An obit for an era

SO SAD to read the news of the passing of former Sta. Rita Mayor Frank Ocampo last Thursday at the age of 79.

Ocampo belonged to that group of Pampanga mayors who kindled reverential fear among their constituents, and equally instilled mortal dread among their enemies. Far from negatively, it was understandably, even justifiably so, theirs being the desperate times when the province was caught in the vise-grip of the communist insurgency, from the old Huks onto to the New People’s Army.

Their brave common stand against the “Red Tide” (in)famously memorialized in that original template for the state’s para-military unit called BSDU – Barrio Self-Defense Unit, later morphing to the CHDF – Civilian Home Defense Forces, and demeaned to CAFGU – Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit.

The BSDU came as the reactionary measure of the state – as much in the Marxist context as a strategic counteraction – to the killings of Pampanga officials, notably mayors Levi Panlilio of San Fernando and Joaquin Pineda of Sto. Tomas in a matter of days; and, much earlier, Anastacio Gallardo of Candaba, who also served as president of the anti-Huk Mayors League of Pampanga.    

Though collective the effort in its foundation, it was San Fernando Mayor Armando P. Biliwang that provided the face, if not the character, to the BSDU which was cinematized in the mostly bang-bang, less kiss-kiss, eponymous actioner Biliwang ng BSDU, top-billed by the celluloid’s smooching king Tony Ferrer, a Capampangan native himself, by then past the peak of his popularity as Tony Falcon, Agent X-44.

Biliwang was the unofficial leader of the group, if only by virtue of his being the president of the Mayors League of the Philippines during the Marcos regime.

The so-called “Rape of Democracy” in San Fernando in the 1980 elections – when the teachers were herded to the town hall for the counting and canvassing of votes exclusively for the ruling Kilusang Bagong Lipunan – ingloriously ended electoral politics for Biliwang.

But his anti-communist fervor flared up even more thereafter with his godfathering – allegedly – the right-wing vigilante group Angelino Simbulan Brigade that engaged the NPA urban guerrilla unit Mariano Garcia Brigade in a war of attrition in Pampanga and Angeles City in the late 1980s.

Lingering illness complexed with diabetes beat rebel bullets in claiming the life of Biliwang a decade after.

The NPA though officially claimed credit for the killing of two of Biliwang’s anti-communist confederates: Sta. Ana Mayor Magno Maniago, assassinated while attending the open-air first misa de gallo at the church patio in December 1985; and Magalang Mayor Daniel Lacson, ambushed on the way to his farm in his town within months after his unceremonious replacement by an OIC-mayor in the wake of the 1986 EDSA Revolution.

Surviving a number of ambuscades by both communist rebels and political rivals alike was Arayat Mayor Benigno Espino who served as the group leader from the time of Gov. Estelito P. Mendoza up to his death some two years ago, if memory serves right.     

Aside from bullets, Espino also survived the OIC onslaught of the Cory Aquino regime, successfully returning to the mayorship and holding on for a couple of terms, before stepping down to serve as chairman-administrator of the Central Luzon Rehabilitation Center that he, along with Ocampo and then-as-now Board Member Rosve Henson and then-Bacolor mayor now-also-BM Ananias Canlas Jr., and a few others established with the support of the Philippine National Police and private donors during the Joseph Estrada presidency.

Like Espino in Arayat, Ocampo also managed to win the mayorship of Sta. Rita again in the post-EDSA period.

After Espino’s death, Ocampo took the mantle of responsibility at the rehabilitation center. Serving until sickness took the greater side of strength out of him.

Ocampo’s death has diminished to one – Floridablanca’s Pedro Capulong – the living remnant of that distinct band of men that stood defiantly tall during one dark period in our history.

Making a brief return to the town hall in the 1990s, Capulong has since opted for a quiet retirement.

There passed, irretrievably, an era in Pampanga politics when mayors were measured for their balls of iron forged in the crucible of the war against communism.

Biliwang. Maniago. Lacson. Espino. Ocampo. And the living Capulong too. Alas, they don’t make mayors like them anymore.