BSKE 2023: Winners who did not even run

YES, THERE are at least three I know who emerged even bigger winners than those elected despite their not running in the recent barangay and sangguniang kabataan elections. In no particular order now --   

 

First is Mabalacat City Mayor Crisostomo C. Garbo.

Of the city’s 27 elected barangay chairpersons, both incumbent and newbies, 27 have the mayor as their “preferential option,” okay – they are closely identified with Garbo. Why, at the hustings, there were even rivals that openly professed affinity with the mayor.

Sans any endorsement by Garbo, prohibited as it is by the election code, it was apparently enough for them to identify themselves with him to earn some kind of a seal of approval for the electorate to vote them into office.  

Here may be one instance of the transferability of electoral winnability, of victory by association, borne by the highly positive public perception of, at the very least, or the more solid tangibility to the electors of the accomplishments of the transferer, in this case, Garbo.

If it were a referendum, the 27-0 outcome of the barangay polls here would have been a resounding YES vote to the administration of Mayor Garbo, an indisputable affirmation of the effectiveness of his delivery of programs, projects, and services to the general contentment of his constituents. Hence, the “Garbo Factor” now entered in the political lexicon of Mabalacat City. 

The drubbing of formerly forever Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales in Barangay Dau then serving nothing more than sweet, sweet icing on Garbo’s cake.

And 2025 at this point already conceded as yet another cakewalk for the mayor.

Second is Angeles City Mayor Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin.

The city has 14 reelected barangay chairs and 19 new ones, including once Pampanga vice governor Robin Nepomuceno returning to Barangay Cutcut after a decade-long hiatus in favor of his wife Cecil who completed her third and final term.

Thirty-one of these 33 are aligned with the camp of Mayor Pogi. The two “outsiders” widely deemed too minuscule a political or numeric factor to make any bother in a city race.

What can be said as a minor “irritant” in the mayor’s smooth affairs with the barangays had been dealt with a definitive, devastatingly humiliating blow – long-time Barangay Malabanias chair Reynaldo Gueco, an erstwhile Lazatin ally, losing to “virtual nobody” Luz Nava, a staunch Pogi supporter, by 1,050 votes.

It is an attestation to Pogi’s political savvy that at this early – a year and three months into his second term – he has already consolidated an expansive political base more than enough for a run for a third and final term as Angeles hizzoner, or launching ground for that seat in the House to be vacated in 2025 by his brother Carmelo “Jon” Lazatin II.     

And third is one who not only did not run but had been ousted from office – Mexico ex-Mayor Teddy C. Tumang.

The unwavering trust and unshaken confidence of Mexico’s barangay leaders in the Ombudsman-deposed mayor were unambiguously evident in the results of the BSKE 2023: Of the 43 re-elected and newly-elected barangay chairs, only three – those of barangays Anao, San Miguel, and Suclaban – are unaffiliated with Tumang.

Anao, understandably, being the home barangay of House Senior Deputy Speaker Pampanga 3^rd District Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales – he whom the barangay chairs and Tumang himself pinpointed as the cause of all of Tumang’s predicament -- from his ouster from the mayoralty to his implication in the seizure of P3.8 billion-worth suspected shabu in a warehouse in the town, occurring over three weeks after he stepped down.    

In what has been immediately deemed as a triumphant vindication for the embattled former mayor was the contrasting results at the polls of two barangay chairmen that played key roles in the Tumang affair.

Association of Barangay Chairmen president Terence Napao who took the cudgel for Tumang and filed graft charges against Gonzales won his reelection bid in Santo Cristo.

Barangay Pandacaqui chair Christopher “Bombing” Punzalan who swore into office Tumang’s successor Ruding Gonzales lost what had long been claimed a family political fiefdom. Punzalan is the son of former mayor “Asenso” Ernesto whom Tumang avalanched in two mayoralty contests, the last in 2022.   

By sheer numbers, Tumang has maintained his solid political hold of Mexico with the overwhelming support not only of the barangay chairmen but more so of the electorate, unarguably.

Highly arguable though is how this will play out in the other three towns and the City of San Fernando that Tumang has set his eyes on to represent in the House of Representatives in 2025. Aye, the very cause of his “persecution,” he himself says, owing to the same ambition harbored by the senior deputy speaker’s daughter, neophyte 3^rd District board member Alyssa Michela “Mica” Gonzales.