Distinctively, Bohol

CHOCOLATE HILLS. Loboc River cruises. Tarsiers. Churches. Beaches. Distinctively, Bohol. Then there is Panglao Island, and more.

Now but an hour-and-ten-minute hop from the Clark International Airport – thanks to Cebu Pacific operating daily flights to Tagbilaran starting Oct. 21 – we responded to Bohol’s beckoning, with Panglao for the picking. And here’s what we got, to our hearts’ content, and our guts’ delight.

Oceanica Resort

Betwixt turquoise sea and forest green, coffee-cream sand for a kilometer stretching – Bohol’s ultimate beach resort dazzling.

Amid a profusion of foliage – leafy native botong and talisay, towering mahogany and coconut, swaying bamboo – thatch-roofed villas all looking out to sea. There’s spa al fresco, beach front also. Two swimming pools. Lounge chairs, swings, and hammocks all too plentiful.

Gourmet’s delight – a seafood restaurant that serves only the freshest. (It is the binakol na manok though that shattered my Kapampangan culinary conceit to smithereens.) Cocktails in hand at the pool bar to watch the sunset. Ah, la vida Oceanica!    

 
North Zen Villas    

The serenity of exclusivity in a nature preserve transformed into a haven of wellness – what the marketing and PR collaterals avouch, our stay in this 4-Star resort of 21 rooms and villas affirmed. Rejuvenation in the soothing massages and signature treatments. 

That inner peace at every step on that bamboo boardwalk through a lush emerald forest of mangroves opening to the Nest Bar jutting out to sea for a spectacular view of the sunset. Om Ah Hum…

South Farm 

It can’t get any more rustic than this nine-hectare organic land property “promoting rural, handmade, handcrafted, hand-built tourist destination.” Comprising three villages – Farmers, Fishermen, Artisans – the farm was birthed during the pandemic restrictions when its owners, instead of letting go of their employees in Oceanica Resort and North Zen Villas, decided to keep and engage them in the development of the farm – clearing the area, planting crops, raising animals for food, and craftsmanship including carpentry works.

Hence, the farm has been supplying its sister companies with its freshest produce and has come into its own as a tourist destination where visitors can plant and fish, and join workshops in making pizza and coco candy, and pottery painting.

 

Amarela

The color yellow of its buildings may have given this boutique resort its name – the Portuguese for the more familiar Spanish “amarillo.” Nestled on a sunny slope overlooking the Bohol Sea, sited with a private white sand beach, and blooming bougainvillea of myriad colors – a Mediterranean vibe permeates the place. Which, may be the reason for its being a favorite among European tourists. Aye, there’s a pétanque court to drive that point.

Old World values too are all too visible in the repurposed old hardwood – from old heavy doors, intricate lattices, and balusters to furniture and furnishings – antiques and art all around the place and some more, including old nicho altars, on prominent display at the small art gallery.

Owned by locals, Amarela aims to promote and preserve Bohol’s innate and unique natural beauty, art and culture, and its people’s native warmth and hospitality. 

 
Hinagdanan Cave

A fair warning. Accessed through a veritable hole the XXL can barely fit in, uneven slippery steps descending to a cavern with a lagoon the size of a half-Olympic pool, sunlight filtering through holes in the ceiling of solidified stalactites which with the stalagmites come off like the teeth of a giant dragon of myth – this attraction in the Dauis town is not for the claustrophobic, or the asthmatic with the air thereat hot and thick. But there lies its thrill too. Bathing in the cold waters is invigorating.

 

Bohol Farms

The main attractions of the place gone with the pandemic, “Bee” has to be excised from its nameplate as a matter of course. So, we were told. A beehive of activity the place has remained though, if not more so. An all-organic hub from farming – vegetables and herbs, to ice cream making – the malunggay and dragon fruit flavors are marvelous, to baking artisanal bread. Crafts use organic materials too – raffia weaving, lantern making. There’s even a recycled art corner featuring resident artist Pedro Angco who has earned his fame in turning flotsam and jetsam into works of art.

The organic theme goes to the restaurant too – the food served coming from the farm and the sea at its backyard. Cool, cool sea breeze while you dine, it can’t get any fresher than this.

Visita Iglesia

EDIFICES of Faith primarily, cultural treasures have become the heritage Catholic churches. Hence, a visit there makes as much pilgrimage as a tour. So, it is at the Church of St. Augustine in Panglao, and the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Dauis, both of which are declared as Important Cultural Property by the National Museum of the Philippines.

Murals dominate the ceiling of the Panglao church, the most prominent of which is that of the Holy Trinity surrounded by angels at the hexagonal dome above the altar. The retablo holds the church patron, St. Augustine, at the topmost niche, below it is St. Joseph at the lower left, the Sto, Nino in the middle, and the Blessed Virgin Mary at the right. Both arms of the transept also hold retablos with other saints in their niches.

To the rear of the church, near the seashore, stands a five-storey octagonal bell tower reputed to be the tallest of its kind in the Philippines.

In front of the church stands a tall image of St. Augustine and a few meters to its right the ruins of an older church that still bears “1850” in an escudo de piedra.

Dauis Church, which has also been declared as National Historical Landmark by the National Historical Commission, is a mix of neo-Gothic and neo-Classical architecture. There is likewise a predominance of ceiling murals, with Moses and the stone tablets, the Last Supper, and the Agony in the Garden, framing that of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary between choir of angels above the altar made resplendent by the coral stone wall.

Interesting for advocates of the Tridentine Mass to note that both churches have maintained the comulgatorio or the communion rail that has been removed from many churches after Vatican II.

 

 

 

 

Long dead, of late suspended

 

“WHEREFORE, the Prayer for Preventive Suspension insofar as the following incumbent officials of the Municipal Government of Porac, Pampanga, are concerned, namely, respondents: 

            JAIME V. CAPIL, Mayor

            FRANCIS LAURENCE V. TAMAYO, Vice Mayor;

EMERALD VITAL, Licensing Assistant/then OIC Business Permit and Licensing Office;   

            Sanggunian Bayan Members

            Rohner Buan;

Rafael Canlapan;

Adrian Carreon;

Regin Clarete;

Essel Joy David;

Hilario Dimalanta;

Michelle Santos; and

John Nuevy Venzon

is hereby GRANTED...”

THUS, the Ombudsman ordered on Oct. 7, 2024 the wholesale suspension of the elected local officials of Porac for gross neglect of duty vis-a-vis the illegal operation of a Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) hub in Barangay Sta. Cruz that came to light only with the raid of its premises by the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission last June.

Suspension orders from the Ombudsman have been so routinary that they hardly draw any attention but that of their subjects. So, why has this particular one become divertingly discomfiting, to the point of being bannered in some digital publications?

                                          The late Porac Councilor Regin Clarete. FB photo

One for the books, Guinness’ included mayhaps, is the Ombudsman’s inclusion in its suspension order of councilor Regin Clarete who died in May 2023, and succeeded to his post in September of that same year by his sister, Myla Clarete, who, as the lone councilor untouched by the suspension, assumed office as acting mayor on Oct. 11.

Pray, tell, how does the Ombudsman expect the dead councilor to serve his suspension? While this apparent inadvertence by the Ombudsman makes the joke of the day, it has not escaped the more astute to see it as a joke on the Porac populace itself.

For one, the suspension order was signed on Oct. 7, the penultimate day of the filing of the certificate of candidacy. Running for six months, the suspension ends in April, a month before the elections. The reelectionist mayor, et al clearly put to a disadvantage there, deprived of availment of the LGU’s resources. 

More telling, acting Mayor Clarete, while not a candidate for any position in next year’s polls, is the sister-in-law of Mike Tapang, who is all-out to wrest the mayoralty from Capil in 2025.

So, who’s laughing?

 

Beauty pageant, proxy war in Pampanga’s 3rd District

 

                                           Dr. Hazel V. Tumang 

                                           BM Mica Gonzales

A PAGEANT of beauty. So, the contest for Pampanga’s 3^rd District congressional seat has come to be bruited about. For the best reasons – aesthetically, most obviously, with both lady candidates blessed with that face that launches a thousand swoons, that smile that makes the heart aflutter, that regal bearing that can stir any Wurtzbach-wannabe into a paroxysm of envy.   

Enough hyperbole. Their pictures, randomly picked from the web – unphotoshopped, give the full measure of pulchritude mere words can only approximate.     

A battle of brains, too. The more substantial of factors in consideration in just about every competition. The tale of the tape, education- and career-wise, thus:

Dr. Hazel Velasco Tumang, 39, otolaryngologist specializing in conditions affecting the ears, nose, and throat (ENT), as well as head and neck surgery. Degree in medicine, post-graduate residency training and internship at the Far Eastern University–Dr. Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation, QC. Physician Licensure Examinations, Aug. 2012. Philippine Board of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Diplomate Examination, June 2018.

Affiliations: Phil Medical Association, Pampanga Medical Society, Central Luzon ENT, Philippine Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Medical practice: Marian ENT Clinic, Mexico; Green City Medical Center, City of San Fernando; Pampanga Metroeast Medical Center, Sta. Ana – all in the third district of Pampanga.

Alyssa Michaela “Mica” Mercado Gonzales, 30, incumbent provincial board member representing the 3^rd District. Degree in business administration-major in management at the University of Asia and the Pacific, secondary education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. Attended Ateneo Law School but shifted to managing the family business.

Work experience: Corporate treasurer and chief financial officer of her family’s AD Gonzales, Jr. Construction and Trading Co. Inc., a leading AAA-category company.

By, and of, the candidates’ credentials alone, political oddsmakers will be hard put to set the lines on the probability of the outcome of the 3^rd District congressional contest.

  

What can ultimately tip the odds for either Tumang or Gonzales is patrilineage, both being their fathers’ daughters.

Proxy war

Mexico Mayor Teddy C. Tumang was yanked out of office by order of the Ombudsman in August 2023 over alleged anomalous purchases of road construction materials from a single supplier in 2009 and 2010, and faced indictment on 64 counts of graft and seven counts of malversation of public funds.

Tumang was subsequently subjected to House investigations and even spent time at the House custodial center for contempt.

House Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales made it a point not to sit in any of those hearings, to be fair. However, the point was nonetheless well taken by folks back home – but for Gonzales’ being the second most powerful man in the House, why would an all-too ordinary graft case in a town merit a full-blown congressional investigation? Especially given that Tumang, in his 2022 campaign for his third and last term as mayor already served notice that he would run for the seat Gonzales would be vacating. A political threat there, taken most seriously, dealt with most decisively.

Even as Tumang ruminated on his fate, reverberated across the district a clamor for a congressional investigation of allegedly defective flood-mitigating projects reportedly contracted to the senior deputy speaker’s eponymous AD Gonzales Jr. Construction and Trading Co.

A complaint centered on short-of-specification sheet piles subsequently lodged with the Ombudsman against the family-owned company was as quickly dismissed for “lack of evidence.”

The dismissed evidence which, complainant Mexico ABC president Terence Napao pointed out, turned up when floodwaters wrought by the southwest monsoon and Typhoon Carina in late July and early August scoured the flood mitigation projects still bearing tarpaulins naming the contractor as “AD Gonzales Construction and Trading Co.”

By happenstance perhaps, a number of the complaints against Tumang were earlier dismissed.

It does not take a seasoned political spinmeister to weave the persecuted victim card around Tumang, and assign the role of villainous persecutor on SDS Gonzales.

How this shall impact on their daughter’s candidacies, only the election results can determine.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2013 lookback: Dynasties, duh!

 

IT IS a surprise that there are still some people getting surprised – aghast! – at members of same families trooping to the Commission on Elections to file their respective certificates of candidacy for the 2025 polls starting Oct. 1.

So, what else is new? I dusted a piece published here May 20, 2013 just after the mid-term elections that year. Then, as now, elections have remained more family affair than exercise of a public right. Here goes:

“NO TO Mag-INDA-Now.”

Punning perfection from Pampanga’s moral minority provided the high definition, indeed, impacted the meanest meaning, to political dynasty in the province. Alas, it failed to catch the imagination, much less inflame the conviction of the electorate. Most miserably, at that.

Did I say minority? Minimality, more aptly, as suggested by their actual number. But that makes yet another story. Anyways… 

The Pineda juggernaut an irresistible force. Among Ed Panlilio’s spirited stand…well, all spirits, amounting to nothing but token resistance.

Not just mag-inda – mother Gov. Lilia G. Pineda and son vice governor-elect Dennis aka Delta winning by the widest margins, but really mi-inda-inda – daughter Mylyn and daughter-in-law Yolly also getting re-elected as mayors, unopposed – veritably for the former, virtually for the latter.

Mag-INDA-Now! A dynasty well-entrenched there. Appended insinuations of the Ampatuans notwithstanding, indeed, lost in the triumphant shouting. Across Central Luzon, reverberating.

Realpolitik now: Matriarchal in Pampanga becomes patriarchal in Bataan, conjugal in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija, and fraternal in Tarlac.

All four Garcias won in Bataan: the father, incumbent Gov. Tet Garcia traded places with son, 2^nd District Rep. Albert Garcia; son Jose Enrique Garcia was re-elected Balanga City mayor, and daughter Gila Garcia won the Dinalupihan mayorship.

Laid by the wayside of the Garcia blitz are the Payumos – ex-SBMA chair Tong Payumo losing anew in the first district congressional run; his Harvard-educated son Tonito failing in his bid for the provincial board; his nephew, incumbent Dinalupihan Mayor Joel Payumo, losing in his gubernatorial quest; Joel’s brother, ex-Mayor Jose Payumo III knocked out in his return bout for the mayorship.

In Bulacan, both husband Gov. Wilhelmino Alvarado and wife 1^st District Rep. Marivic Alvarado ran – and won, but of course – unopposed.

Though opposed, Nueva Ecija Gov. Aurelio Umali and wife 3^rd District Rep. Cherry D. Umali managed to bury their rivals in landslides.

The once powerful Josons shut out in the races for governor, vice-governor and the first congressional district, managing wins only in their bailiwick of Quezon town and in the provincial board and Cabanatuan City council.

No sibling rivalry but mutuality in competency leading to victory was the case in Tarlac. Gov. Victor Yap lived up to his name anew, in avalanche win over Cojuangco kin Isa Suntay and incumbent Vice Gov. Pearl Pacada.

A walk in the park for incumbent 2^nd District Rep. Susan Yap with 120,822 votes to erstwhile Public Works director Pepe Rigor’s 34,696.

No contest too for San Jose Mayor Jose Yap, Jr. over the substitute candidate for his murdered rival, Rudy Abella.

All is not lost though for the anti-dynasts, taking heart in the fall – and how! – of the House of Gordon and the Clan of Magsaysay in Olongapo City and Zambales.

Incumbent Olongapo Mayor James Gordon, Jr., lost in his bid for the first congressional district seat. His wife, former Vice Gov. Anne Mary Gordon failed to succeed him in an internecine battle with their nephew Bugsy de los Reyes – both losing to Rolen Paulino. Brian Gordon, son of Dick, also lost in the vice mayoral contest.

Kin JC de los Reyes failed in his Senate bid. And with Dick himself finally excluded from the Magic 12, thorough becomes the Gordon debacle.  

Shut out of the Senate too were Ramon Magsaysay Jr. and niece-in-law Mitos Magsaysay. 

Mitos’ children Jobo and Vic-Vic shared her loss, failing in their respective bid for the first congressional district seat and the vice mayoralty post of Olongapo.

Back to Pampanga, all is not lost too for the moral minimality, with aspiring dynasties nipped in the bud this Monday past.

Come to think of it, voters in two towns took heed to calls of “No to Mag-INDA Now,” literally. In Bacolor, Mayor Jomar Hizon got his re-election but his mother Atching Lolet was frustrated in her vice mayoral aspiration. In Magalang, Koko Gonzales won a council seat even as his mother, LP official bet Elizabeth, came in third and last in the mayoral contest.    
No to mag-igpa too, apparently with the father, Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo failing to capitalize on his John Lloyd stock against comebacking Cong. Rimpy Bondoc for the fourth district congressional seat, and the son, Patrick losing in his own run to succeed him.

No conjugal rule in Sto. Tomas: the husband-and-wife tandem of former Mayor Romy “Ninong” Ronquillo and incumbent Vice Mayor Gloria “Ninang” Ronquillo losing to history-making re-elected Mayor Lito Naguit – first three-termer ever, and running mate Mark Arceo.

It’s vote-one, take-out-one in Angeles City in the case of Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin, Jr. winning a council seat while his senior, Cong Tarzan losing his mayoralty bid. Ditto Atty. Brian Matthew Nepomuceno landing Number 2 in the council while uncle Blueboy losing to Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao in his congressional comeback run.

Though both Pamintuan father – Mayor EdPam, and son – councilor Edu made a successful return. Same thing in Mabalacat City with Mayor Boking Morales re-elected for the umpteenth time, and his son Dwight, now neophyte alderman. Minus, daughter Marjorie Morales-Sambo who got beaten in the vice mayoralty race.     

Now, what does this add up to?

Utterly lacking in the requisite socio-economic, political, even anthropological and psychological background for an exegesis of the issue at hand, I can only guess: It is not that voters love some families less, but that they are mesmerized by other families more. Duh?