Prodding discord

WHOLE-OF-nation approach.

Whatever that means – a conglomeration of parts-of-the-nation strategies, perhaps? – is said to have been brought by President Duterte to Central Luzon, per an Inquirer story by the intrepid Tonette Orejas last week.

Executive Order No. 70 mandated the new approach, wrote Tonette. Googled it and found EO 70 as signed on Dec. 4 last year, ordering the creation of a national task force to “end local communist armed conflict.”

Its aim: To institutionalize the “whole-of-nation approach in inclusive and sustainable peace” and adopt a national peace framework.

“There is a need to create a national task force that will provide an efficient mechanism and structure for the implementation of the whole-of-nation approach to aid in the realization of the collective aspiration of the Filipino people to attain inclusive and sustainable peace,” the EO reads.

And furthered: “Towards this end, the Government shall prioritize and harmonize the delivery of basic services and social development packages in conflict-affected areas and -vulnerable communities, facilitate societal inclusivity, and ensure active participation of all sectors of society in the pursuit of the country’s peace agenda.”

For its implementation, 16 members of the Cabinet are tasked as Cabinet Officer for Regional Development and Security (CORDS) corresponding to the 16 regions of the country. (The autonomous Bangsamoro to get its own point person, presumably).

CORDS would “assist the President in the speedy, efficient and orderly resolution of problems in government operations,” said presidential peace adviser Carlito Galvez, Jr., a former AFP chief of staff.

Galvez presided over the meeting in Pampanga last Wednesday among “top officials of the military, police, and line agencies to synchronize their efforts ‘eradicate the threat of insurgent group.’”

Sans the S for Security, CORDS hews perfectly to the CORD – same Cabinet Officer for Regional Development – during the more secure presidency of Fidel V. Ramos.  

Perhaps, El Tabaco’s think-tank knew only too well that regional development has security well within its embrace. No disparagement to Duterte’s brain pool there.

By happenstance, I’ve had up close and personal experience with that CORD, serving at that time as special assistant on public affairs to Interior and Local Government Secretary Raffy Alunan who was CORD for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Among the more visible efforts of Tio Paeng as CORD were the “Sulu Arms Limitation Talks” that commenced with the first-ever “walk of solidarity for peace and development” in the streets of Jolo, participated in by warring political clans; and the Oplan Paglalansag that dismantled private armies, subsequently replicated throughout the country.

PROD

Galvez’s military persona permeating Duterte’s CORDS – to me though – harkens further back to Marcosian times, specifically 1976-1978, to the PROD – the Presidential Regional Officer for Development.

Harmonizing the delivery of basic services of regional agencies to the remotest areas – subscribing to the operative mantra of the time: Bringing the Government Closer to the People – was the PROD’s mission.

All PRODs were personally picked up by the Great Ferdinand. For Central Luzon, it was Brig. Gen. Benjamin G. Santos, commanding officer of the 5^th Infantry Brigade, PA, headquartered at the Camp Servillano Aquino in San Miguel, Tarlac. Yeah, that is the present Northern Luzon Command.

The real mission all too clear there: Deprive the fish of the sea in which they swim, a reversal of the Maoist dictum: “The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.”

Concomitant with harmonizing was ensuring the delivery of the services. Here, the PROD had a secretariat composed of one representative each from the line agencies in the region that comprised the PROD operations monitoring office (OMO).

The synergy in the Association of Regional and Assistant Regional Officers (ARARO) as well as that in the Association of Regional Public Information Officers (ARPIO) in Central Luzon wrought Operations Tanglaw (Tanod at Gabay ng Lahi at Watawat), the PROD’s spearhead in its mission of cascading the government to the far-flung areas.

Fortnightly, RDs, ARDs and their technical staff went to pre-assigned cluster barangays to hold assemblies with the people, clarify pre-surveyed needs, draw direct feedbacks from them, even as actual service was readily rendered, usually medical-dental, plant and animal dispersal, reproductive health seminars, nutrition information, and the like.

Follow through programs were undertaken by the agencies’ technicians to ensure some continuity of what were decided upon during the initial assemblies.

No less than Marcos recognized the impact of this PROD program with Operation Tanglaw meriting recognition in his Notes on the New Society of the Philippines II.

Why and how did I come to know about this? I served as the PROD-OMO executive officer and coordinator of Operation Tanglaw from its conception in 1976 to its demise two years after, when the PROD faded in the great Marcosian scheme of things.

So how fared the PROD in the anti-insurgency aspect of its mission?

The strength of the New People’s Army by the end of the Marcos dictatorship pointed to an absolute negation.

Lest it be misconstrued, I am not implying now, much less prophesying, that Duterte’s CORDS shall meet the same fate as Marcos’ PROD. I am just struck by history with some parallelisms there.

Yeah, as in Marx’s take of history as repeating itself, first as tragedy and second as farce.            

Early birds

 AS YET to hit the ground, so to speak, and already raring to run, if not actually sprinting.

Not so much out of excitement to fill hizzoner’s chair, as to deliver on the promises made during the campaign that – to them – was the real key to their victory.

Giant killer Abundio “Jun” Punsalan – conqueror of returning three-termer Digos Canlas, dubbed “the lord of wetlands reclamation” – has already declared his first executive order: Shut down D’Meters Field, reported as a cattle farm and subject of numerous complaints from the community where it is located.

“Hindi po tama na ang isang bakahan ay nasa barangay. Ang alam ko ang bakahan, rancho yan, dapat nasa bundok o nasa malayong lugar para hindi makaperwisyo sa mga tao.” So was Punsalan quoted in Sun-Star Pampanga,   articulating the plaints of his constituency against the farm, from odor most foul to fly infestation, to respiratory ailments.

And enjoined the company, thus: “Lumipat na po kayo dahil hindi ko na po kayo papayagan diyan. Umalis na lang kayo para hindi na lang po tayo magkasamaan ng loob. Marami na kayong naperwisyo, marami ng nagkasakit kaya nakikiusap ako, umalis na kayo.”

Also, in the immediate agenda of Punsalan is the inspection of all industrial sites along Quezon Road “to ensure that they are compliant with building and environmental codes, among others”.
Among others there presumably had everything to do with the police, NBI, Customs, and BIR raids on warehouses where fake cigarettes and other  contraband running to hundreds of million pesos have been all-too-routinely seized.

Lest he be thought otherwise, Punsalan was quick to say: “I am not anti-progress. I am also a businessman and I assure them that they will not be shooed away as long as they follow all the rules.”

Love Magalang

The object of Magalang Mayor-elect Romulo Pecson’s attention, if not affection, are the senior citizens, and health services, particularly to the most indigent among his constituency.

Pecson does not stop at mere compliance of all concerned – pharmacies, restaurants, public utilities, grocery stores, among others – with the 20 percent senior citizen’s discount. His standing vow is to extend financial subsidy to the elderly.

"All of them (senior citizens) will receive regular allowance from the local government,” Pecson declared during a recent News@Hues forum of the Pampanga Press Club at the Park Inn by Radisson Clark.

“Number two (priority action) is we will not let health centers run out of medicines, freely available to our poor townmates, no matter their political preferences,” Pecson said, lamenting that the administration he unseated held back medical services to those identified with him.

"I saw their management style. That is why I returned," he said, adding that his coming administration will adhere to their campaign slogan of “Love Magalang.”

Ing Malugud

Even as love also permeates the political atmosphere in Candaba – Ing Malugud (The Loving One) being Mayor-Elect Rene Maglanque’s campaign monicker – it is infrastructure development that is first in the agenda of the incoming administration.

Maglanque is reviving the proposal he already presented to the Department of Public Works and Highways in his first stint at the mayorship in 2013 but conveniently shoved under the rug with his loss in 2016. This is a new road network to Candaba that will bypass traffic-gridlocked Sta. Ana.   

"Kung dadaan tayo sa Sta. Ana ngayon, lalo na kapag Lunes na araw ng palengke nila, aabutin tayo ng mahigit isang oras para makapasok ng Candaba na kung tutuusin ay napakaikling distansya lamang," Maglanque said.
His proposed road of about seven kilometers length directly links Barangay Pasig in Candaba with the roundabout in Barangay Sto. Domingo in Mexico, accessing San Luis and Sta. Ana towns, the old Gapan-Olongapo Road (Now Jose Abad Santos Avenue) to the City of San Fernando, and the Quezon Road going to San Simon and the North Luzon Expressway. Travel time from the capital city to Candaba is expected to be cut to 45 minutes from the now hour-and-a-half, Maglanque estimated.
The once Department of Transportation and Communications assistant secretary sees his road fruiting to greater developments: "Kapag may bagong daan, kasabay noon ang development. Pwedeng mai-convert into commercial or industrial iyong mga lupa na nakatiwangwang na dadaanan ng bypass road at pwede rin maging residential."

Very promising. Maglanque and Pecson unexpected to squander the second chance given them by their constituents. Punsalan, though a novato, showing some mettle in besting a seasoned politico.

Worth watching, all three. (Photos grabbed from facebook) 

   

The Class of 2019

REELECTION. RECLAMATION. Rookies. Rising up. The four Rs, in that descending order, sum up the results of the local elections in Pampanga.

The two component cities and nine towns saw their hizzoners managing to hold on to their posts, in varying fashions though – firmly, comfortably, or tenaciously, by the pinky metaphorically.

In actual number of votes, Arayat’s Bon Alejandrino holds the biggest margin – 32,468 – over his closest rival. At second spot is the City of San Fernando’s Edwin Santiago with 21,900, followed by Mexico’s Teddy Tumang with 19,301.      

Alejandrino, Santiago, Tumang In Governance – ASTIG, aptly – demonstrated there the three mayor’s rock solidity with their respective constituencies. (Incidentally, all three are from the 3^rd District.)   

Of course, it can never be as solid as it can ever get with Masantol’s Dan Guintu running sans any rival and still getting 19,873 votes.

He never won in any pre-election survey since running for councilor long, long time ago but once more he proved the pollsters wrong. Mabalacat City’s Cris Garbo’ first election as sitting mayor saw him trouncing his rival by 17,823 votes.   

Still, I would not be confident as to say Garbo shall surely hold sway over his city all the way to 2022.

I pointed in our last issue here the ecstatic high of mayor-for-over-20-years Boking Morales in 2016 getting more votes than those of his three rivals – Garbo included – combined, only to fall in the abyss of agony in 2019 losing by over 22,000 votes. And it was only for vice mayor that he ran.

Dante Torres is a revelation in Guagua, winning by 16,515 votes. Notwithstanding the three suspension orders against him by the Ombudsman for a number of administrative lapses. Yes, and the much-bruited about tsunami of “Betis vote” against him may have been no more than that – bruit, noise in its original meaning.   

Minalin’s Edgar Flores’s margin of 9,971 belies his virtual walk-in-the-park in the elections just past, given that in percentage terms, he took some 74 percent of the votes.

In Floridablanca, Darwin Manalansan frustrated the comeback bid of three-termer Eddie Guerrero by 5,350 votes, replicating his victory in 2016 over Guerrero’s daughter.

Dagi Salalila held off his elder brother Art, once three-termer too, in Sta. Rita by 1,098 votes. Sibling rivalry anew in 2022?

Yet another comeback blocked was that of the multi-titled Lina Bagasina. The former ALE partylist representative, once hailed as “Sasmoan’s Cinderella,” and once dubbed “Bea Alonzo of Pampanga” was ably resisted by Nardo Velasco with only 799 votes.

In Sta. Ana, the 215 margin of Mayor Norberto “Ross” Gamboa is too slim to pass off unchallenged in next polls.         

Posts reclaimed

Indeed, 2016’s losers can be 2019’s winners. As in Candaba where Rene Maglanque avenged his loss to Boy Baylon by 1,146 votes; and in Magalang where  

Romy Pecson got back at his nemesis Malu Lacson by the closest margin of 27 measly votes!

Jun Tetangco breezed through the polls to get back the Apalit town hall, after but a single term absence.

Dr. Jay Sagum allowed his successor Asyong Macapagal three full terms before taking back the San Luis mayorship by 5,028 votes over a single rival.

Zorro’s back on the saddle. Yeah, Bobong Flores, unarguably the most senior of all Pampanga mayors, made the greatest comeback – having been out of office for the longest time, and suffering defeat in the hands of his own sister. Only to reclaim his Macabebe turf this time, against yet another sibling.

Newbies

Unopposed winner in her first try at an elective post is Lubao’s Esmie Pineda with 55,546 votes.

Pre-poll “sure winner” Digos Canlas, once three-term mayor of San Simon, lost to upstart Jun Punsalan by 144 votes.

Jing Capil with his 24,945 proved a giant killer of sorts with his utter demolition of former Pampanga governor and TIEZA general manager Mark Lapid whose votes failed to reach five figures, dead last in a contest of three.    

Vice no more

Two vice mayors relegated to also-rans in previous mayoralty polls made their progression good this time.

Diman Datu put a definitive finis to the Pampanga’s Best rule in Bacolor, trouncing the outgoing mayor’s brother Derrick Hizon by 7,338 votes.

Gloria “Ninang” Ronquillo became the first lady mayor of Sto. Tomas, nosing out her husband’s once factotum Johnny Sambo by 171 votes.

Different folks of different strokes made this eclectic Class of 2019 of Pampanga’s local chief executives. Linked though by the common thread of the Pineda connection, in one way or the other.   

Scoring the INC

NOT EXACTLY the X – as in mysterious – having been publicly announced, but the no-less magical, indeed, material factor that spelled the difference in the Angeles City mayoralty race was the Iglesia ni Cristo vote.

All one needs is a quick look at the numbers. Winner Pogi Lazatin posted 59,192 votes, runner-up Bryan Nepomuceno had 45,711. The difference of 13,481 corresponded closely to the vaunted, if approximated, 13,000 to 15,000 INC bloc votes.

Thereby reinforced anew the long, long held belief, aye, a political dogma, that no one, absolutely no one could ever be elected Angeles City mayor without the INC anointment.

A city council seat though is a different story. The always-non-anointed Amos Rivera has consistently won. And the now-unblessed Jay Sangil still made it.     

While not so “potently decisive” as in AC, the INC factor in the City of San Fernando did add up to the numbers of incumbent Mayor Edwin Santiago at 74,125 – not exactly serving as some loose change, with Vilma Caluag managing 52,225.

It was in the vice mayoralty race that the INC ballots played a pivotal role. Taken out of Jimmy Lazatin’s winning 66,277, the sect’s bloc votes would have had Angie Hizon won with her base votes of 56,264. The 10,000-gap easily bridged with the voting kapatid in the capital city.

Tiger

As in AC, so in CSFP, and more spectacularly so. INC-unchosen BJ Tiger Lagman topped the council race, leading his closest pursuer by 6,213 votes and the tailender in the Magic 10 by 21,503 votes, with the two included in the INC ballot. The other Lagman candidate that the INC blessed did land in the winning circle, 17,156 votes behind BJ.

Not a single Iglesia vote and Lagman still managed to score 70,978! Some rethink is imperative here for political strategists – as much on the efficacy, if not the actual strength of the INC bloc, as in the emergence of a shining nova in the city’s political firmament.

What eluded his father Ely the Tiger – the unbeatable vice mayor but the best mayor San Fernando never had – could well be opening up for BJ, grandly.

The ambivalence, okay, uncertainty of the INC votes is perhaps best exampled in the 1^st District of Pampanga.

With the INC support, Coach Yeng Guiao won the congressional contest of 2013 against former Rep. Blueboy Nepomuceno.

Without the INC vote, Guiao lost his seat in 2016 to Rep. Jonjon Lazatin.

With the INC again backing him in the return bout in the polls just past, Guiao lost again – 149,398 to 104,796 – swept in all two cities and one town of the district.

Rimpy

In the 4^th District congressional polls, ruling Rep. Rimpy Bondoc appears to have been immunized from the INC vote.

As in his fight against former Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo in 2010, so in his battle against former board member Ric Yabut in 2019 – Rimpy annihilating his INC-backed rivals.

Speaking of Candaba, former Mayor Rene Maglanque made a stunning comeback against the INC-anointed incumbent Mayor Dan Baylon.

The INC votes likewise failed to launch Vice Mayor Dexter David to the mayorship of Porac, and to keep incumbent Sto. Tomas Mayor Johnny Sambo in his post. The latter losing by a little over 100 votes to VM Gloria “Ninang” Ronquillo who crafted history as the first lady mayor of Pampanga’s smallest town of only seven barangays.   

The inefficacy of the INC votes in the 2019 polls was most pronounced in Mabalacat City.

­The already formidable tandem of VM Christian Halili and once-forever-mayor Marino “Boking” Morales in reversed roles was even made more invincible – on paper – with the anointment of the INC.

Garbo

Why a plus-10,000 for incumbent Mayor Cris Garbo was reported to have been proffered by some oddsmakers, with nobody biting. Convinced – seemingly – as the voting public was of his opponents’ vaunted invincibility.

Stunning thus came the report of Garbo (at 52,517) trouncing Halili (at 34,694) by 17,823 votes.   

Neither stunned nor even surprised though were those in the know. Ranged against his rival’s INC bloc, Garbo earned the “solid” support of the Born-Again evangelicals and fundamentalists, as well as what little of the so-called conservative Catholic vote. An even greater entity going Garbo all the way is the patriarchal “INT.” Don’t ask me what it means, else I blaspheme and go excommunicado.     

Boking

As bitter, aye, bitterest, as it can ever get, the Mabalacat City outcome for one man.

In the 2016 local elections, he garnered 39,919 votes, more than the combined total of his three rivals – the closest at 17,553, the next at 10,696, and the last at 5,750.

In the polls just past, he managed 30,022 – still winnable by the 2016 standards. However, he had just one opponent this time, getting 52,509 votes.

In less than two years after his Comelec-ted eviction from the Mabalacat City hall,  once eternal mayor Boking Morales got the worst drubbing of his political life, the pain of losing by landslide exacerbated by at least two factors: 1) that it was inflicted by his own nephew; 2) the prize at stake was only the vice-mayoralty, below Boking’s stature of hizzoner for 22 years.

Maybe, the electorate just got tired of Boking. But then, someone who looked like his go-to-guy Deng Pangilinan cried: Pang-­mayor lang si Boking. Hindi pang-vice.

Yeah, I remember then-vice mayor Boking lost too in his first attempt at the mayorship in 1992, despite INC backing. He won all elections since with the INC. Now losing anew, still with the INC.

Gone full circle there, as much for Boking as for the INC. Whence, a new beginning evolving.    

Yeah, this epic loss notwithstanding, it is too premature to write finis to Boking. And the INC vote too.

After the losing

WE WUZ robbed. True or not, losers still lost.

As there’s nothing you can do to undo what’s done, may as well accept it, with all graciousness, with all humility. And go into some introspection, into reflection over the might-have-beens – no, not to sulk and wallow in blaming and self-pity, but to find the resolve to do much better for the next run. It’s only three years away, you very well know.

To that end, what I have long proffered as post-election prescription for the solace of the hurting also-ran is this rumination of Pulitzer Prize-winning The New York Times columnist William Safire in his The First Dissident subtitled The Book of Job in Today’s Politics, thus:

“IS SUFFERING a defeat good for a political person? The run for office is a short run, and the loser is not likely to find comfort in talk about the long run. But can rejection at the polls be fairly presented as what condolence-bearers sardonically call ‘a character-building experience’?”

Yes, and yes. And the dearly lamented Carmelo F. Lazatin, better known as the Tarzan exemplified it.

Tarzan lost in his very first try for an elective post – mayor of Angeles City in 1980.

Losing an election early in political career is deemed constructive. As Safire says, “a therapeutic trouncing introduces a little real humility into candidates who must at least profess humility.”

Though not exactly a long shot in the 1^st district congressional contest in 1987 – he was the beatific Cory’s choice, after all – Tarzan managed to squeak through victory – by a plurality of less than a hundred votes against his closest rival, if now-selective memory still serves right.

Tarzan rolled through victory after victory thereafter – three terms in the Lower House, notwithstanding his being derided as the chair of the comite de silencio at the camara de representante; first ever city mayor to serve three terms; back to Congress in 2010.

He lost in his comeback bid for the mayorship in 2013 and was readily consigned to the dustbin of the political has-beens. Only to resurrect – by proxy – in 2016 with the masterful crafting of the twin victories of his namesakes – Carmelo Jr. aka Pogi, and Carmelo II aka Jon – at the city council, and in the first congressional district, respectively.

Contrary to all expectations, aye, in direct defiance of age and health, Tarzan won the chairmanship of the city’s premier barangay of Balibago in 2018.

It was to be Tarzan’s final yell, succumbing to cardiac arrest over the ravages of age seven months later.

But not his last hurrah – if only from the grave – with the definitive victory of Pogi as hizzoner of Angeles City, and the impressive re-election of Jon as Pampanga 1^st District representative.

The sons handling contemporaneously the positions held by the father one after the other. What greater political legacy than this?

Tarzan could not have known it but what Safire called the “law of political return” impacted upon him, ingraining him with the “comeback quality.”

Qualified, thus: “Defeat, if it does not destroy them, tempers leaders. After reaching deep within for internal resources, they can rightly claim to have grown as a result of what the voters have taught them. In the art of comeback, one lesson is not to insist that voters admit they were wrong last time, even if their choice of candidates turned out to be inept or corrupt in office. On the contrary, the putative comebacker should compliment the electorate on having been right in spotting his own shortcomings in policy or personality or presentation, which have been corrected – with no compromise of principle, of course. Last time losers should assert with pride that they have learned enough to become next time’s winners.”

Else, they stop running altogether. And stop losing forever.                         

Continuity, not change

THE GREEK letter delta – upper-cased Δ – is often used to indicate “change”. In the case of Pampanga though, Delta defines “continuity.”

Continuity – as in the progression of good – and caring – governance established by Gov. Lilia G. Pineda, being bequeathed to her son, succeeding Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda.

Continuity – as in the uninterrupted flow of services to the Capampangan, as in the unstoppable stride to a higher, if not the highest, level of socio-economic development for the province.

Aye, so great the impact of the Nanay’s brand of governance that even one pretender to the governorship made the continuity of it as his sole campaign platform. To the sheer amusement of the electorate, believing that the son, and only the son, can succeed the mother, if not by right, then by competence.

No, Delta Pineda is not exactly sprouting out of the shadows of his illustrious mother.

No, Delta Pineda is not simply BIRGing off the brilliance of his mother’s accomplishments…yay, that is basking in reflected glory.

Delta very well can, and does, stand on his own.

Where nurturing motherhood has come to be the Nanay’s brand of governance, Delta’s is turning to be swift, decisive action – tried, tested, and validated in the worst possible cases of calamities and disasters. 

Yolanda

In the immediate wake of Superhowler Yolanda, Delta personally led a 20-truck convoy to Leyte and Samar bringing much needed relief, as well as assistance in rescue and retrieval operations in the worst-hit areas.           

That was not the only instant that Delta mobilized Pampanga’s resources beyond provincial boundaries to help the distressed. In many a flooding in Bataan, he and the PDRRMO make a constant presence.    

At the onset of habagat or in times of typhoons, a recurring image in the collective minds of the Capampangan, particularly those in the flood-prone towns, is Delta leading rescue and relief teams, on trucks, boats, and even wading in the floodwaters.

Delta was in the thick of the action, eschewing caution by going to ground zero – in San Luis – at the time of the bird flu crisis that inflicted Pampanga’s poultry industry in August 2017. Working hand-in-hand with the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and other agencies of the national government, the crisis was contained even before the prescribed period. And if only to prove that Pampanga poultry was safe, Delta led the first post-crisis feast on chicken and egg dishes.

Within an hour of the April 22 6.1 magnitude temblor, Delta already mobilized the necessary logistics, including five cranes from construction firms and dozens of high beam lights, as well as teams to embark on a rescue mission at the collapsed Chuzon Supermarket in Porac.

Any accolade, even a simple congratulatory remark for his effective disaster response efforts Delta always returns with: “Responsibilidad ko po ‘yun.” 

Gawad Kalasag

There is no denying Delta though the rightful recognition coming with Pampanga awarded the 2018 Best Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management and Humanitarian Assistance Award given by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) at the 20th Gawad Kalasag National Awards.

“Pampanga has been chosen for its effective utilization of the local disaster risk reduction and management funds to address risk-based issues, thereby, ensuring that response actions in times of disasters are in place,” the citation read.

The NDRRMC said the accomplishments of the provincial government of Pampanga are “all notable contributions to the national efforts to build a safer, climate change adaptive and disaster resilient Philippines, worthy of emulation by the people and recognition from the Gawad Kalasag.”

Beyond disaster response, Delta has also made his mark in the agriculture sector with his open and constant dialogs, not to mention packages of assistance, to the farmers and fisherfolk.

As with his mother, Delta’s heart cries out to the marginalized sectors too – from the PWDs and OSYs, to the single parents and even the mangangalakal. 

Labor champion

An unknown facet of Delta is his being a champion of labor. True to his characteristic quietness – that which some people misconstrue as being “dungo” -Delta saved some 16,000 workers from unemployment.

With the ban on the importation of treated cow leather imposed by the Department of Agriculture in the wake of the African swine fever, Superl Philippines was poised to stop the production of bags in its factories at the  Angeles Industrial Park in Calibutbut, Bacolor.

Delta immediately appraised Speaker GMA and DA Secrtary Emmanuel Pinol of the grave crisis at hand. And, within a week, an exemption to the ban was granted Superl.

Responsibilidad ko po ‘yun. In his self-effacing ways, Delta would tell the grateful workers. Strong sense of accountability, none of entitlement. Aye, the apple does not fall far from the tree.   

The son has risen. Continuity is ensured. The best governance for Pampanga endures.    

Indelible INC

LAST THURSDAY, messages flooded my FB account, my mobile as well, about the Iglesia ni Cristo already bestowing its blessings on its chosen candidates for the local elections in Pampanga.

Abac na balen! So, I could almost hear the glorious ejaculation of those the INC anointed.

On the other hand…lament not, you the INC unblessed, there’s no disgrace in it.  If it’s any consolation, mayhaps, even motivation, here’s a piece written here almost to the day three years ago – May 5, 2016 – on similar circumstances:         

THE INC vote is out.

And the wailing and gnashing of teeth has begun...

Hold on to your hankies, guys. It ain’t over, as they say, till the fat…er, curvy, lady sings. And yeah, Elvis may still be in the building.

Keep the faith, hope against hope. There’s still two (or three?) more samba before E-Day. Only God – and Ka Eduardo, plus his Sanggunian – can be absolute if the pasiya leaked Wednesday is indeed the final decision.

2013 is not too remotely past to remember that a later pasiya superseded an earlier one, also a few days before the polls in Pampanga.

Cong. Tarzan Lazatin was the proclaimed choice for the Angeles City mayoralty race, only to be replaced by incumbent Mayor Ed Pamintuan in the final INC ballot.

In the fourth congressional district, the INC blessing for returning Cong. Rimpy Bondoc was withdrawn and conferred upon Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo, aka John Lloyd.

So, asa pa tayo more. Hope springs till damnation strikes, as some wit says.

Okay, even granting a candidate’s deprivation of the INC vote is finally final, this isn’t any fool-proof guarantee of certain victory to the chosen one.

Aye, there’s as much hit as miss with the Iglesia vote. Pelayo losing miserably to Bondoc, just one of them.

In 1995, even absent the INC vote, Cong Oscar S. Rodriguez reclaimed the third district congressional seat from 1992 nemesis Andrea “Didi” Domingo.

In his first run for the Mabalacat mayoralty race in 1992, then Vice Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales was all invincibility with the INC vote but still lost to the unassuming Dr. Cati Domingo. (Invincible indeed, Boking on paper then. What with the backing of two national parties contending the presidency: his opening salvo graced by Lakas-Tao with Fidel V. Ramos backstopped by incumbent President Cory Aquino; his miting de avance at the platform of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino spearheaded by Speaker Ramon Mitra.)    

Why, Ramos himself was denied the INC blessing in 1992 but still won, albeit by simple plurality. The INC-chosen, Danding Cojuangco a poor third, behind runner-up Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

The Senate is replete with as much winners as losers unrewarded with the INC vote. Top-of-the-mind flash shows Sen. Lito Lapid in 2007, who, it is bruited about ceded his INC-preferred-status to his son Mark then re-electing governor of Pampanga.

Notwithstanding the putative strength of the INC in the province, Mark, of course, landed dead last behind Comelec-proclaimed winner Among Ed Panlilio, and ultimate winner-via-electoral-protest Lilia G. Pineda.    

In his first win, after two successive failures, for an Angeles City council seat, Jay Sangil landed No. 5 sans the INC ballot. In his next two victories, he was gifted with the bloc votes though he landed ranks lower than fifth.

So, it was reported that Councilor Amos Rivera failed to make the grade in the current INC list. So, what’s new? Rivera, in similar straits, won – with plenty to spare – in 2013.

In the last barangay elections, Rodelio “Tony” Mamac did not have the INC backing. The odds against Mamac, already formidable, were made even insurmountable by the open support given his rival by Mayor Ed Pamintuan, and, more telling, by a local conglomerate of political and business interests. Just the same, the retired bemedalled police officer kept his stewardship of Angeles City’s premier barangay Balibago.

With these sample instances, I am just saying candidates who fail to get the church’s endorsement need not necessarily be pronounced dead-on-the-spot politically. Dead-on-arrival, neither.

The certainty of the INC vote – already suspect, is further cracked in the wake of the family feud that turned into internecine strife that rocked the sect in mid-2015. And apparently far from being settled.

BE THAT as it may, as my favorite attorney is wont to say, the INC bloc can spell, as indeed it has, the big difference in close-quarters contests.

While there were INC-unblessed bets who simply threw in the towel, and left everything to fate, there were too the intrepid never-say-die that crafted counterfoil to the INC advantage of their rivals.

For the moneyed, it is more of the usual – vote buying – albeit on wholesale, commensurate to at least 50 percent of the number of INC voters in the contested locality. Why 50 percent? It’s close-quarters combat, do the plus-minus equation and find out.

For the more moneyed, it’s “carpet bombing” in the last week of the campaign, and gulungan on election eve. Buy as much votes as one can, without counting the cost.

A caveat here though: Be sure the ones purchased are of the “honest” kind, re: voters who when bought, stay bought. And not up for any other auction.

Cognizant of this “flaw” in the voter’s character, a candidate in elections past literary corralled the hundreds of voters he bought, 24 hours before the precincts opened, effectively denying his opponents the least chance to buy them back.         

This too serves as a warning to the INC-anointed not to be complacent. Desperate straits call for desperate measures.

My favorite mayor makes a template of this instance. After his bitter loss in 1992, Boking Morales never looked back – winning all electoral contests, and even after being declared loser in the early 2000s, he managed to stay put for all of 22 years as Mabalacat mayor, unseated only by a Comelec decree in 2017.

His secret of winning? The INC-backing notwithstanding, Boking never let his guard down, even upping the ante after the INC pasiya. And burying his rivals in avalanches of votes.

Yeah, no substitute for victory. INC or no INC.     

    

Father to son, mother to daughter

BY CALAMITY defined.

No, not for having caused the calamity but for facing it, taking its full brunt, and rising above it.

Thus, Mayor Roy David found his defining moment in the Mount Pinatubo devastations.

Buried in the volcano’s vomit, besieged by the onslaught of lahar rampages, Porac turned into a ghost town, ready to be consigned by the national government as catch basin for all pyroclastic flows from Pinatubo. A sacrifice worthy of a holocaust to appease nature’s deity, in this case the Aetas’ Apo Namalyari, for the salvation of the rest of Pampanga.

But no, Mayor David would have none of all the talks to “let nature take its course,” and with it, abandon all hopes for Porac.

“To dike is to die.” Came the cry that reverberated across the province, reaching Imperial Manila, in spirited opposition of the townsfolk against the enclosure of Porac within a diking system that would have buried the whole town. (In the struggle for the construction of the colossal FVR megadike, that cry morphed to “To dike or to die” impacting that dike’s imperative to the province’s survival).   

Cut off from its then-principal economic lifeline that was Angeles City by the chasm that the Pasig-Potrero River had become, Mayor David made the impossible passable in a variety of ingenuous means as the truck-mounted metal contraption euphemized as the “London Bridge” (as in the song, “falling down, falling down”); the lined-up, sandbag-filled container vans serving as bridges; the sugarcane trucks providing piggy-back rides to smaller vehicles; as well as the immediate scraping and dredging of the riverbed after each lahar passing. Earning for the mayor the moniker “Lahar Fighter” he so proudly carried until his untimely death in 2002, when Porac has not only risen from the volcanic debris but prospered from it.   

It was but over a week ago that Porac was ground zero anew in a natural disaster, a 6.1 magnitude temblor far less in expanse than Pinatubo’s fury but as terrifying in impact – as much with the mortal toll in the collapsed Chuzon Supermarket, as with the religious sense in the destruction of the belfry of the church of Apung Tali.

No happenstance but Fate perhaps, that a David again occupies a seat in the local government of Porac. Two Davids there in fact – Vice Mayor Dexter Albert, and councilor Olga Frances, better known as Fritzie, who also sits in the provincial board. Right there in the thick of the action.

Even as Dexter treads the trail blazed by his father onward to the Porac mayorship and greater service to his people, in times of calamity and in times of plenty, Fritzie has long hewed closely to that taken by their mother Edna, a sterling legislative record at the provincial board, and a stint as acting governor at the time of the Ombudsman’s suspension of Gov. Lito Lapid for graft and corruption arising from the now storied quarry scam that deprived the provincial government of hundreds of millions in revenues – finding indubitable proof in the daily P1 million collection at the time of Gov. Ed Panlilio, even raised to over P1.2 million a day in the era of Gov. Lilia G. Pineda.

In the crucible of natural disasters. The father in the son, the mother in the daughter. The David family heirloom of public service bequeathed.

We are seeing destiny…fulfilled, hopefully. For Porac’s sake.