Now rise the son

"I LEARNED from the best.”

It could have been a telegraphed eulogy for his father that Angeles City councilor Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin Jr. remarked at the mayoralty candidates’ forum hosted by the local association of hotels and restaurants last Nov. 21., three weeks to the untimely demise of the elder Lazatin.

“I had the best teacher who taught me very basic principles: Huwag mang-aagrabyado, huwag magnakaw, huwag gumawa ng hindi maganda sa kapwa.” Core values that have become family heirloom bequeathed by the patriarch – Don Rafael Lazatin, governor of Pampanga, mayor of Angeles City, member of Batasang Pambansa – to the son – Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin, congressman and city mayor in his turn.

“From my grandfather, to my father, a very important lesson has been passed down – leadership with compassion and love for this city and its people,” averred Pogi.

With the death of Cong Tarzan, the buzz about the city is how Pogi – 1^st District Rep. Carmelo “Jonjon” Lazatin II, too – will fare in the coming elections. (My apologies to the congressman, transfixed as I am with his brother for now.)  

Of greater interest to the electorate, I think, is how close has Pogi hewed to the Lazatin template of service with a heart.  

As the apple falls not too far from the tree, so it appears with Pogi. Well said, I’d say not without conceit, of this August 3, 2016 piece, aptly –

Pogi points.  

TAKING AFTER his accomplished father, Angeles City Councilor Carmelo Lazatin, Jr., better known as “Pogi,” has embraced housing for the urban poor as personal advocacy.

In his time at the mayoralty, the elder Carmelo, famously known as “Tarzan,” succeeded in providing decent housing to 15,000 poor families.

“I would like to continue that,” the son now promises, and has set the stage for its fulfilment by filing the Housing Program Funds Allocation Ordinance which calls for the mandatory allotment of 10 percent of the city government’s total annual budget for housing programs for the city’s urban poor.

Rationalizes Pogi: “Rapid urbanization is a sign of a city’s development, however, it also has its drawbacks. As a city becomes urbanized, more people are drawn to it because of the job opportunities and this tends to lead to the disproportionate growth of the population relative to housing.” With the urban poor ending at the short end of the stick, as usual.

The Fund, Pogi’s ordinance stipulated, “will be solely used to finance land acquisition for socialized housing…as well as the development of community sites such as road networks, pathways, and drainages.”

And strictly, “no expenditures arising from the hiring of personnel and release of salaries and other similar privileges shall be appropriated from the Fund.”

With the further proviso that the Local Urban Poor Affairs and Housing Office and other concerned departments be engaged by the city government in the allocation and usage of the said fund.

TAKING AFTER his illustrious grandfather, Pogi is championing the cause of education for all.

Don Rafael Lazatin achieved the rare feat of having served as provincial governor, city mayor and assemblyman – in the old school of straight and clean governance – but is best enshrined in the hearts of his people as founder of Republic Central Colleges that opened educational opportunities to the poorest sector of the community.

Last July 12, Pogi refiled an ordinance – first presented to the council in September 2013 but unacted – amending the charter of the City College of Angeles City, for the college to cease collection of tuition from its students, and for the city government to grant full subsidy of the same.

The proposed ordinance likewise directs the city government to allocate five percent from its general fund, five percent from its Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), and five percent from its collection of market stall fees to CCA’s annual budget appropriation.

Based on the city’s Local Expenditure Program for 2015, Pogi said the local government can fully subsidize the tuition of CCA students, citing the general fund at P913 million, the IRA at P591 million, and the city collection for market stall fees estimated at P10 million. And from there could be allocated P68.5 million subsidy for the CCA.

Yes, Pogi is doing as well in his math too.

A CHIP off the old block, Pogi makes, indeed.

Like both his Lazatin elders, contentious politics for Pogi starts with the campaign and ends with the election. Where the public good takes precedence over personal rivalries.

The lone opposition in the city council, Pogi is most ardent in his support to Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan – much, much more than hizzoner’s own aldermen – in seeking funding for the city worker’s additional benefits, specifically the salary adjustments and bonuses to government employees covered by Executive Order 201-S2016 signed by President Aquino last February.

Late last month, Pogi, filed a resolution “respectfully requesting the City Mayor thru Local Finance Committee to provide the City Council an update on the status of the implementation of the first tranche compensation adjustment in Local Government Units (LGU’s) as provided under the Executive Order 201, Series 2016”.

That, with the commitment to the city workers to “do my very best to ensure that the benefits that are due (you) will be provided by the city government.”

In fine: Unconditional support where the executive agenda hews with public interest. Principled opposition where it is inimical. Clear-cut role for the council fiscalizer.  

Now, where other political scions as keen as Pogi in living up to the demands of the post they sought and to which they were elected. Rather than engaging in some egoistic epal­-ities, Facebook mediocrities and Instagram inanities to vainly seek pogi points for the next polls…

Wheeling and dealing

“ONE OF the most valuable sectors in the society (for they) contribute a lot in the economic development of the city.”

So hailed Mayor Edwin Santiago of the local transportation sector as he feted members of the Federation of Jeepney Operators and Drivers Associations in the capital city with a “Mass Transportation Program” Dec. 3.

Per the city hall PR, Santiago principally did two things during the event: 1) He “presented the city’s upcoming plans including the establishing of malls and centers for senior citizens and youth wherein they can use them for recreational activities; and 2) “He also expressed his support to the federation’s plans and programs including the forming of cooperative and extending financial assistance to their children through a scholarship program.”

Of the first, leisure – of the transport operators and their kin -- appears to be paramount in the mayor’s mindset vis-a-vis the city’s ever increasing, ever expanding shopping malls.

Even as the PR said the event was an “Information Education Program,” there was no mention if the mayor made even but a passing reference to the social costs his constituents suffer with every mall, heavy traffic for one where the drivers directly contribute and are themselves adversely affected, socially as well as economically.

Of the second, praiseworthy is the mayor’s expressed solidarity with the group, socio-economic inclusivity its intended effect, thus: “Lagi kong sinasabi, na walang maiiwan dito sa Syudad San Fernando, hindi natin hahayaan na habang umaangat ang iba, ay may naiiwanan. Hindi maituturing na progresibo ang isang lugar kung iilan lamang sa mga aspeto at sektor nito ang umaangat. Dito sa Syudad San Fernando, hangad ng mga nanunungkulan na makapagbigay ito ng pantay-pantay na serbisyo sa mga mamamayan, lalo na’t kayo ang isa sa mga susi kung bakit magpa-hangga ngayon ay lumalago at umuusbong ang ekonomiya dito.”

Alas, solidarity – inclusivity too – is a two-way street. Mutuality, not only in benefits, but moreso, in responsibility and accountability, makes a defining element of solidarity.    

So, the mayor reached out to them. So, did the transport group respond in kind?

Like, expressing their solidarity with the city government in its traffic management efforts even if only by promising to strictly observe road rules and regulations?

Sadly, there was nothing of that sort from the transport side, per the published accounts.

It was all from Santiago, who went on to exhort his constituents to “continue to promote and preserve jeepneys as daily modes of transportation by maintaining the tradition of riding on it.”

Elevating the jeepney – like the horse-drawn rig – to the same foundation the city itself is grounded on: “Maliban sa kalesa, isa sa mga tradisyon ng Fernandino ang pagsakay sa mga dyip, kung saan sumisimbolo ito sa isang simpleng buhay ngunit kung pagmamasdan ay matibay ang pundasyon nito, gaya ng Syudad San Fernando, isang simpleng lugar ngunit matibay ito sa pagtatag at pagpapalaganap ng mga makabuluhang programa para sa kapakanan ng bawat isa.” 

For all those laudations Santiago lavished on the transport group – aye, precisely because of it – the Mass Transportation Program served nothing more than an early campaign stage for the re-electing mayor.

Indeed, a counterfoil – to his rival Barangay Dolores chair Vilma Caluag who is said to have the city’s federation of tricycle drivers’ associations in her deep, deep, oh-so-very deep pockets. The group – banners and all – merrily, if loudly, accompanying her when she filed her certificate of candidacy. Her tarps of MAY isang salita. ORA mismo ang gawa have since becoming installed accessories of their trikes.

Caluag owning the tricycle operators and drivers on one hand, and Santiago having the jeepney operators and drivers on the other, effectively reduced the election contest in the city to the simple, indeed simplistic, equation: Vilma, TODAs. EdSa, JODAs.

Alas, whither the Fernandino goeth?

The candidates apparently hostaged to the wheel, so to speak, is nothing new though, but in fact a tradition in San Fernando elections.

Where the jeepneys and trikes are now, the calesas used to lord over. Their support a premium prize for the mayoralty candidates, most specially.

I remember then-Mayor Armando P. Biliwang unveiling the association of cocheros as his secret weapon after each victory in the polls.

In his contest though with then-comebacking Mayor Virgilio “Baby” Sanchez, Cong Mando made peremptory disclosure of having not only the calesa drivers but also the jeepney drivers as solid supporters.

To which the witty Baby riposted: Wa, queca la reng driver. Cacu no man deng paserus. (Yes, the drivers are yours. But the passengers are mine). And Sanchez won by the proverbial mile.

     

  

Standing out

THE ANNUAL week-long celebrations of the Aldo ning Kapampangan culminate on the day itself, Dec. 11, with the Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awards (MOKA) – Ing Tala ning Kabiasnan at Kayapan ning Kapampangan, the trophy proclaims – extolling the year’s crop of the best and the brightest in various fields of endeavor that gave honor to that race that rose from the riverbanks.

By uncanny happenstance, mayhaps by cosmic design, in the week immediately preceding this year’s celebrations, a number of “MOKAs” took centerstage in, and still remain hogging, the national scene. For good, or bad, depending on where one stands in the great political divide.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, 1996 MOKA for National Government Service, shepherded – not a few says railroaded – the House she heads towards the passage of a draft bill for a federal system of government that she herself authored, to the consternation of the nation long-led into believing in federalism’s demise made unceremonious by that ipepe-idede-pepe-dede-ralismo vulgarity of Mocha Uson and her partner Drew whatever.

As though this were not enough to shock, a second whammy GMA inflicted upon the nation with the P2.4 billion worth of projects her House allotted to her district, coming to light only with the expose of Sen. Panfilo Lacson. (As much as we share the same family name, he is neither a relative nor a Kapampangan.)

Why, Lacson powerpointed, P500 million was earmarked for farm-to-market roads alone! How blessed are the towns of Lubao, Guagua, Sasmuan, Porac, Sta. Rita and Floridablanca with these fruits of development! Conversely, how accursed are already poor districts throughout the Philippines made even poorer after being deprived of these same benefits?

Even as Malacanang has made public its stand that GMA should explain the P2.4-billion realignment to her district, all the explaining so far (as of this writing, Dec. 11) has been done by her factotum, House majority leader Rolando Andaya Jr.

No, it was not the will, not even the wish of GMA to get the lion’s share of the pork…okay, “infra funds,” in the national budget. The largesse came about from the "misguided generosity” of the Speaker’s minions.

For her to further explain what her House has already wrought maybe much too much below the Speaker’s stature. Truly, Gloria in excelsis.
Satur Ocampo, 2002 MOKA for Social Justice, along with comrades on a humanitarian mission were arrested and detained in Davao del Norte for alleged kidnapping and human trafficking.

No less than Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. who served in Congress with Ocampo vouched for him. Going against the Malacanang grain, Teddy the Boy took to Twitter: "Human trafficking? Bullshit. I won't even bother to get the other side. I know Satur. We protected him in our Congress against warrants of arrest.”   

So, how many times has Ka Satur been arrested, indeed “stockaded” militarily and tortured? Every time emerging from it stronger and with the greater resolve to push his advocacy for social justice, for democracy.

Bishop Pablo Virgilio S. David, 2010 MOKA for Religion, makes the President’s bete noire, if not his worst nightmare, of the moment.

The rabidity, aye, the stench, of Duterte’s verbal diarrhea – maligning David of pocketing Church funds, even the faithful’s offerings of fruits; maliciously insinuating the bishop, for his night rounds, could be into drugs; and going ballistic with murderous rage against him and other bishops, thus: Patayin niyo! walang silbi! – could have come out of Gehenna itself.

Only to be met by the bishop of Kalookan with the Christian response: “I think it should be obvious to people by now that our country is being led by a very sick man. We pray for him. We pray for our country,”    

In reaction to Duterte's “kill the bishops” drivel, David turned to Luke 6:27-36: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic...Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same... But rather, love your enemies and do good to them... then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful.”

Pray hard that Among Ambo be not the first Kapampangan martyr of the Catholic Church.

Justice Ma. Theresa Dolores C. Gomez-Estoesta, 2014 MOKA for Judicial Service, made the Kapampangan proud – by the accolades showered her way in the web – for her dissenting opinion in the acquittal of former Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr.

“One need only turn a discerning eye, and not look the other way,” wrote Estoesta. “The unexplained wealth of Senator Revilla is one glaring fact, left unrelated, to gloss over.”

Furthered she: “The accused never even attempted to debunk the findings of AMLC [Anti-Money Laundering Council] in his own defense. He simply wallowed in his own defense of denial and forgery.”

And asked: “Why should the majority opinion now take the cudgels for him?”

To many, Lady Justice found flesh and blood in Estoesta there.

Atty. Estelito P. Mendoza, 1978 MOKA – among the very first awardees, the legal brains behind the defense of Revilla. Known for not having lost a single case in his storied career as solicitor-general and minister of justice during the presidency of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the erudite Apung Titong has not faltered the least in his winning skein.

Maraming salamat, Atty. Estelito Mendoza, dahil hindi ka sumuko upang tulungan akong mapalabas ang katotohanan. So, twitted an ecstatic Revilla.

This, even as continues to rampage online a tsunami of questions on truth, principally the absence of it; on justice, primarily the negation of it; on accountability, mainly the perversion of it in the Revilla acquittal.

Ours is not to pass judgment here on our MOKAs and the issues they caused or effected. We are but taken by the serendipity of it all, in time for the Aldo ning Kapampangan. Adding to the MOKA mystique and all.      

From this 2005 MOKA in Mass Media, congratulations to this year’s batch of kabiasnan at kayapan ning Kapampangan.  

            

Little classics in local politics

MAN UP!

So, Alexander S. Cauguiran dared his rival for the Angeles City mayorship VM Bryan Matthew C. Nepomuceno to make a “full disclosure” of the whys, whereases, and wherefores relative to the P1.2 billion loan the city government contracted for a sports complex, a new city hall, and equipment.  

Man up! ‘Wag na pong ilihis ang usapan. ‘Wag nang idaan sa papogi-pogi. Lahat na lang ba nga bagay, Let it BE?

Cauguiran’s are but the latest soundbites in the current political discussion, but way above in intellectual decibel over the all-too pedestrian Pogi ka, pogi ku, pogi tamu, or the cryptic MAY isang salita ORA mismo ang gawa that have so far surfaced in the campaign.

Whether sublime or ridiculous, election blurb and blabber have a way of becoming classics in the course of years. As proof, not necessarily positive, I share here this I wrote over five years ago.   

“THAT’S VERY politics.”

A classic heard around Pampanga and beyond – as it was aired over dwRW – in the early 2000s. The sayer – a mayor known for his pugnacious ways and pugilistic means – reacting to the litany of perceived anomalies and corrupt practices he purportedly committed which his vice mayor was reciting in Perry Pangan’s radio show.

“No can do. Never say die.”

His yet another classical phrase, a corrupted take on the Kapampangan “E yu agawa yan. Mikamatayan tamu” and the Tagalog “Hindi n’yo puwedeng gawin yan. Magkakamatayan tayo.”

The hizzoner shouting at the onrushing wave of policemen led by the regional commander axing and smashing their way into his barricaded office where he holed himself in for two weeks to prevent the police from forcibly unseating him. This after the Comelec ruled it was not him that won the election in 1995.  

A case for Ripley’s: Our man landed third. The second-placer filed an election protest but before the case was resolved to his favour, he was incapacitated by a massive stroke. And third-placer took the mayoralty seat, which prompted the initial first-placer to protest too, and, after a rather long period of hearings, was declared winner.   

His outrageous murder of the King’s language notwithstanding, the mayor could rise to some rarefied air of eloquence when forced to defend some profitable enterprise, as when he was threatened with charges for illegal extraction of sand in his municipality, to wit – delivered in his unique way: “There is no quaaarrrying in (his town). There is ooonly the scrrrraping of the volcaaanic debrisss from our agricultural laaands, pursuant to our noooble oobjective to renew theiiir prrroductiiivity.”

For all his barako, some even say – lovingly –pusakal persona, this man had a pusong mamon to his friends and needy constituents.

Another mayor – Apalit’s Tirso G. Lacanilao, God bless his soul – was, by, of, and in himself a classic.

Possessed of a mug he himself claimed not even his own mother could love, he was ridiculed for being – political correctness, now – aesthetically-challenged. His election posters were stamped “Pangit!” by his opponents.

Right there and then, he found the stock-in-trade with, and by, which he won his three terms, easily. He simply capitalized on his ugliness, to be blunt about it.

“Sinasabi po ng mga katunggali ko na ako ay pangit, na ako ay mukhang kabayo. Sinungaling po sila. Kayo na rin ang makakapagpatunay na hindi ako mukhang kabayo. Mukha akong tsonggo.” (My rivals say I am ugly, that I look like a horse. They are liars. You see for yourself that I don’t look like a horse. I look like a monkey.) So spake Tirso on the political stage, so the crowd roared in delight.

Then his segue to: “Alam ng buong bayan na matatapang at nakakatakot ang aking mga kalaban. Hindi po totoo yan. Hinahamon ko sila ngayon, kung sila’y talagang matapang at walang takot, sige nga, magpalit kami ng mukha!” (The whole town knows that my opponents are brave and fearsome. That is a lie. I challenge them now, if they are indeed brave and fearless, let us trade faces!)

A campaign rap was even composed for Tirso: “Y Tirso mayap ya / Maganaka ya pa / Andyang matsura ya” (Tirso is good / He is kind-hearted / Though very ugly). To the sound of which Tirso pranced on the stage like an ape. Again, to the paroxysms of delight of his audience.

A laughingstock, Tirso made of himself. An undefeated mayor, the people of Apalit made of Tirso.

Tirso could have served the very template for one other politician who never retreated, never surrendered, but never won the seat he coveted all his life.

Instead of making positive his un-aesthetics, he despised any mention of it.

The now-lamented Ody Fabian – God bless his soul – was slapped with a case for grave slander after he nonchalantly said in his radio commentary over dwGV-FM “Masuwerte ka, mababait ang mga kababayan ko, at pinapayagan kang gumala man lang diyan. Hindi mo ba alam, bawal ang pangit sa bayang yan.” (You are lucky, my townmates are tolerant and they allow you to roam around. Don’t you know my town is off-limits to uglies?).

They don’t make politicians like these anymore. How I miss them! 

The vote commodified

IT IS still  some six months to the 2019 polls and already, one candidate – I need not tell you who, in a city – I need not tell you which, is assessed to have spent, as of mid-November yet, some P70 million.

A virtual exodus – that’s how a neighbor puts it – of the magnitude of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments is showing daily at the upscale enclave where the candidate’s high-walled estate miraculously opened up as one promised land, luring the multitude to the manna for easy picking there.

For the Christmas season alone, friends swear to the heavens, the candidate will give Santa a run for his gifts with a budget of P30 million.

Apprised of the wannabe’s colossal campaign chest, the hanger-on reportedly bragged of P300 million at his disposal. To which, scoffed those in-the-know: Ninanu ya? Maluat nong megisan qng pamaniali nang gabun ding penaco-quitan na. (Crude translation: What money? That he amassed from his grafting has long been spent in his personal land-banking).    

Already gargantuan, those hundreds of millions of pesos allotted for a city campaign readily diminish to Lilliputian pittance vis-à-vis the Brobdingnagian P1 billion plus-plus bruited about as the campaign treasury the ambitious needs for a provincial run.

The ready assumption is that such astronomical sum could only come from congressional pork. But with the sitting congressmen smug with their expected coronation in their respective districts, the hunt shifts to… cholesterol pork?

Yes, P1 billion can be exacted from the piggy bank. But only from that little piggy that went to and dominated the market, turning out the province’s best.

If meatheads are to be believed, the P1-B++ campaign has already started in the riverine villages of Masantol and Macabebe with the sudden engagement of just about every sari-sari store in dealership of processed meat products bearing the brand and colors, not to mention the picture the greater Kapampangan carnivores are most familiar with.

As much for cold cash, as for cold cuts – especially this Christmastime – the 2019 election campaign will be enjoyed. Whatever, constant shall remain the commercialization of the vote. As I wrote about in campaigns past, updated to wit:

AN HONEST politician is one who, when bought, will stay bought.

Substitute “voter” for politician, and still holds that truism attributed to the American financier and politician Simon Cameron (1799-1889) who served a short year as Lincoln’s Secretary of War, deposed for corruption.

A caveat emptor though is necessary here: What is the warranty given the buyer that whom he/she bought stayed “honest” all the way to the poll precinct?

This becomes all too problematic given the exhortations of moralists: Kunin ang pera, sundin ang konsiyensiya! Kunin ang pera, iboto ang kursunada!

To get their money’s worth, what politicians and their strategists did in the business of vote-buying in manual elections past was to provide carbon paper – along with half of the pay – to the payee which he/she was required to sandwich between the ballot and a piece of paper. That paper was to be presented to the “coordinator” of the payer for the other half of the agreed-upon price for the vote. 
Technology upgraded voting with the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines. So was the carbon paper upgraded to the cell phone. The payee now required to take a photo of his accomplished ballot with his mobile to prove that he/she did his/her part of the bargain. (That was before mobiles were banned from the precincts).

Pre-election buying of votes has even less guarantees of “honest” returns. If a voter can sell his/her vote to one candidate, what prevents him/her to sell it to the rival candidate? As there are double deals in government contracts for so-called SOPs, so there are double sales in votes.

Indeed, long and loud are the lamentations of losing candidates over the waste of so much money on voters who just (re)sold out to the higher bidder. 

Wise to the ways of “dishonest” voters, a local candidate in the 2010 elections was reported to have corralled the voters that were purchased 30 hours before the elections, providing them with food and accommodations as well as bags of goodies, thereby preventing them from being bought back by the rival.

Before the precincts opened, the quartered voters were herded like sheep to their respected polling places.

Thus, the dictum: Secure, hide what you have purchased, lest they be stolen from you.

In the 2013 campaign, vote-buying is said to have taken a different turn. Voters are now asked, in exchange for cash, not anymore to vote for a certain candidate but not to vote at all.

A candidate knows the bailiwicks of his/her opponent. It is there that money is widely spent on the rival’s supporters for them not to bother voting anymore. Just to be sure that their money is spent wisely and the bought voter stayed honest, indelible ink shall be put on his/her forefinger on election day.

In one town, it is said that the going rate for the no-voter at this early is already P1,500.

That’s quite a sum compared to the paltry P300 per vote bandied about in the city. Which reminds me of the now lamented, dearly departed Tirso G. Lacanilao, three-term mayor of Apalit.

Campaigning for his second and last re-election, Lacanilao lambasted – on stage – voters who commodified their ballots thus: Mababa ko pa uri kesa karing babi. King P300 pisali yu pati kaladuwa yu. Ing babi halaga ne man libu-libo.(You have lesser value than pigs. For P300 you sold your very souls. The pig costs thousands of pesos at least).”

Shame before swine. Awfully shameless.

A consolation for those who don’t buy, who can’t buy, who won’t buy votes: One can only buy so much.

In a tight contest though, that so much can be more than enough to make the difference. Yeah, there’s a bargain sale out there.