator of the Republic, Manuel ‘Lito’ Lapid.”

Concluding: “No mean feat there, as much for Pamintuan as for Cauguiran. Mayhaps, even much more for the latter.” Indeed, given Cauguiran’s exceptional skills in organizing, leading, energizing, and mobilizing the 30,000-strong, grassroots-grounded, Comelec-accredited Partido Abe Kapampangan that catapulted Pamintuan to electoral triumph.

Cauguiran can easily – and rightly – invoke party dynamics as AbeKa president, if not time-tested and -tried comradeship, to claim Pamintuan’s anointment. Still, he would not, and rather that: “I will greatly appreciate and will be most grateful for the endorsement of Mayor Pamintuan.”

But will Pamintuan oblige Cauguiran?

My guess can only be as wild as yours.

A heartbeat away from the mayorship is VM Bryan Matthew Nepomuceno, twice Pamintuan’s running-mate, and therefore deemed his “successor.”

If we go by recent history though, as we have noted in our AC 2019 column,  

Striking ‘vices’

“There is something about Pamintuan’s vice mayors that is striking – striking always against him, that is. As with Mr. Blue who defeated him in the first district congressional race of 1998, so it was with Vicky Vega-Cabigting that fought him for the mayorship in 2016. Ms. Vicky, in effect, going the way of “the unbeatable vice” Dr. Ric Zalamea in his own war with Pamintuan in 1995 – epic failure, in the end.”

That Pamintuan intends to run for the first district congressional seat further compounds the already complex process of choosing his successor between Nepomuceno and Cauguiran. Not to mention another probable contender, Irineo “Bong” Alvaro, currently one of Clark Freeport’s biggest moguls and Pamintuan’s friend too.   

Dismiss all thoughts of a 1998 redux going Pamintuan’s way in 2019 anew. This Nepomuceno appears apparently fixed on the city rather than on the district.  Still, it is far from a walk in the park for him. What with incumbent Rep. Carmelo “Jonjon” Lazatin and comebacking ex-cong Yeng Guiao to contend with.

Pamintuan would need the support of all allies, the rivals Cauguiran, Nepomuceno, and Alvaro most ardently.

But there’s no way that Pamintuan can have his cake and eat it too, so to speak – that is, anoint one as his successor and still expect the discarded two for their full support.

It will not be easy for Pamintuan. And even less so for his loyal comrade Cauguiran. For in Philippine political praxis, expediency takes primacy over moral ascendancy.

Cauguiran knows this only too well: “…whether or not I get the endorsement, I have crossed already the Rubicon and there is no turning back.  I shall carry on wherever this journey leads me.”

Here, I am reminded of the closing part of my AC 2019 column, to wit:   

“In the current scheme of city politics, much as a prize to seek, Pamintuan’s anointment makes not the priciest for Cauguiran – and all other candidates – to gain: first, to secure a formidable front as candidate; second, to secure for himself more than an even chance at victory.

No mere political mortal hereabouts stands any chance of winning – either elected at the polls or Comelected via protest – without the so-called X-factor, whispered here as the “blessing” of some benevolent god.

Delfin Lee in better times

FEELING VINDICATED in the wake of the Supreme Court en banc decision to downgrade the syndicated estafa charges against him to simple estafa, property developer Delfin Lee “eyes freedom soon.”

So, we reported in our banner last issue.

As a consequence of the 7-5-2 vote on Tuesday, “the respondent Lee…is entitled to bail as a matter of right," said Court Spokesman Theodore Te.

For over four years now, Lee has been locked up at the Pampanga Provincial Jail, virtually on the basis of a TRO at the SC.

It was not too long ago though that everything about Delfin Lee was celebratory, chronicled in the local media – Punto! not excluded – most dutifully.

AUGUST 2008. “Xevera is the best thing that happened to Bacolor, getting richer not just in terms of income but pride and honor as well.” 

So lauded Mayor Romeo Dungca at the turn-over ceremony of the Xevera housing project in Barangay Calbutbut presided over by Vice President Noli De Castro and Globe Asiatique’s Delfin Lee in the presence of Pag-IBIG President-CEO Atty. Miro Quimbo.    
“This project gives a chance to poor people to own their own houses at a very beautiful site,” furthered Dungca.  
JANUARY 2009. “This is a phenomenon. I haven’t seen one quite like this in the whole country.” 
Thus, said Oriental Mindoro Rep. Rodolfo Valencia, chair of the House of Representatives committee on housing and urban development, as he toured the Xevera housing project in Barangay Tabun, Mabalacat.

“This (Xevera) should be imitated by other developers,” said Valencia, who himself is in the real estate business.  

JANUARY 2009. “Bili na kayo. P5,000 lang a month at walang down payment.”
A jovial President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo called out as she inspected three townhouses at the P6-billion Xevera housing project in Barangay Tabun. She first graced the Lakas-CMD caucus at Holiday Inn Resort-Clark before proceeding to the new P70-million Mabalacat town hall donated by Xevera developer Delfin Lee of Globe Asiatique. 
“They’re beautiful and affordable,” Arroyo told Lee and Subic Clark Alliance for Development Council (SCADC) Chairman Sec. Edgardo Pamintuan as they went inside the two-storey houses costing about P5,000 a month through Pag-Ibig funds. 
“Ah, simbahan ya pala (oh, it’s a church),” said the beaming President as she took notice of the Sanctuario de San Angelo. 
Arroyo, wearing a red dress, witnessed Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales hand over to Lee a resolution making him “adopted son of Mabalacat for his immense contribution to the development of the first-class municipality.” 

APRIL 2009. Subic-Clark Alliance for Development Council (SCADC) Chair Edgardo Pamintuan described Lee as “a silent developer, unassuming and self-effacing.” He added that as a friend, “Lee won’t forget you.” 
Deng Pangilinan, two-time president of the Pampanga Press Club (PPC), said Lee is a “decent man who has genuine heart for the poor.”

“It’s a dream come true for the press to have houses of their own. It took a private individual to make that possible,” said Pangilinan. 
MAY 2009. Education Secretary Jesli Lapus led the turnover of the P100 million integrated school at Xevera housing project in Barangay Tabun, bolstering this town’s commitment to provide free quality education.
Lapus, Xevera Developer Delfin Lee, ABS-CBN executive Gina Lopez and other regional Department of Education (DepEd) officials signed the deed of donation for the school named after Asuncion Lee, mother of Delfin. 
Lapus expressed elation over the “beautiful school,” saying as if “you are in California when you are in Xevera.”
In his speech, Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales said the “school will further make education readily available in our beloved town. He added that “education is the key to success.”   
JUNE 2009. A housing subdivision recently cited by the United Nations and government officials for plotting the template of urban development in the country, was once again mentioned as the number one factor in the 92 percent growth rate of the housing loan take-out of Pag-IBIG Fund in Northern and Central Luzon.
“It’s unprecedented,” said newly appointed Pag-IBIG Fund CEO Jaime Fabiaña during an interview with journalists at the Developers’ Forum of the Pag-IBIG Fund Home Development Mutual Fund held at the Holiday Land function hall in the City of San Fernando.
Fabiaña, who gave the opening remarks during the forum, said the Xevera housing projects in Bacolor and Mabalacat in Pampanga have greatly contributed to the rise in their housing loan takeout. 
“Saan ka makakakita ng subdivision na kumpleto?” Mayroon nang eskuwelahan, munisipyo, palengke at iba pa,” Fabiaña said. 
When asked why Vice President Noli De Castro who is also the chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) seems to be favoring Xevera, Fabiaña said the vice president gives his blessings to all housing development projects in the country and not just Xevera. 
He said Pag-IBIG Fund has nearly cleansed its list of erring developers which had earlier caused troubles to house buyers and delinquent payers. 
Fabiaña praised Xevera for a having a “buy-back” program of five years instead of only two years. He explained that Xevera is classified under window number one where processing is done much less because of its proven track-record and reputation…

NOW, PRAY tell, why was/is Delfin Lee even in jail?