Mayor Vi declares CSFP: For Fernandinos Only

“SISIKLAB YA pung alang patna ing lugud ku para kareng Fernandinos. Kaluguran ke pu ing siyudad San Fernando kasi keni ku pu mibait, keni ku pu meragul, keni ku pu mikaisip, keni ku pu megaral, keni ku pu mekapakyasawa, keni ku mekapagnegosyu, keni ku minasensu, keni ku pu mika-apu, keni ku pu magserbisyu, at keni na ku rin pu mate. I am a proud Fernandino through and through.

Tune ku pung Fernandinu king isip, pusu, amanu at dapat. Dapat pung marapat, dapat pung tapat, at dapat pung mayap.

Kekatamu ya ing San Fernandu, kaluguran ta ya ing San Fernando. Ing City of San Fernando, karen ya mung Fernandino.

Ikayu ing tagumpe ku. Aku ing tagumpe yu, itamu ing tagumpe ring susunod a henerasyun ning City of San Fernando.

Aku pu y Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag, ing kekayung mayor, ing kekayung ima, ing babaing ating tune siklab ning lugud kareng Fernandino.

Tandanan ta mu pu Fernandino ka, kayabe ka.”

EXCLUSIVE TO Fernandinos only. Thus, re-electionist Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag declared Pampanga’s capital city, in a not-so-subtle jab at her probable rival for the mayoralty – resigned 2^nd District board member and former Lubao town Mayor Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab.

In San Fernando she was born, grew, studied, married, succeeded in business, became a grandparent, serves, and yes, will die.

Hence, Caluag claimed as birthright the exclusivity of love for the city in the flourishing finis to her state of the city address (SOCA) delivered on Sept. 19 at the Kingsborough International Convention Center. Indeed, an arrogation unto herself of the very theme of the SOCA – Siklab Ning Lugud: Ing Tagumpe Ning Syudad San Fernando – the explosion of love only she, a Fernandino, can ignite for the city to triumph.

The SOCA itself, alas, devolving more into song-and-skit entertainment than serious deliberation on city governance. Aye, absent the official, if routinary, city council session called to order by the presiding officer then dispensing with the agenda to give way to the mayor’s SOCA, and the call for adjournment at the end of hizzoner’s speech. Vice Mayor Benedict Jasper Lagman reduced to a mere spectator seen craning his neck to have a better view of the stage where the mayor starred as though in some zarzuela of old.

To be fair, Caluag did a perfunctory litany of claimed accomplishments but this did not impact as much as the showtime part of the event.

But why would anyone even care, when TikTok is all that matters. CN Photos

 

 

SOCA à la Vilma

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- Do you hear the people sing? Yes, loud and clear. But it ain’t no scene from Les Misérables. Yes, madlang people, It’s Showtime and all that jazz as only Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag could – deliver her State of the City Address with all that glam and glitz. Thus, the pageantry that was Siklab Ning Lugud: Ing Tagumpe Ning Syudad San Fernando at the Kingsborough International Convention Center here on Sept. 19. 

                                                                                                                   CN Photos  

 

Politics, as is

 

REALPOLITIK. The “realist’s determination to treat politics as they really are and not as the idealist would wish them to be.”

The buzzword in the Kissinger era in American diplomacy has long descended from its rarefied niche in foreign policy to the street level, to its very roots – politics as practised, as is, where is.

So, the Colombia cartels conceived in coca and cannabis and birthed narco-politics. Reigned supreme, ruled absolutely the drug lord here. The elected reduced to mere vassals doing the lord’s every bidding, disempowered to sheer figureheads, albeit, well, extremely well compensated.

There is more to the politics of vice other than that taken to perfection by Clayton Olalia in the Province of Pampanga, lived fully by the late Tiger Lagman in the City of San Fernando and Ric Zalamea in Angeles City, and relentlessly pursued now by Vicky Vega-Cabigting with Jay Sangil tenaciously clutching at her ankles.

As a matter of course, the politics of vice meanders to different channels.

Bingopolitics capitalizes on the penchant of the barrio folk for their much beloved game of chance. Nothing to lose for the folk here as the cards come free – from the politico, and everything to gain with prizes galore, from electric fans and gas stoves to refrigerators and flat-screen television sets – ever windfalls even to the Pelco-disserviced brown-outed masses.

Raffle-itics is another very popular game now played in the pre-campaign hustings. All attendees are given designated numbers drawn against corresponding prizes, no more than the usual bingo fare.

Far, far superior – fearsomely graver, the moral minority is always wont to insist – to the two above is tambiolitics – after the tambiolo (the usually bottle-shaped rattan contraption) holding the bulitin (small balls numbered 1 to 37) used in drawing the winning combinations in the illegal numbers game.

Tambiolitics is but our euphemism for what suspended-priest-wanting-to-be-governor-again Eddie Panlilio derisively calls – in your face, Atching Baby – jueteng politics.

But how could you, Among? There’s no jueteng, there’s only STL (small town lottery) in Pampanga. Was that me, or did I just hear Senior Supt. R’Win Pagkalinawan’s strong protestation?       

The now-dispensation-seeking Panlilio himself introduced a brand of politics with his entry to the gubernatorial race in 2007 – clerico-politics.

The cry of clerico-fascism in the exclusive Catholic campuses in the ‘60s though did not resonate in the Panlilio administration at the Pampanga Capitol. It rather devolved into putativism vectored on his provincial administrator.

Religion as the people’s opiate going the way of Marx’s grave, the boob tube, the silver and digital screens took over as the addictive hallucinogens of the masses. With an even greater tama, er, high, er, intense effect. 

Whence rose, and now dominates, cinepolitics.

No matter the reel bida turning real villain once voted into office, moviestars make the very first of the people’s choices in any election they enter. Erap in Malacanang. In the Senate, there’s Jinggoy, Agimat, and Leon Guerrero (then as now, and joined by the hood named Robin, aka Sili, whatever that means). In the House, Lani and Lucy, Mikey too. Ate Vi in Batangas. Jorge Estregan Ejercito in Laguna. A host of others in provincial boards and city councils, not the least of whom is the beautiful Marang Morales in Angeles City.

More in the ways than in the who now is butterflyitics. We all learned from the elementary grades of butterflies going after the nectar of fresh flowers. The wilting and the wilted hardly meriting the slightest flitting. So goes the political party-goer too. At a Senate hearing, the once famous Lt. Victor Corpuz had a rather impolite term for this: political prostitution. Pimpolitics then, anyone?

Trending now is tarpaulitics. The stock-in-trade, aye, the only way of the epal – the publicity-obsessed credit-grabber, in street lingo. It’s just something no one can escape from, given the scale and scope with which every politico – current, wannabe, has-been, and never-been – has impacted his image into our consciousness, polluted our thoughts, and cluttered our environment.    

I most certainly though would rather be pestered by epalitics than fall prey to ampatualitics.

Yeah, that brand of politics in Mindanao that votes with bullets rather than ballots, and memorializes mediamen in backhoe-dug and –filled-up, unmarked graves.

And they say it’s only politics?

(Reprinted from Zona Libre, Feb. 6, 2013)

Capitol digs out CSF's filth

 

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda has mobilized the resources of the provincial Capitol in a joint undertaking with the Department of Public Works and Highways in Central Luzon to declog the drainage systems along the flood-prone thoroughfares in the city.

Typhoon Carina and the monsoon rains last July onto August and this month inundated the city with the depth of floodwaters unseen in recent years, that is prior to the current city administration.

Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda goes hands-on in declogging operations. Daniel Ombina/Pampanga PIO

“Andami na pong nagrereklamo, lalo na sa business sector. At kailangan na rin ho sigurong pagtulungan talaga. Kailangan na rin hong mabigyan kaagad ng solusyon. At sayang ho, maunlad na lungsod tapos sa ganitong problema, hindi ho natin kaagad mabigyan ng solusyon,” said Pineda during the action planning at the Capitol with the DPWH on Monday, Sept. 2.

                  Clearing JASA canals of debris. Jaja Galang/Pampanga PIO

On Wednesday, backhoes, dump trucks and other heavy equipment with enough manpower opened canals along the Barangay Dolores stretch of Jose Abad Santos Avenue revealing hardened silt, debris of concrete, wood, and steel, plastic, plastic and more plastic that rendered drainage totally useless.

By Thursday, the Capitol-DPWH team had cleared 185 meters of the drainage canals along JASA, still a long way to go in this stop-gap measure of the provincial government at flood mitigation in the city.

There are still Lazatin Boulevard, notably at its junction with JASA, and the MacArthur Highway segment at the government center in Barangay Maimpis to be cleared. 

Complementing the drainage clearing, former board member and current executive assistant to the governor Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab mobilized beneficiaries of the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) program to clear clogged drainage canals in Barangays San Pedro Cutud, Dolores, and Sta. Lucia.

 

                  TUPAD mobilizer Mylyn-Pineda Cayabyab. Contributed photo

“Makatulong po sana ito para maibsan kahit papaano ang mga pagbaha sa barangay. Pagmalasakitan po sana natin at panatilihing malinis ang mga daluyan ng tubig,” said Pineda-Cayabyab of her initiative.

Aside from the declogging operations, the Capitol and the DPWH have also agreed to undertake medium- and long-term actions include upgrading structures so these could take in bigger volumes of water, and constructing urban drainages that serve as catchments.

 

Gov. Pineda looking at one proposed anti-flooding measure. Daniel Ombina/Pampanga PIO

These include the installation of a pumping station that would drain to Gugu, a creek that has turned into a river after a series of Mt. Pinatubo lahar flows in nearby Bacolor town.

"Nagpa-design po ako sa DPWH at nagpabigay po ako ng estimate kung magkano, at pagtutulungan po namin ang funding para mag-operate po kaagad ang pumping station na ‘yan," the governor said. 

This, even as Pineda has gone to lengths to appeal to the residents to practice proper waste disposal.

Where’s city hall?

The ongoing declogging operations in the city by the provincial government, sans any presence from the city government, has not gone unnoticed to the public.

The social media and traditional word-of-mouth communications are abuzz, ranging from allegations of arrogation of municipal/city powers by the provincial government unto itself, on one end, to accusations of abdication of by the city government of its powers, on the other.

             Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag handing out DSWD relief. CSFP-CIO

Amid the Capitol operations, it did not help any that city hall did not come out with either press release or post of flood-mitigating measures of its own in its very active social media page, not even in Tiktok that is the highly favored means of social communications of Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag.   

                  Declogging of city canals by the city engineer’s office. CSFP-CIO

On Friday, Sept. 5, the CSFP-CIO posted photos of what it said were declogging operations undertaken by the city engineer’s office from March to August this year. The depth of the flooding wrought by Carina and the monsoons upon the city raising questions of their authenticity, if not inutility. 

            Disapproved items in the supplemental budget. Contributed photo   

Followers of the mayor have accused the city council of “tying her hands” with its disapproval of a supplemental budget she requested late last month, in the wake of the onslaught of Typhoon Carina and the monsoons, for a P5 million allocation for clearing, desilting, and declogging of waterways in the flood prone areas of Café Rustico-St. Jude in Dolores, PLDT to Gulf Gasoline Station on the CSF-Lubao Road, PLDT to Lelut Baculud in Sto. Nino, 7-11 (convenience store) to Prime Water in Lourdes, and the Assumption Creek in Del Pilar.

Measly as it is, by engineering estimates, the requested allocation did not cover the main thoroughfares of JASA, Lazatin Blvd., and MacArthur Highway which flooding effectively brings traffic to a complete standstill for hours on end.

 Continuing declogging operations at JASA. Daniel Ombina/Pampanga PIO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pineda-Sambo tandem for 2024 emerges

 

TRADING POSTS IN 2025

STO. TOMAS, Pampanga – “MMBP. VMMJS.” Not so cryptic caption of this photograph showing Pampanga 4^th District Rep. Anna York-Bondoc raising the hands of incumbent Vice Mayor Matias “Bong” Pineda to her right, and incumbent Mayor Johnny Sambo to her left, implying the switch in the positions the two officials will seek in 2025. The picture was posted on Sept. 3 in the FB page of Karen Zablan Pineda, wife of the vice mayor. Punto Political Team

As it turned out, we were only half-right in our piece here yesterday - Bong Pineda eyeing mayorship -- with projected opponent incumbent Mayor John Sambo sliding down to the vice mayoralty. 

Bong Pineda eyes mayorship

                                             

                                          Vice Mayor Matias “Bong” Pineda

STO. TOMAS, Pampanga – Not the province’s foremost businessman-philanthropist Rodolfo “Bong” Pineda though, but his nicknamesake Matias “Bong” Pineda, incumbent vice mayor, that has set his sights on the mayoralty of this town.

Pineda, Matias that is, is reported to have publicly announced his bid for local chief executive of Pampanga’s smallest town – all of seven barangays – on at least two recent occasions.

The first in Barangay Sto. Rosario-Pau, where he served as longtime chairman and succeeded by his wife Karen; and the second at the fiesta celebration in Barangay San Bartolome last Aug. 24.

While direct blood kinship with Pampanga’s political first family has not been established, Matias is known to be their ally, dating back to the governorship of the matriarch Lilia “Nanay” Pineda starting in 2010. And the Bong moniker, is deemed as enough interest draw. 

                                         

Pineda will be running against re-electionist Mayor Johnny Sambo, against whom he lost in the mayoralty race in 2016, teamed up with in 2019 when Sambo lost to Gloria “Ninang” Ronquillo, and in tandem anew in 2022 when Sambo turned the tables on Ronquillo.

Sambo’s putative running-mate for 2025 is former councilor Pinky Feliciano who failed miserably in an earlier run for vice mayor against Ronquillo.

One-term mayor Ronquillo, widow of former Mayor Romy Ronquillo, is reported to be eyeing the vice mayoralty with her son Raymond running for mayor.

Of late, the son has been visible with a key role in the highly popular Batang Quiapo teleserye of Coco Martin.

                                         

                                   Raymond Ronquillo stars in Batang Quiapo.

Very recently too, the Ronquillo family’s high-end resort Emon Pulo in Zambales factored in the Alice Guo saga with the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission alleging the fugitive unseated Bamban mayor and cohorts were in the resort prior to her escape. “Slanderous,” said Ronquillo of the allegations categorically denying them all and even threatening to file cases against the PAOCC.

                        Former Mayor Gloria “Ninang” Ronquillo in Eman Pulo.

A Ronquillo son-mother tandem in 2025 harks back to the Ronquillo’s conjugal run in 2013 – the husband losing to Lito Naguit thereby earning the latter the distinction of being the first-ever three-term mayor of Sto. Tomas; and the wife bested by councilor Mark Louie Arceo, himself son of two-term mayor Lucas Arceo.

At this early, local politics has become the town’s main currency.

Once a mere factotum of Mayor Romy Ronquillo, Sambo gained political mileage as son-in-law of then forever Mabalacat City Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales as well as material resources from the myriad projects of his construction firm in the Metro Clark area. This, further buttressed by his close association with the Bondoc siblings – Juan Pablo, aka Rimpy, and Anna York – alternately ruling the roost in Pampanga’s 4^th congressional district since 1998.

                      Mayor Sambo with Rep. Anna York-Bondoc in relief mission.

The Ronquillos come straight out of the exclusive pages of the rich and famous – trucking, luxury cars, resort, realty, helicopters. In the 2022 election campaign, the son created a ruckus raining down peso bills all around town from his helicopter. 

The Ronquillos have also aligned with Patrol Partylist Rep. Jorge Bustos who is reported to be bent in breaking the Bondoc’s stranglehold of the 4^th District.

 

              Purported “masa-favorite” Pineda joins San Bartolome fiesta revelry.

Public perception of Pineda makes him the most accessible of the three prospective candidates. It is bruited hereabouts that Sambo has made himself scarce in Pineda’s presence in official or social functions. This, after the vice mayor received more attention, greater applause, and even called “Mayor” even when Sambo was the principal guest.

From there, a consensus on who can possibly win is already emerging in town, notwithstanding the political situation still in a state of flux.

The best bet though is: Mayor Bong Pineda, Vice Mayor Ronquillo, be it the mother or the son. In a one-on-one with Mayor John. Photos grabbed from the web