Taking crime out of libel

 

"ON WHAT I can do for media workers... first I will decriminalize libel. It's causing headaches for media workers. [Libel] is being used by politicians and those seated in the government to harass and threaten [the media]."

So was quoted presumptive senator Raffy Tulfo in an interview with The Chiefs on May 16.

“Ngayon pa lang sinasabi ko sa inyo, isa sa mga priority bills ko ay ‘yung ipa-decriminalize ‘yung libel.” So, the proclaimed senator Tulfo made an echo chamber out of the Philippine International Convention Center, May 18.

He clarified though that he does not plan to remove the civil liabilities of libel "so that those who feel that they have been affected by what they believe to be libelous can attain justice."

"Let's accept it, there are also people from our ranks who are crazy, who are biased in criticizing the government," he said. 

Earlier that same day, the senator’s elder sibling Ramon was arrested by police for cyber libel.

“Wala, di pa nagbabago ang aking stand. Di ito top priority, itong decriminalizing libel. Karamihan lumalapit sakin mga mahihirap nating kababayan. Sila ang uunahin ko muna. They are the reason bakit ako tumakbo sa pagkasenador." So, Tulfo told ANC's Headstart on May 19.

I leave that there. Draw your own opinions. I came out here to take my stand anew against decriminalizing libel, updating a piece I wrote here in February 2014 that put me at odds with a number of my media peers.   

I HAVE had no problem with libel, notwithstanding the eight cases I had faced in my almost 50 years of writing. No bragging there, just being matter-of-factly.  

I have always considered a libel case as par for the course in the journalism field.

As a recourse – the only legal one – of anyone who felt maligned in print, broadcast, or personal utterance, to seek redress for her/his grievance. Indeed, the exercise of a civil right in our democratic state.

It is precisely owing to this core belief that I never begrudged all those people who took me to court – mainly to the prosecutor’s office – crying that I libeled them.

I respected their right to seek my comeuppance for whatever perceived and felt wrong I did them. I respected them for their civility – of going the judicial course instead of taking the extra-judicial route with extreme prejudice.  

It is precisely because no libel complaint bearing my name as respondent ever prospered, all finding closure at the prosecutor’s office, that I have lived well with the reality of libel – until 2010.  

Mid-December of that year, a complaint rising out of my reply to a story denigrating procedures in the conferment of some awards went beyond the prosecutor’s, after its dismissal and subsequent denial of a motion for reconsideration there, to the Department of Justice via the complainant’s petition for review. Only to be dismissed anew. The case ran all of three years. Meaning not to scratch old scars to draw fresh blood anew, I made no mention of names and circumstances here. A slew of stories about it came out in the local media and I recorded my personal account in acaesar.blogspot.com.

20 years ‘warranted’

In November 2015, a libel complaint I did not know still existed came to my knowledge only when I sought an NBI clearance relative to the renewal of my gun permit and found an alias warrant to my name. The case was filed in 1997. Alas, two co-respondents – publisher Joe Pavia and editor Ody Fabian – had died since.    

I hastened to Angeles City RTC Branch 62 to post bail and seek the reopening of the case.

The ink on my fingers and my palms from posting bail had yet to be completely scrubbed off when I got a subpoena from the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office for another libel complaint. A Guagua cop felt maligned by a story in Punto! in August 2015 written by the erudite Ding Cervantes alleging irregularities in the handling of evidence obtained in drug buy-bust. As editor, I was co-respondent.

The 1997 case filed by husband-and-wife officers of the Mabalacat Water District was dismissed in August 2016 “for lack of interest to prosecute” as the complainants could not be found anymore. What dragged on – absent my knowledge – for all of 20 years took but two hearings to be scratched off the court archives.         

People vs. Cervantes, Lacson et al did not go beyond pre-trial for over three years, the complainant showing himself in court all of three times. Raffled off thereafter to another judge, the case was “conditionally dismissed” in August 2020 after only three hearings.                                                  

Grand celebrations

Any dismissal of a libel case is a cause for grand celebrations, as much for the personal triumph of the writer-respondent and his paper or radio-TV station, as for the victory of justice, and the supremacy of press freedom.

At the time of our prime, not too long ago, libel cases were never considered swords of Damocles hanging over our heads in our daily journalistic grind, but rather areas of opportunity to test the bounds of the freedom of expression. The possibility of libel cases never deterred us from the pursuit of the story, any story fit to print, to appropriate the hallowed motto of The New York Times.

No fear factor, no “chilling effect” then as now did a libel case serve as prior restraint in our exercise of this profession.

Feeling safeguarded as we were by Justice Malcolm, writing in United States v. Bustos, 37 Phil. 731, 740, 741, to wit:

“The interest of society and the maintenance of good government demand a full discussion of public affairs. Complete liberty to comment on the conduct of public men is a scalpel in the case of free speech. The sharp incision of its probe relieves the abscesses of officialdom. Men in public life may suffer under a hostile and unjust accusation; the wound can be assuaged with the balm of clear conscience. A public officer must not be too onion-skinned with reference to comment upon his official acts. Only thus can intelligence and dignity of the individual be exalted. Of course, criticism does not authorize defamation. Nevertheless, as an individual is less than the state, so must criticism be borne for the public good.”  

Badge of honor

Indeed, there was this somewhat perverted sense Pampanga journalists held then – a number of us still holds to this day – of libel cases as badges of honor, aye, journalism’s very version of the Medal of Valor, to be worn and displayed with pride. So, the more libel complaints, the more effective, if not better, the journalist.

 So it was with Ody Fabian (+) of The Voice who landed himself at the Angeles City Jail over a libel complaint from the Angeles University Foundation Medical Center, and cleared of a P25-million case from a mayor, among others.

So it was with Sonny Lopez (+) and Elmer Cato of the Angeles Sun, hauled to the fiscal’s office by then Angeles City Mayor Antonio Abad Santos (+) over exposes on corruption in the city government, and subsequently cleared of libel.

So it was with Ashley Jay Manabat of Sun-Star Clark, tagged in a ridiculous P500-million suit over articles repudiating the doubly ridiculous claims of someone owning the Clark special ecozone along with practically the whole of Luzon.

So it was with Jerry Lacuarta (+) of Manila Bulletin, haled to court by a US Navy man nabbed for international drug trafficking – of a “considerable amount of high-grade heroin stuffed inside imported tuna” coursed through the Subic port. The conviction of the American sailor ended the libel case.

So it was with Lacuarta again, with Fred Roxas (+) of the Philippine News Agency and Ding Cervantes of Philippine Star, earning a P20-million libel suit over their reportage of alleged anomalies and incompetence in the construction of the FVR Megadike system. The complaint failed to go beyond the prosecutor’s office.   

So it was with Rizal Policarpio (+) of Balita who, until 1999, held the distinction of being the only member of the Pampanga media to have gone the whole legal course of libel – filed by a town assessor implicated in the murder of three men – and acquitted for absence of malice. 

So it was with the venerable Toy Soto (+) of Times Journal, who in his senior year was hit by what he evaded through his decades of journalism practice – a libel suit from Angeles City traders inferred ina report of the Clark Development Corp. as alleged smugglers. Dismissed at the prosecutor’s office, nonetheless.

So it was with Arnel San Pedro of Manila Times, charged over his exposes of allegedly anomalous transactions in a government rehab center; acquitted after a decade of trial.    

So it was with me.

As much a vindication – of the correctness of the story, politically and factually – as a resolute re-commitment to the ethics of journalism is every dismissal of libel. So many libel cases we have been subjected to that the Pampanga Press Club, founded in 1949, is now a proud keeper of a Libel Tradition.

Shields

Two basic elements in journalism we have experienced as strong shields against libel: accuracy and fairness.

Precise as precise can be in the facts obtaining in one’s story. While truth is not always a defense in libel, inaccuracies make falsities that open the respondent to utter defenselessness.

Fairness is the antidote to malice – the usually most damning of libel’s four requisites. Evil intent or ill will on the part of the writer will be more difficult to establish in a story that presents all sides fairly.

Be truthful. Be accurate. Be fair. That’s what all the editors I worked with told me on my way up in the pecking order of the Fourth Estate.

I have upheld – did my best to, every which way I wrote – all three. Still, I’ve had my share of libel suits. And I’ve been lucky. Emerging unscathed, and rather stronger, from them.

Even as I joined the voices raised against online libel in the Cybercrime Law, mainly for the harsh punitive provisions, I have this fear over the decriminalization of libel. At the Senate deliberations on the then Cybercrime Prevention Bill, I was in awe of the honourable senators – Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Alan Peter Cayetano, Francis Escudero, Edgardo Angara and Teofisto Guingona III – moving toward that direction.     

However, I stand with Sen. Koko Pimentel in his cautionary plea to his peers on decriminalizing libel.

 “It’s a redress for grievance. If you’re libeled, you can file a complaint, and if the fiscal tells you no libel was committed, at least you feel you tried the remedy, and the potential penalty—since it’s a jail term—is sufficient enough to deter indiscriminate libeling of people,’’ rationalized Pimentel.

“If we decriminalize it, more people would feel they’re victims of injustice because they’ve been libeled, and they don’t have a remedy. We don’t want people to take the law into their hands because of inefficient justice system.’’

Inefficient justice system. That’s one operative phrase that has not really factored in amid all the noise rising from the Supreme Court’s declaration of the constitutionality of the Cybercrime Law.

Given the Maguindanao Massacre and other media killings even with libel laws extant, it will most certainly get even worse with libel decriminalized.

And the culture of impunity will get the nation in an even tighter grip.

Yeah, I would rather face summons from the prosecutor’s office than look straight into the barrel of a .45. I have been through that too.

No mere chilling effect but a polar vortex there.    

 ,

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 a 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. (Even more definitive victories for both in the elections just past: Pogi as first ever city mayor to garner over 100,000 votes, Jon unopposed.)

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.                         

(First published May 13, 2019, reprinted for its refreshed timeliness)

All in the family

SIBLING SUPREMACY is affirmed anew in the 1^st District of Pampanga polls with the triumph of namesakes Carmelo Lazatin – Jon retaining the congressional seat unopposed, and Pogi setting the record of first-ever Angeles City mayor to have garnered 100,000 votes (actually 112,947). The dear lamented Carmelo père could only be on cloud nine.  

On the other hand, sibling rivalry took its toll in Sta. Rita – former mayor Art Salalila unseating brother Dagi; and an even heavier impact in Macabebe – Bobong Flores beating sister Annette Flores-Balgan; his son Vince besting her daughter Bembong for vice mayor. A double whammy there.

Siblings-in-law made it in Magalang – Malu Paras-Lacson reclaiming the mayoralty from Romy Pecson, Norman Lacson successfully capping his three terms as vice mayor with the top spot in the municipal council.

Conjugal rule has descended upon Arayat with Madeth Alejandrino ascending to the mayoralty to be vacated by three-term husband Bon, stepping down to the post of vice mayor.

Wife-atop-husband, at least in political positions, is instanced in 4^th District presumptive Cong. Anna York Bondoc-Sagum and San Luis Mayor Dr. Jay Sagum.

How about a long-distance relationship taken to the political plane with Marjorie Morales-Sambo elected councilor of Mabalacat City in the 1^st District and Johnny Sambo winning over 2019 conqueror Ninang Ronquillo in Sto. Tomas in the 4^th District?     

Alas, a similar, if closer – intra-3^rd District – arrangement failed to materialize in the case of reelected Mexico councilor Trina Dizon and husband Sta. Ana vice mayor Soy Guevarra losing in his mayoralty bid.     

Coupling for a political dynasty emerged stillborn in Danilo Baylon falling short in his gubernatorial crusade against what his mentor called “Pampanga’s entrenched dynasty” as well as in his wife Aniway losing big to Mayor Rene Maglanque in Candaba.

The elections past in Pampanga also had a slew of fathers not exactly bequeathing their electoral posts to their scions like the family heirloom it has become hereabouts – being still in the game, but actually rearing them at this early into it.

In the 3^rd District, unopposed Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales spared no expense, er, effort to make his daughter Mica not only win a seat in the sangguniang panlalawigan but to emerge the senior board member with the highest number of votes at 227,603, and his son Brenz taking the top slot in the City of San Fernando council with 82,006 votes. Preparación, says mi amigo. 

Reelected Patrol Partylist Rep. Jorge Bustos steered the election of Pampanga’s youngest mayor in Masantol’s Ton-ton Bustos, his 21-year-old son.

Mabalacat City Mayor Cris Garbo has his heir apparent in daughter Win-Win who graduated from city councilor to 1^st District board member.

In Sta. Rita, elected along Mayor Art Salalila is his son JR in the sangguniang bayan.

In Floridablanca, reelected Mayor Darwin Manalansan has his son Darren elected in the SB too.   

Father-and-son who failed to make the grade are former mayor Ernesto Punzalan, landing third behind reelected Mayor Teddy Tumang, and his son and namesake Jun-Jun ranking 10th for the eight-man council.

Worse than the loss of the Punzalans is the wipeout of once mayor-for-22-years Boking Morales for mayor, his sons Dwight for board member, and Ike for councilor in Mabalacat Cit. Estranged daughter Marjorie won in the slate of Boking's nemesis Mayor Garbo, a spit on the face of the father there.

Thereby lie the triumphs and travails that have both blessed and beset political kin at each election.

Lose today, win the next time. Or vice versa. Win some, lose some too. Political families have had their share of triumphant hurrahs and mournful whimpers, on the general score. An exception to this distinctly obtains in the Pinedas of Lubao, ever victorious through the years.

Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda. Vice Gov. Lilia “Nanay” Pineda. 2^nd District board member Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab. Lubao Mayor Esmie Pineda. Reelected all comfortably, Nanay and Esmie even unopposed, in the recent polls.

Methinks, there can only be goodness – competently and compassionately – in what they have been doing – constantly and consistently – to merit this outpouring of trust and confidence from their constituents. The family that serves better together, gets elected over and over.

Troll me now, anti-dynasts.  

 

The voice of our gods

 IT IS the favorite ejaculation of my favorite mayor: Vox populi, vox Dei, with, perhaps, the least idea of its etymology: from late 15th century, the Renaissance abloom, and Il Papa ’s sole proprietorship over God’s word challenged.

Most assuredly though, he – my mayor – knows full well the argumentative efficacy of his oracion, having invoked it at each of his questioned poll victories. Its potency proven most definitively in his unprecedented four terms – and still counting – making him a firm believer in the power of the vote, a firmer believer in the power of the Comelec, and the firmest believer, I would so presume, in the power of prayer.

So enshrined in our so-called democratic tradition is the sanctity of the ballot. From our youth, we were led to believe – and without question accept – the element of the divine in the exercise of suffrage. The curtained poll booth in the pre- and immediate post-Martial Law years even resembled a confessional. Thus, the affected infallibility of our election results: God speaking with the voice of his people. Blaspheming reprobate is he that dares question the word of God!

Vox populi, vox Dei takes roots in the Book of Genesis, at the very instance of Creation itself, if I may advance so myself, neither knowing nor having read any priest, philosopher or political scientist having said it. (Let me know if I appropriated somebody’s statement so I can promptly and properly apologize.)
Read Genesis 1:26-27: “God said, “Let us make man in our image, to our likeness…So God created man in his image; in the image of God, he created him; male and female he created them.”

What is it that makes man, and woman – to be gender-correct – unlike all of creation, in the likeness of his Creator? Will and reason.
The exercise of our free will is that we most share with the Divine. As voting is an exercise of our free will and use of our reason, our choice thus corresponds with that of God: our voice becoming God’s, and God’s becoming ours.

The cynic that I have turned to be in things political now asks: Which god?
In the pursuit of our electoral exercises do we, as we should, to quote Baruch Spinoza, “… use in security all (our) endowments, mental and physical, and make free use of (our) reason”?

Reason, my ass. Reason is at its weakest when passion is at its strongest. This is borne in Philippine elections: always visceral, rarely, very, very rarely cerebral. There lies a chasm as unbridgeable as sin between man and God. So, what voice of God do we talk about in election results?

Fettered on patronage, the electorate makes the vote a commodity to trade for some favor, given or promised, or to directly sell for cash. The outrageous outburst of Gouverneur Morris at the time of the infancy of the American nation comes of age: “Give the vote to the people who have no property, and they will sell them to the rich, who will be able to buy them.” Not only able but willing and raring to buy them.

Factored on popularity, the electoral choices tax the intellect of the gnat. Were a brain pool of the country’s elected officials established, it most surely would fit the head of a pin.

Fault not the elected. Damn the electorate. So, we have clowns and idiots in the Houses, so we are clowns and idiots ourselves. An iteration ad nauseam: We just don’t deserve whom we elect. We are whom we elect. The booboisie, as H.L. Mencken put it, is us. And our vote, that “great right grossly abused, and has become, in practice, a grave wrong.”

Still, we adhere to the veracity of vox populi, vox Dei.

But the voice of the people has become the voice – not of God – but of their gods. The lord of numbers, the lord of celluloid illusion, the god of goons, the glorious goddess of the tapes.

Aye, Alcuin, an English scholar and theologian of the 8th century is right: “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.”
(First published in Pampanga News, Jan. 6-Feb. 1, 2006. Finding relevance after every election.)   

 

 

Date with history

TAKE A bow, Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin Jr.

In his very first re-election bid, Lazatin did the unprecedented in the annals of the city’s electoral history – garnering over 112,947 votes -- the first ever hizzoner to attain – aye, surpass – the 100,000-vote mark, the first ever to be voted by over 50% -- exactly 54.87% -- of the city’s total voting population of 205,822.

A landslide, indeed, an avalanche by any measure, totally burying the pretender to the mayoralty’s 47,300 votes to electoral nothingness, okay – just to be kind – to utter insignificance.

With Lazatin’s triumph comes now the greater challenge: his numbers manifesting the greatest affirmation by the city electorate of his sterling performance in his very first term as mayor now engendering among them higher hopes of even greater accomplishments in his second term.

Tall order? Worry not, Pogi always delivers.

Shine on, Crisostomo C. Garbo.

Indeed, a rarity elsewhere and never in the history of Mabalacat, from town to city, has a single slate – governor, vice governor, two board members, mayor, vice mayor, all of 10 councilors – been voted straight. 

Yeah, if fading memory still serves right, not even during the dictator Marcos’ KBL bloc-voting days when then popular Fred Halili handily won the mayoralty while his gubernatorial bet, the erudite Estelito Mendoza, lost miserably.

No mean feat, did Team MCG – standing as much for Mayor Cris Garbo as for Mabalacat City Government – achieve in the elections just past with its wholesale poll victory.

“The people of Mabalacat City have spoken once again…” So declared Garbo in his post-election statement.

How the people have, indeed, spoken! Garbo garnering 75,794 votes – over 60% more than the combined votes of his rivals, former forever-mayor Boking Morales with 25,926 votes and broadcaster Deng Pangilinan with 3,659.

An even stronger statement the electorate delivered for Vice Mayor Gerald Aquino with 80,051 votes against opponent Christian Halili’s measly 25,440.

“Through the ballots, they have reaffirmed, in unison, their choice for a governance that firmly stands on integrity, honesty, credibility.  and unwavering service,” enthused Garbo.

Rising up to the new challenge, thus: “With the help of the Almighty God, we shall endeavor once again to deliver to expectations anchored in our ‘Bayung Mabalacat’ vision. We shall also continue to challenge ourselves to do even more in pushing our beloved city and its people to greater success.”

Rise now, Vilma B. Caluag.

With 55,508 votes to her name, the first-ever lady mayor takes over the City of San Fernando. No spectacle in terms of numbers there, but the magnitude of her electoral ascendancy comes to brilliance with the very renown of the rivals she bested.

Unarguably, Caluag was the most inexperienced in the field of governance among the marquee names in the city’s mayoralty contest: multi-term provincial board member Rosve Henson, longtime vice mayor Jimmy Lazatin, and certainly not the least, multi-term congressman, EDSA 2 hero, three-term city mayor, World City Mayor awardee Oca Rodriguez.

Daunting as the task ahead is for Caluag, the greatest challenge for her at the onset is to immediately prove she has something more substantive other than her prowess to parlay her Tik-Tok moves to electoral victory, sans daughter Nicole and husband Melchor.

Even as her triumph serves as an empowerment to all women, gender will be the least consideration in her performance as city mayor, of the very capital of Pampanga at that!

Luck be a lady, so we can only wish her. For now.      

 

PAMPANGA: 13 mayors reelected, 3 lose, 6 newbies

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Fourteen incumbent mayors of Pampanga have been given a new mandate by the electorate on Monday. Three incumbent mayors lost. Four new ones are elected. This, per the unofficial count of Halalan 2022 of ABS-CBN. Unless indicated otherwise, the results are at 100%. 

Incumbents who lost are in Magalang – Romy Pecson (29,742) to Malu Paras-Lacson (38,560); in Sta. Rita – Dagi Salalila (11,754) to brother Art Salalila (12,423); and in Sto. Tomas: Gloria “Ninang” Ronquillo (13,404) in a return bout with Johnny Sambo (15,126).

Newcomers made it in Arayat – Madeth Alejandrino (21,464) over three rivals; in Guagua – Tonton Torres (27,150) over Joe Mendoza (27,004); in Masantol – Tonton Bustos (17,869) over Aguinaldo Guintu (16,824); in Minalin – Philip Naguit (13,153) over Rolando Flores (12,658) with the count at 92%; and in Sasmuan – former mayor Lina Cabrera-Bagasina (9,373) over Victor Velasco (5,913) and Mai Angeles (4,764).

A newbie too in the capital City of San Fernando in the prospective first ever lady mayor Vilma Caluag (57,486) beating Rosve Henson (47,597), Jimmy Lazatin (36,664) and Oca Rodriguez (19,5128,784).

Those reelected are in Bacolor – Diman Datu (26,299) over Willy Balingit (13,753); Candaba – Rene Maglanque (39,194) over Aniway Baylon (27,068); Floridablanca – Darwin Manalansan (26,694) over Dok Policarpio (18,560) and Eddie Guerrero (15,735); in Macabebe – Bobong Flores (21,385) over sister Anette Flores-Balgan (12,933); in Mexico – Teddy Tumang (52,385) over Doc Pangan (20,475) and Ernesto Punzalan (3,835); in Porac – Jing Capil (39,031) over Condralito de la Cruz (26,016); in San Simon – JP Punsalan (17,078) over Leonora Wong (16,085); and in Sta. Ana – Ross Gamboa (15,359) over Soy Guevarra (8,083) and Atty. Dennis Pangan (5,950).

Reelected unopposed were Apalit’s Jun Tetangco (41,635); Lubao’s Esmie Pineda ((58,829); and San Luis’ Jay Sagum (24,528).

Mabalacat City Mayor Cris Garbo won his reelection with 75,794 votes against Boking Morales with 25,926 and Deng Pangilinan with 3,659.

In Angeles City, incumbent Mayor Carmelo Lazatin with 112,947 votes avalanched Amos Rivera with 47,300. Punto News Team   

 

450 YOC in Pampanga: El Camino a Lubao

ONLY HALF a century to the quincentennial of Christianity in Pampanga, coming as it did by half a century too from the “discovery” of the Philippines by Magellan.

Wow, numerologists would have a heyday with those numbers!

Indeed, an epoch here for the Capampangan race, sadly unobserved, largely unknown. But for the posts of good friend and fellow ex-seminarian Francis Musni, I could have remained totally clueless too. 

Thanks to him, I was reminded of this piece published here May 8, 2012 – almost exactly to the day 10 years ago – in celebration of the event.

The way to St. Augustine

WHY LUBAO?

Of all settlements in the backwaters, plains and hinterlands of Pampanga, what made the trailblazing Augustinian friars in 1572 to choose Lubao to be the nexus of the Catholic faith not only in the province but up and across the expanse of the central and northern regions of Luzon?

Asked the Most Rev. Pablo Virgilio S. David, auxiliary bishop of San Fernando, in his homily in the High Mass celebrating the 440th year founding of the St. Augustine parish last May 5.

Low-lying and thus prone to flooding, notwithstanding –its very name taken from bajo, Spanish for low – there was something in Lubao that the Augustinians found of great significance: the people, mostly farmers and fisherfolk, of humble birth and bearings, comprising a balayan ning kababan, locus of humility, the good bishop said. Where most manifest one core value of the Faith.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The second of the Eight Beatitudes, Matthew 5:5. Reflected I, listening to Among Ambo.
Thus by its lowliness, less geographic than anthropologic, Lubao rightfully took its place as the fountainhead of Catholicism for the Kapampangan race.
Delving on the gospel for that day, Matthew 16:18-19 – “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” – the good bishop continued with the celebrated place of the lowly in the City of God, to use the word of St. Augustine.

With Peter as perfect example, in transcending his human frailties and imperfections with his innate humility.
And but of course, Lubao’s patron saint himself, St. Augustine of Hippo whose mother St. Monica – as tradition holds – cried buckets of tears for the conversion of her sinful son.
 “But I wretched, most wretched, in the very commencement of my early youth, had begged chastity of Thee, and said, ‘Give me chastity and continency, only not yet.’” Thus, St. Augustine in his Confessions.
The bishop’s sermon and personal reflection intertwining, and with the once near-photographic memory faded with age, retained now are but snatches of the homily, the opening and concluding part coming full circle though. (How I wish I had the full text of Bishop Ambo’s homily and simply reprinted it here. No word by me can ever approximate even but a fraction of the brilliance, of the eloquence of my once underclassman at the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary. And to think that he delivered his homily from a mere outline!)
For over a thousand years now, the El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) in Spain has drawn from all over Europe thousands of pilgrims on foot, on horseback, on bicycles – never on motorized vehicles, converging on the magnificent Santiago de Compostela Cathedral where St. James is buried.
Why do they do it?
The pilgrimage is a return to their roots, the burial site of St. James serving as the fountainhead of Christianity in Europe.
Finding parallelism there, the good bishop broached the idea of an El Camino a Lubao (The Way to Lubao) or an El Camino de San Agustin (The Way of St. Augustine) to afford every Kapampangan a return to the very roots of his/her Faith. From the wetlands of Candaba and Masantol, from the highlands of Porac and Floridablanca, from the urban centers of Mabalacat and Angeles City the Kapampangan faithful, whether in penitence and supplication, or in thanksgiving and veneration, walking the highways and byways to the St. Augustine Parish Church in Lubao.
The grace of a pilgrimage, a refreshing renewal in one’s Faith if only once in one’s own lifetime makes a truly blessed experience.
Ah, I can almost hear St. Augustine beckoning: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
The way of St. Augustine. The path to conversion. The road to salvation. O, that we may all be blessed to take it.

 

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. (Guiao got 106,086 votes to Lazatin’s 127,762)

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. (Without the INC vote, Guiao lost by 21,676. With the INC vote, Guiao lost even more overwhelmingly by a margin of 45,407 votes. Guiao’s total number of votes even dropped by 1,290 with INC support.)

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. (To the chagrin of the double visionary, Boking is again running for mayor against him and the incumbent Garbo)

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.

(Reprinted, with updates, from Zona Libre, May 15, 2019)

 

 

 

Indelible INC

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.     

(Reprinted from Zona Libre, May 5, 2016)