Out of the shadows, darkly

SO TO Speak – as much the idiom as Ms. Sonia Soto’s CLTV-36 talk show – some hornet’s nest was stirred with the lamentation of the venerable multi-term congressman, three-term city mayor Oscar Samson Rodriguez that successor and protégé Mayor Edwin Santiago has systematically dismantled what he institutionalized in the city government.

What came as a surprise to many was no more than an affirming validation to me, specifically to what I wrote here on July 28, 2015, thus:    

Oca unneeded, EdSa in hubris

EDWIN SANTIAGO has come a long way.

Unbeaten, top-notch three-term councilor plucked out of political hibernation by Oscar Rodriguez to tandem with him in his first run for the mayorship in 2004.

Served as loyal acolyte throughout Oca’s groundbreaking, award-winning performance governance system that put the City of San Fernando in the world map of good governance.     

Natural inheritor, therefore, of city hall upon Oca’s term completion.

But still…as we wrote sometime in 2013: 

Up until he became the mayoralty candidate in the last elections, Edwin Santiago was regarded as furthest from being “mayorable.”

As a matter of political course, he was relegated to the “best vice mayor, never mayor” league of Mabalacat City’s Pros Lagman, Angeles City’s Ric Zalamea, Bacolor’s Diman Datu, and the City of San Fernando’s now dearly lamented Tiger Lagman, indeed the very face that imaged that fellowship of almost-but-not-quite-hizzoners.

That, despite – mayhaps, because of – EdSa’s masterful handling of the city council that merited not one but two recognitions as the Philippines’ best for component cities.

Why, even EdSa’s proclamation as official candidate of the Liberal Party for the capital’s mayorship did not go to his credit but to Oscar S. Rodriguez’s, his perceived patron, acknowledged mentor, recognized benefactor. And actual predecessor.        

It was the charismatic Oca – four-term representative of the 3^rd District and three-term city mayor, runner-up in the World Mayor Award 2005, the avatar of good governance – too that was deemed to have taken the cudgel for EdSa, to have borne the burden of battle against the comebacking Dr. Rey B. Aquino, and carrying the fight to total victory.

With EdSa less a hard-fighting combatant than the biggest, if not luckiest, beneficiary there.  

Indeed, even EdSa’s election campaign collateral of tsinelas was denigrated as an admission of his unfitness to fill Oca’s shoes, deemed much, much too large for him…

Can’t fit into Oca’s shoes? Then, simply throw them away. As EdSa veritably did with his predecessor’s ways and means, from Day One at the mayor’s seat.

Remember that report of bankruptcy of the city government upon EdSa’s assumption to office? How, to clear his smeared reputation, the indignant Oca had to move the LandBank of the Philippines to issue a statement citing deposits and reserves in its CSF account?

Remember the so-called “massacre of casuals and OJTs,” notably those in the Magsilbi Tamu Brass Band 919 and Teatru Fernandino, the centrepiece of Oca’s cultural agenda for the city?

There too is the discontinuance of Oca’s signature Tugak Festival.

Even more telling was the inertia with which the EdSa administration expended in supporting the measure to create a lone congressional district for the City of San Fernando. Throw in there too its conversion into a highly urbanized city. Both proposed legislations coming to nought in the current Congress.    

How about the obliteration of Magsilbi Tamu upon the conception of “Fernandino First: Fernandino ing Mumuna, Fernandino ing Manimuna!" 

Out the shadow

Which, to us, signaled the definitive severance of EdSa’s ties with Oca, and his becoming his own man.

There is everything right in one getting out of the shadow of another, in finding one’s place in the sun, in basking in the limelight of one’s own glory, in flying with one’s own wings.

There is something wrong though when that is done only at the expense of another.

That is where stands EdSa now vis-à-vis Oca. If we go by talks swirling all around the city, from the coffeeshops to the corporate boardrooms, from the market stalls to the tricycle terminals. If I go by my own experience, to wit: 

In a late breakfast with media over two weeks back, congratulations were profuse for EdSa winning some outstanding award and San Fernando hailed as No.2 Most Competitive (Component) City in the country.

In his simple way, EdSa attributed the achievements to “depoliticizing” the departments at city hall.

If he “depoliticized” the offices, I remarked, then it could only mean that these were “politicized” in the previous Rodriguez administration.

His instant response was a resounding “No,” followed by: “As a matter of fact, we continued many of the projects of Cong Oca.”

What projects, he did not say though. So, what did he mean by “depoliticizing” then?

“Empowerment. The departments were empowered.”

No, we did not pursue our questioning which would have, logically, been: If these were now empowered, it could only mean they were disempowered in the previous Rodriguez administration.

Aside from cluelessness over what comes out of his mouth, EdSa also suffers from myopia as to the ramifications of his statements. And we are being kind in saying this.

Not as kind are the Oca supporters – and they are multitudes – who take just about EdSa’s every word as some willful denigration of Oca. 

Totally uncalled for.

Insecurities

One. For whatever its worth, EdSa owes Oca a political debt of gratitude. Utang na loob remains far up in the Filipino hierarchy of values. The truism too that only a serpent bites the hand that feeds it. Enough said.

Two. Whatever base of insecurity EdSa stands on, re: “Mayor Oca 2016,” is…well, baseless. Notwithstanding the reverberating clamour for his return to city hall, re-election to the House is Oca’s recurring refrain at every asking of his political plans. Being a proven man of his word, not even an iota of doubt can be spotted in the Cong there.

It is to EdSa’s political luck that Dong Gonzales hovers like some bird of prey above the 3^rd District, ready to pounce at the slightest opportunity of an Oca miscue. And the latter has the least intention, to say it mildly, to cede his present domain to his estranged inaanak.

Three. EdSa’s absolute alienation of Oca in matters of city governance is, to say the least, an unwise move.

Not so much for the deprivation of learned wisdom the Cong is ever willing to dispense, as for the opportunities lost, indeed, wasted in terms of political largesse.

The closeness of Oca to President Aquino is not just the stuff of legend. It is for real. The Aquino sisters, notably the loquacious Kris, have not only affirmed but even attested to this. Not once, not twice, but on countless occasions, public and private.        A closeness that would have most certainly translated to actual programs, projects and services for the city – over and far above what is routinely given by the national government.

Alas, what immeasurable loss to the Fernandino there! Alack, the wages of pride and prejudice!

His once devoted patron unneeded in his desire to shine in his own light, it can only be hubris that is consuming EdSa now.

And as classic Greek tragedy dictated, so history holds where this culminates, nay, descends to.    

OUT TO pasture, so to speak, after his failed re-election bid to the House in 2016,  Oca Rodriguez remains a power to reckon with, his political stock more than enough to propel a comeback to city hall.

OCA 2019. It’s something Fernandinos – at least the hundreds I heard – are pining, if not priming, for. Kapitana Vilma Caluag, and the end of the period for filing certificates of candidacy, notwithstanding.