Clerical materialism

OFFHAND, THIS has nothing to do with the Marxist theory, neither of the historical nor of the dialectical kind. Notwithstanding the engagement of Catholic clerics, especially in Latin America in the ‘60s, in the fusion of Christian teachings with Marxist doctrines that birthed Liberation Theology.   

Aye, that which was posterized with Dom Helder Camara, the good archbishop of Recife in Brazil, via his single quote: “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist.”

Ah, the poor, beatified by Christ Himself as the possessors of the kingdom of heaven, may the Church have any other choice as central to its salvific ministry?  

Preferential option for the poor. Thus, it came to pass from the social turbulence of the ‘60s to stand in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, thus: This love of preference for the poor, and the decisions which it inspires in us, cannot but embrace the immense multitudes of the hungry, the needy, the homeless, those without health care and, above all, those without hope of a better future.   

"Without the preferential option for the poor, 'the proclamation of the Gospel… risks being misunderstood or submerged'." So Pope Francis himself decreed in Evangelii Gaudium.

No other pope in recent history has dedicated, aye, committed so much of the Petrine ministry to the poor as Francis, befitting the name he chose – that of Assisi’s “man of poverty.” This is not to say though that it all began with the Argentinian Jesuit.

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) declared: “A Church that embraces and practices the evangelical spirit of poverty which combines detachment from possessions with a profound trust in the Lord as the only source of salvation…”

Segued to: “The Church encompasses with her love all those who are afflicted by human misery and she recognizes in those who are poor and who suffer the image of her poor and suffering founder.  She does all in her power to relieve their need and in them she strives to serve Christ.”

Church of the Poor

“The Church of the Poor” found centerstage at the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (1991), defined as “one whose members and leaders have a special love for the poor….  It is not an exclusive or excluding love in such a way that there is no room in a Christian’s heart for those who are not poor.  For always, the Christian must love all persons… Christ was able to love well-to-do people like Zaccheus and the family of Martha, Mary and Lazarus.”

Furthered PCP II: “The ‘Church of the Poor’ is one where, at the very least, the poor are not discriminated against because of their poverty, and they will not be deprived of their ‘right to receive in abundance the help of the spiritual goods of the Church, especially that of the Word of God and the sacraments from the pastors’.”

Alas, do they still read Vatican II and PCP II in seminaries today? Alack, have they ever been given serious study?     

Sacramental menu

With the list of sacraments diminished to a pricy restaurant menu --- baptism and confirmation, P1,500 or P500 per godparent whichever is higher; matrimony, P20,000 with aircon but excluding the flowers, P1,000 per sponsor; requiem Mass, P1,500 excluding blessing at P1,500 too… -- what poor can still avail himself of that “right to receive in abundance” the Church’s spiritual goods.

This is akin to, nay, worse, than the selling of indulgences that drove Martin Luther to hammer his Ninety-Five Theses at the door of Schlosskirche, Wittenberg, sparking the Protestant Reformation.

What Church of the Poor can ever obtain among clerics sporting the latest fashion, be it in clothes, gadgets, cars -- aye, SUVs being the padres’ preferential option. Their good life extending to gastronomic treats in the priciest restaurants, to tours – more for pleasure than pilgrimage, and even to casinos.

The social conscientization imperative to serving the poor, reduced to the absurdity of pa-sosyal malorientation.

A scandal to behold: the cura of a rich parroquia clinging to his post as though it were titled property. Or, if ultimately pried from it, taking with him all parish valuables, leaving the successor to start from scratch in his turn at accumulation of material wealth.    

It did not take a Duterte to impact upon us the lifestyle of the rich and famous that churchmen have immersed themselves in. The ditty of the barrio polosador during my boyhood finds currency even today in my seniorhood:       

Nung bisa cang mate danup, maquiasaua cang mosicus. Nung ala yang upang tumiup, ala cang panialing baguc.

Nung bisa cang mate cabsi, maquiasawa cang pari. Magmisa ya saguli, atin na cang panialing babi.   

Laments Francis: “There are perhaps – not many – some priests, bishops, religious congregation who profess poverty yet live like a rich person...I would like these religious men and women, Christians, some bishops or some religious congregation to strip themselves more [of riches] for their brothers and their sisters.”

God or mammon

“The sin of incoherence between life and faith,” the Pope called it. The dichotomy of serving God, or mammon, as Christ put it.  

It is not sheer random that among Francis’ very first pronouncements upon arrival in the Philippines in 2015, was a warning to churchmen against succumbing to “a certain materialism which can creep into our lives and compromise the witness we offer.”

Said Francis: “Only by becoming poor ourselves, by stripping away our complacency, will we be able to identify with the least of our brothers and sisters.” That was but a paraphrase of the Holy Father’s earlier admonition to churchmen to “be shepherds with the smell of sheep.”

In his homily during the rites of Holy Orders at St. Peter’s Basilica some years back, Francis counseled: “Always have before your eyes the example of the Good Shepherd, who did not come to be served, but to serve and to seek and save what was lost.”

Expounding: “Conscious of having been chosen among men and elected in their favor to attend to the things of God, exercise in gladness and sincere charity the priestly work of Christ, solely intent on pleasing God and not yourselves or human beings, [or] other interests.”

The exact contradiction rising at a recent priestly ordination in Pampanga. The sacredness of the occasion submerged to the materialism of the pomp, pageantry and extravagance grafted into it. 
Is a budget of close to P400,000 for an ordination – for catered food, flowers and decors, entertainment, stipends – a thing of God? Is soliciting for that gargantuan amount, indeed, taxing even the poor parishioners for it, an exercise in gladness and sincere charity? Is that even permissible in the Church of the Poor?

The candidate for ordination did not simply go to the parish church. He went on a triumphal parade around town atop a flower-bedecked pick-up truck waving both hands like a politician on the campaign trail, or a homecoming beauty pageant winner. Stopping and alighting a block away from the church to the beat of ati-atihan drums and met by dancing costumed maidens.  

If that was a thing of God, I had to seek another God. For whatever god that was pleased by it could only be Mars, triumphal parades being in his honor, and Vesta, with the dancing maidens making out the vestal virgins.

One who passes himself off as steeped in church history, culture and religiosity justified it all as a return to the hallowed tradition in priestly ordination called daquit pari – when the priest was fetched from his house and taken to church.

For all his purported intelligence, he readily lapsed into idiocy.

Daquit pari clearly references an ordained priest, not a candidate for ordination. In this wise then, it is daquit deacuno – fetching the deacon.

Daquit pari covers post-ordination, when the priest is taken on a procession from his house to the parish church to celebrate cantamisa, his first Mass as celebrant.

Most scandalous though were reports – yet to be personally validated, though – that the candidate for ordination walked to church under a baldachin – that canopy used over the Blessed Sacrament during ecclesiastical processions!

Comes to mind Matthew 23:5-8, referencing the pharisees thus: “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.

No, we are not witnessing something pharisaic here. What we are seeing is self-apotheosizing. An apostate then, I'd rather be.        

The vote in quote

SPARE THE pretention to pedantry, call it bookishness for all its worth, but one activity I readily return to at the onset of every campaign season is to dig into some treasury of collected ruminations usually in crisp quotations about the electoral exercise.

Find here the universality of political experience unbounded by time and space among a multiverse of nations. Yeah, the so-called Filipino political praxis is a commonality among other peoples.      

POLITICS IS not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. 

In that terse one-liner from the esteemed American economist, diplomat and author John Kenneth Galbraith, I found affirmation for my none-of-the-above choice among the presidential candidates in 2016.

Of course, I am well aware of the gravity of my head-in-the-sand stance, fully concurring with Plato that: One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferior.   

But it could not have been any other way for me – even with the most fervid participation – given the practice of elections in this country which subscribes to that elementary and eternal definition in Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary (1906), thus: Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

Reinforced in the American journalist Art Spander’s in-your-face: The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.

As stupid as it can ever get, indeed.

Finding the slightest consolation in Abraham Lincoln’s classic: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Yes, so politicians readily deal with it, to their advantage naturally. As Democratic Party leader Robert Strauss did: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the people you need to concentrate on.

Thus, one Frank Dane: Get all the fools on your side and you can be elected to anything.

In that context of fools deciding elections, whither goeth vox populi, vox Dei?

Nowhere. As there never was such thing. Never has been. Never will be.

As argued a favorite quotable, the 8^th century English scholar and theologian Alcuin: And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.

Even more succinct, the 20^th century Richard Nixon: The voters have spoken – the bastards.  

People deserve the government they elect. An attribution to 19^thcentury French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville morphing into We deserve whom we elect. Going by my slippery slope of We are whom we elect.

The problem with political jokes is that they get elected. So quipped one Henry Cate VII. Necessarily then, from our above premise, the mutuality with the political jokes that elect them. Come to think of it, speak Visayan-Kapampangan and fools and pols become homonyms, even as their actions already make them interchanging synonyms.

As politics is universal and timeless, so are politicos. Quotes transcend space and time to profile our current crop of political pretenders.  

…[A]ll the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding and a vulgar manner. Indeed, notwithstanding Aristophanes (450-388 BCE) millennia removed from the 21^st century, ancient Greece as well from Davao City.

In this era of fake news and age of fabricated info, comes the relevance of Mark Twain’s counsel to the politico: Get the facts first. You can distort them later. 

…[I]n all my years of public life, I have never profited from public service. I’ve earned every cent. And in all of my years in public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can say that in my years of public life that I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. I’ve earned everything I got. Shades of the Dark Side there, but actually Tricky Dick – Nixon – in his testimonial subsequently demolished by the Watergate scandal.

Then, Napoleon on the sitting (mal)administration: In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.

For the last word, Stalin on the reality of elections: It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.

Duh, Comrade Josef, here we call it Hocus-PCOS.

As I voted not in 2016, so shall I vote nut in 2019?

Beyond revelry

FEBRUARY IS at its festive best in Mabalacat City. Its religious fiesta in honor of the patron Nuestra Senora de Gracia on February 2, but only the start of a swirl of activities that run the gamut of job, trade, and agri-fairs, sports and dance competitions, beauty pageant but always centerpieced by the city’s signature Caragan Festival.     

Ten years ago, in only its second outing, the Caragan Festival has already captured the of Kapampangan and smacked into the national consciousness via the expansive coverage given it by the broadcast media.   

Taken in by the its socio-cultural impact, we were even moved to write here on Feb. 27, 2009 Festival to the max, thus:

“A FESTIVAL among great festivals of the province as it will immortalize the lifestyle of the Aetas through dance and other cultural presentations. The Aetas are well known for their dances as part of their celebration of their struggles and triumphs.”
Thus defined Jun Magbalot, execom co-chair of the Caragan Festival, which on its second year has already become the signature festival of the soon-to-be City of Mabalacat. 
Thirty-one “tribes” from schools and organizations in various native accoutrements of indigenous materials are slated to participate in the street revelry today. No, it’s not all faux natives – charcoaled faces and bodies to look like the real deal – that are joining. The festival would have been totally devoid of meaning there. Three ethnic tribu – Paglabuhan from Haduan-Calapi, Rosario from Dapdap, and Tabakunaw  from Calumpang – provide  authenticity to the festival. 
“This festival is not only about having fun with street dances but also about honoring the rich cultural heritage of the people of Mabalacat. The Aetas, being one of the original inhabitants, are also given due recognition,” Magbalot explained during the pre-festival prescon last Monday.
Recognition of the Aetas for being the original inhabitants of this land. That instantly struck a chord in Philippine Star’s Dinggoy Cervantes who was seated beside me during that prescon at Max’s Dau.
“Perhaps we can go beyond the revelry of the Caragan Festival to really give recognition to our Aeta brothers,” mused Dinggoy.
Yeah, like the proceeds from the festival – what with its many sponsors – placed in some trust fund for the education of young Aeta tribesmen or for some livelihood programs in the uplands. 
Dinggoy’s thoughts soared even higher with suggestions of a recognition day for Aetas who have distinguished themselves in various fields. “They could very well serve as role models, not only to the young kulot but even to the unat.”
I remember two really outstanding Aeta brethren: one whom I heard once discussing the Mining Act in fluent and mellifluous Tagalog, the other being the lady lawyer at the Clark Development Corp.
I fully agreed with Dinggoy. By their example the line of discrimination between us brothers will be narrowed further; the social divide between us bridged. The Caragan Festival will thus be raised to a level higher than the promotion and preservation of a cultural heritage. It shall evolve into a catalyst for the socio-cultural and economic liberation of the Aetas.
On hindsight now, the night of recognition for the Honored Sons and Daughters of Mabalacat within the festival period would have assumed a deeper meaning, a loftier value had Aetas been included among the honorees. Perhaps Magbalot and company could consider this for next year’s edition. It will go a long way in the efforts to fully integrate our tribesmen into mainstream society.  
“The festival can go all the way up the spiritual milieu even,” Dinggoy could not be contained.
So what did he mean by that? Mabalacat to proclaim a local holiday in honor of the Aeta deity Apo Namalyari, and for us all to trek Mount Pinatubo in pilgrimage on that day? 
“No, the Caragan Festival can launch the search for the first Aeta saint,” Dinggoy said so unaffectedly. In my excitement I forgot Dinggoy’s being a Marian devotee. 
From cultural preservation to socio-economic liberation to canonization. The Aetas deserve every recognition they get every step in that process.   
The brains behind the Caragan Festival – Magbalot, his co-chair the doubly-visionary Deng Pangilinan, and Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales – have started something great going. They may as well raise it to the max.

ALAS, IT was not meant to be. The festival has not gone a foot beyond the street dancing, interpretative dance competitions of its origins. The subsequent fall-out between Magbalot and Morales, arguably contributory to its stagnation.  

With “new” Mayor Cris Garbo and Magbalot lording anew the cultural affairs of the city, opens anew the potential of Caragan to evolve into that “catalyst for the socio-cultural and economic liberation of the Aetas” in the city.

   

Think, Pampanga

IT WAS the 1995 elections. Sitting Gov. Bren Z. Guiao’s clarion call for the electorate to make voting a full exercise of their faculty of reason screamed in streamers spread all over Pampanga.

Think twice, Pampanga. Don Pepito Mercado did not simply tread on the heels of his rival for the governorship but even doubled the impact of his call.

The subject of their desperate beseeching – action star Lito Lapid. Bewildered and bothered as they were of the outpouring, indeed, the tsunami of support the putative functional illiterate was generating from the Capampangan.

So, with nary a thought, the Bida ng Masa was voted governor with a margin of some 300,000 votes over Guiao; Mercado buried too deep in the avalanche to still matter in the final count.

Early into the night of the counting, hearing over radio Guiao already conceding defeat, Lapid exclaimed: “Gentleman neman pala y Tatang Bren, oyta mig-coincide ne.”

It was our – Lapid’s think tank – turn to think. Hard, really hard.

That Lapid went on to finish three full terms as governor and then bequeathed his post, like an heirloom, to his son Mark begged reason.

E mu tatasan ing camulalan ding Capampangan. Do not underestimate the gullibility of the Capampangan, is the kindest translation for what can pass as reason. That which I wrote ten years ago in the context of the Lapid phenomenon. That which earned me a bitter backlash from the “highly intelligent” Mequeni race. Consider though:   

With the lahar rampages in the wake of the Pinatubo eruptions, all Lapid practically did – ever with a camera crew in tow for the cinematic effect – was perform calculated stunts in the mud with all too willing “victims” to be plucked out of the mire.

Into his second term, Lapid earned the dubious distinction of being the first – and so far only – Pampanga governor ever suspended from office. Courtesy of the Ombudsman for the now infamous “quarry scam.”         

Even as his personal wealth – all too manifest in a fleet of luxury vehicles and number of mansions – obviously skyrocketed, the provincial coffers almost scraped bottom with the thinning out of the quarry income.

Still, Lapid won by landslides, and as I have said above made his son governor too, the boy’s only qualification for a public office being SK chairman in Porac, but only after the elected SK federation president abdicated, for unspecified reasons.

For the record, in all the 12 years of the Lapids at the Capitol, the quarry collection totaled P155,626,000.

When Among Eddie T. Panlilio took over, that Lapid collection found equivalence in but 155 days – all of three months and five days – with the Reverend Governor’s P1 million daily collection.

At the turn of Nanay Gov. Lilia G. Pineda, the daily income from quarry was even upped to P1.2 million.

Think, just think how much the province lost during the Lapid maladministration. Conversely, think how much some private wealth was amassed from that public loss.

Now, think twice how the corruption-maculated, “functional illiterate” Lapid even ascended to the august halls of the Senate.  And think more how and why, after what could only be deemed a lackluster performance as permanent chair of the Senate comite de silencio punctuated only by the PDAF scandal and his wife’s dollar-salting case in the US, Lapid remains among toppers in all current surveys. Notwithstanding too his absence of three years from the Senate and his ignominious defeat in the Angeles City mayoralty polls in 2016.  

Ing camulalan ding Capampangan, camulalan ding anggang Pilipinu mu naman.     

As with Lapid, so with fellow action star Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr.

At last Monday’s first hurrah of the Duterte regime’s Hugpong ng Pagbabago ticket at the Capitol, into the nadir of brainlessness the Capampangan descended. Yes, in the bitterest of ironies, it was right in the seat of political power, the locus of the best and the brightest, that Capampangan intelligence was grounded to zero.

Gone immediately viral that day was a Rappler video clip of two women, presumably Capampangan, “explaining” why they would still vote for Revilla despite his being accused of corruption in the magnitude of plunder and detained for a number of years.

“Kasi guwapo siya at mabait.” Can it ever get any less vacuous than that?

No, the women, presumably Capampangan, did not know any law Revilla authored or co-authored.

No, they said they did not believe Revilla could have dipped his fingers in the public coffers “kasi mayaman na siya.”

Ah, to what ludicrous depths has public discourse plunged.

Ang pinuno ng Probinsiyano blurbed Lapid’s posters with his rugged good looks – circa 1995 – impacting the popular TV series he starred in.

Ang Agimat ng Masa hollered Revilla’s posters with his handsome mug – dating to his gubernatorial run in Cavite – reminding one and all of his blockbusters.

What have those got to do with the Senate essential that is legislation? So, what do the voters care?    

Kasi guwapo. Kasi mabait. Kaya bida.

With showbiz as the IQ benchmark, the people can only have addled brains, incapable of thinking beyond what they see on-screen.

Again, my mantra comes to the fore: A people dumbed, a nation damned.

    

I stand with Alunan

INTO THE national consciousness he was thrust when he walked tall amid the tension-gripped desolation of Ayala Avenue to deliver out of Hotel Intercon foreign tourists trapped in the worst of the seven coup attempts against the Cory Aquino government.

Rafael M. Alunan III has since made the very definition of walking tall. I should know.

I walked with him…okay, less bravely behind him, when he marched warring political and clan leaders, stripped of their arms and armies, through the streets of Jolo to show a disbelieving populace that sworn enemies could still walk the path of peace. This, as highlight of his SALT initiative, that was the Sulu Arms Limitation Talks.   

I looked for the nearest possible escape route when, after the old venerable warrior Ali Dimaporo’s rambling panegyric to his people’s quest for peace and their renunciation of violence he made manifest in surrendering hundreds of guns, Alunan riposted: “Naglolokohan ba tayo?” hurling a token broken Garand rifle at the pile of assorted, antiquated unserviceable firearms.

The succeeding harvests of Oplan Paglalansag in Moroland yielded more weapons of the lethal kind. No doubt the result of Alunan’s standing tall in that Dimaporo episode in Lanao.

A most sentimental note: Tawi-Tawi Gov. Hadjiril Matba, tears welling in his eyes, handing over to Alunan the M40 recoilless rifle he used as Kumander Adzhar of the famed MNLF Batch 300 in the secessionist cause, with the words: “We are brothers. We are one. We are at peace.”

Launched during his watch at the DILG, Oplan Paglalansag was implemented to break up private armies kept by political warlords and private bigwigs by limiting security detail to less than three bodyguards approved and provided by the PNP.

It came to be called the “Alunan Doctrine” by no less than Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte which he credited for helping in cleaning up his city of criminals, as well as terrorists.

Yes, I was there too, when into the night he danced at a cañao high in the mountains up north in one peace mission with Catholic priest-turned rebel Conrado Balweg’s Cordillera People’s Liberation Army. A moment frozen in time: Alunan – in the words of a journalist with us – channeling Kevin Costner’s Dancing with Wolves.

So was I as he rushed, at zero-dark-30, on board a Philippine Navy vessel through the Sulu Straits from Zamboanga to Basilan to oversee the rescue of a doctor and his young son kidnapped – if fading memory still serves right – by the then-Janjalani Group that morphed into the Abu Sayyaf.

No, I was not with him in the various international fora on crime prevention and anti-terrorism but I knew how he stood tall in all of them from reading the conference reports, if only in their executive summaries.

At the height of the Pinatubo devastation, in the worst of the lahar rampages, Alunan made a constant commanding presence in the devastated areas, mobilizing the police and local government units in disaster coordinating councils.

One decisive moment: Alunan at Camp Olivas designating on-the-spot Bacolor Vice Mayor Ananias Canlas Jr. as Acting Mayor, when the sitting mayor could not be immediately found to address an impending crisis in the town, and then took Junior with him on a chopper ride right to the core of the crisis.      

Oplan Pagbabago conceived and implemented when he was Interior Secretary effected the cleansing of the PNP from misfits and miscreants, that in four years totaled to some 3,000 with no less than 60 senior officers with the ranks of general and colonel among those who packed up and out.

Equally, the LGUs were unspared in his drive toward good governance – famously posterized in rapist-murderer Calauan Mayor Antonio Sanchez caged at the Camp Crame detention facility.

That Rafael M. Alunan III has what it takes to lead – the breadth and depth of leadership experience, capability, character – has been proven beyond any iota of doubt.        

The Senate is a Roman invention. The men who composed it made the very personification of the Roman ideals, of virtus as dignitas, gravitas, pietas, auctoritas, veritas, firmitas, honestas – needing no translation here as they form the root words of the very universal values, which most evidently not only obtained in Rafael M. Alunan III but verily lived by him.

Values which, tragically, the Senate of the Philippines has for so long been wanting of.

Yes, Senator Rafael M. Alunan is the man to fill that void.  

(The columnist served as special assistant to the DILG Secretary from 1992 to 1995.)

Campaign notes

THE OFFICIAL campaign period is yet to start but already incumbents, wannabes, has-beens, and never-bes are just about everywhere and anywhere inflicting themselves upon the hapless electorate.   

Time anew to take out of the old baul this piece of 2006 vintage with some updated refurbishing.
You have no money? Dream on running, even winning. It won’t cost you a thing. But never wake from that dream and live the nightmare of political realities here.
Even as a candidate, you have already been claimed by the voters to be their personal one-way ATM: no deposit required but ready to dispense cash anytime of the day or night for their power and water bills, cost of hospitalization, expenses for weddings, baptisms and funerals, even birthday parties and fiestas, tuition for their kids, even milk for their infants.

I remember the dearly lamented undefeated mayor of Apalit Tirso Lacanilao who, in one campaign sortie, was asked by a constituent for money to pay for the hospital bills of his wife.

Tirso was already fishing out P500 bills from his wallet when he happened to ask what caused the wife’s hospitalization.

“Menganac ya pu,” came the reply.

“Putanaydamo,” raged Tirso. “Anyang magpacanyaman cang gagawan me ing anac mu e mu na cu man cayabe. Oba’t cacu mu papabayad ing cayang pamanganac?” Classic Tirso.      
You have money? Use it wisely.
Find some free lessons in this costly experience of a board member who ambitioned for a House seat in the 2004 polls.

Well beyond a year to the elections, BM was already crowing that P30,000 was doled out daily to his needy constituents even before the cock crowed in the morning. Into the campaign period, BM upped the ante to P50,000 per day. Still, he ended up in the kangkungan against one whose win earned him the title “Con-doctor.”
His 2004 experience unlearned, BM did the same route in 2007, upping his daily doles to P70,000, only to be picked out of the pansitan against one Cong Dong.

A dilemma: Identified as a generous giver in elections past, BM stands to lose a lot of the ground he covered in 2004 and 2007 if he tightens even just a bit his publicly-perceived-as-enormous campaign chest. Dati kang nagbibigay ng tig-500,  bigla kang magbibigay ng tig-100, magiging masama ka pa sa iyong binigyan. 
The flash of wealth is more a liability than an asset. Still remember Don Pepito Mercado? Throwing money like there’s no tomorrow, the Don soared in the people’s imagination as a mighty, invincible eagle in 1994 only to be reduced to a pitiful pipit in the 1995 gubernatorial polls. Principally because he just stopped

being outlandishly generous at the time it counted most – in the middle of the campaign period.  
Being official candidate of a party, even of the party in power is no sure-fire guarantee to victory.

In 1992, Marino “Boking” Morales did the unprecedented: He was the official candidate of the two dominant parties at war for the presidency. President Cory Aquino and candidate Fidel V. Ramos of Lakas-NUCD graced Boking’s proclamation rally. At Boking’s miting de avance, it was candidate Ramon V. Mitra that anointed him as the main man in Mabalacat of the LDP.
Dr. Catalino Domingo of the NPC drubbed Boking mightily. Thereafter, Boking though has done more unprecedented things. Like sitting as mayor beyond double the term limit, ultimately unseated only in 2017 – ruling all of 22 years. And now seeking a comeback via the vice-mayorship.

Barangay chairmen are prized – and highly-priced – acquisitions in elections. But like the party, they are no foolproof certainty to winning.
In 2004, Andrea Dizon-Domingo thrice paraded before the members of media 28 of the 33 barangay chairmen of the City of San Fernando as her committed campaigners. 
She ended third placer to eventual winner Oscar S. Rodriguez who had no barangay chairman other than Do Santos of San Agustin in his corner.
At the filing of her certificate of candidacy for city mayor, Dolores village chief Vilma Caluag was accompanied by a number of the 24 barangay chairmen purportedly already in her pocket. Pray that lightning won’t strike twice with women contesting the mayorship of the capital city.

From organization, let’s shift to tactics.
The early bird does not always get the worm. Sometimes, because of his over-eagerness – read: gagad – he gets to be shot first.
Think Pampanga First District in 1998 here. The first pretender to the throne being vacated by Cong Tarzan Lazatin was businessman Beko Panlilio. Ah, how the barangay captains swarmed around him from late 1996, only to lose them to “Cong Rey” Guiao, whose own campaign sputtered when Atty. Ed Pamintuan left the Angeles City hall for the district. Of course, it was EdPam’s vice, Blueboy Nepomuceno who went on to win. 
The early bird gets to be fed first to the hungry mob. Heed the Kapampangan adage here: Tauling kabit, manu. Last comes first. 

Opinion polls are another matter to take real care of. Believe in published surveys at your own peril. There I go again.
In 2007, an alleged survey allegedly commissioned by the provincial government alleged that then-3^rd District Rep. Rey Aquino in his comeback bid for the San Fernando mayorship led the incumbent Mayor Oscar Rodriguez 60-40.
So, what’s new here? Oca never won in any published survey since he entered politics at that point. Conversely, he had won all but one – 1992 – electoral contests he joined: 1987, 1995, 1998, 2001congressional races, and the 2004 mayorship. 

And in 2007, Oca drubbed Rey to the tune of over 16,000-vote margin. Same margin of error placed in that alleged survey most certainly.

It was only in 2016 that the surveys proved correct – the incumbent Cong Oca losing to the man he beat in the same contest in 2013, his inaanak Dong Gonzales.

Like Oca, another one who never won in any survey but won all elections he entered is Cris Garbo of Mabalacat – as councilor twice, board member three times and vice mayor once. And board member again in 2007, 2010 and 2013.
So, Garbo lost – to Boking Morales as projected by the surveys in 2016. So, who’s the mayor of Mabalacat now?
Surveys are meant to serve as campaign guideposts. Their efficacy for propaganda purposes – to gain some bandwagon effect – have long been lost because of surfeit and the incredibility of results.
Have you read of any published local survey citing its margin of error? If you have, did they tell you how they arrived at it?
End of lesson for now. Keep on running, dream on winning.  

What surveys don't say

Surveys say 85% to 90% of Angeleños to vote for ABEKA

ANGELES CITY - A great majority of voters in this city will vote for the Abe Kapampangan (ABEKA) in the partylist system. 

These were the results of two recent surveys which showed that 85% (84.8%) to 90% (89.92%) of Angeleños chose the ABEKA partylist.

“The November 2018 and January 2019 surveys are very consistent. ABEKA got 85% in the November 2018 polls and 90% in the January 2019 survey. These numbers are very encouraging,” said Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan, who is also the no. 1 nominee of the partylist.

“We know that our Cabalens and the voters of the entire region will support ABEKA, the only partylist representing Central Luzon. It is about time that we have regional representations in Congress so that comprehensive growth and development will be given focus,” Pamintuan added.

The Commission on Elections has already approved the petition for registration of ABEKA and it is qualified for the May 13, 2019 elections listed as No. 49 among the partylists in the official ballot…

Reference: Jericho Aguas - 0917 8114866 

HOGWASH, Aguas served us with his press release.

So, surveys said 85 percent to 90 percent of Angelenos or “a great majority” will vote for ABEKA. The surveys though, the PR at least, did not say the hows, the whys, and the wherefores leading to such a definitive conclusion.

It failed to give the rudiments of its demographics – how large was the survey universe, who were the respondents, segmentation, etc. What was/were the question/s asked the respondents? How was the survey conducted – random sampling, scientific, by phone, face-to-face? Was the survey commissioned? Who conducted the survey? What was the margin of error, and how was it arrived at?

Absent these basics, the surveys Aguas press released readily fall to that fakery resorted to by unscrupulous pollsters derisively called lalam cuayan survey. Done under the bamboo groves. Deliberately concocted and contrived to deceive a target audience. In this wise, the voters – misinformed and misled with a puffed-up image of the party in the running to gain their support. The so-called bandwagon effect being the primary objective here.

For all we know, Aguas can be citing absolute facts with that 85-90 percent sure vote – inferred in the definitive will in the lead paragraph – for ABEKA. Like, the surveys asked 10 Angelenos eating out at The Yard and 9 of them said they would vote for ABEKA.  Presto, 90 percent of Angelenos will vote for ABEKA. Logically sound, yeah?

By no stretch of extrapolation though can one even come close to that conclusion. Hence the need for demographics. As one sparrow does not a summer make. Nor a dozen trees a forest.  

That ABEKA has the support of the Angeles voters needs no survey, scientific or random, to prove. That is conceded. Its first nominee, incumbent Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan stakes his candidacy on the solid ground of performance in public office – hizzoner, Cabinet member, peace panelist, president of the country’s league of cities. He is worth every Angeleno vote. I pray daily for his victory.  

Alas, it does not take a survey too to totally refute the conclusive “85% to 90% of Angeleños to vote for ABEKA.”

For one, there is the AWAKE Partylist, also based in the city.  

Born, bred, and breeding in Angeles City, first nominee Edgar Lopez is no pushover in politics even without having served in any elective position. An accomplished organizer who could give the galloping mayorable Alexander Cauguiran a run for his masa, Lopez is a pillar of the Tau Gamma Phi, having once even served, if memory serves right, as its grand chancellor.

If only for the multitude of Triskelions in the city, AWAKE is assumed to get more, much, much more than the 10 percent left over from ABEKA’s “great majority” of 90 percent.

Then, there is Butil Partylist that in elections past figured well not only in the city but in the whole of Central Luzon. With the region as its political base, the more established Butil looms as impregnable wall to ABEKA’s push as a “regional representation.”

There can be no denying CIBAC (Citizens Battle Against Corruption) Partylist some share of the Angeles vote, if only for televangelist Eddie Villanueva as first nominee. The dedication of his Jesus Is Lord congregation goes beyond the spiritual realm. While it proved far short of pushing Villanueva to serious contention for the presidency, it was major contributory to his son Joel’s seating in the Senate.     

So, how many percent of the city’s voting population is in the vise grip of the bloc-voting Iglesia ni Cristo? Most certainly this did not figure in Aguas’ proffered surveys. Else, his survey results are not only invalid but downright stupid!

Hogwash, indeed, Aguas.

Which makes this whole affair of press releasing survey results, whether factual or false, a double-edged sword.

Propaganda – as these survey releases are nothing but – can always backfire. With the outcome diametric to the intended results.

Propa-pangit. The spinmeisters of my generation coined that word for it.      

Their caveat, true then and truer now: Believe in published surveys at your own peril.