Punsalan. Capil. Maglanque.
MAYOR ABUNDIO “JP” PUNSALAN, JR. of San Simon. Unseen. Unheard.
Whereabouts unknown since
the Sandiganbayan issued two arrest warrants against him in November 2025 for
graft – with P90,000 bail – and malversation of public funds – non-bailable –
in connection with an allegedly unlawful P45-million land purchase in 2023.
Punsalan had served a
number of suspensions from the Office of the Ombudsman and the Pampanga
sangguniang panlalawigan for grave misconduct but what projected him into the
national consciousness was his arrest in flagrante delicto on Aug. 5, 2025 in
an entrapment operation by the National Bureau of Investigation relative to an
alleged P30-million extortion on RealSteel Corp., a business company operating
in San Simon.
A hold departure order was
also issued in November 2025, to prevent Punsalan from leaving the country.
MAYOR JAIME “JING”
CAPIL of Porac. Suspended.
“Accused Capil was charged
with committing fraud when he gave unwarranted benefit, advantage, and
preference to Lucky South 99 Outsourcing Inc. by approving, issuing, and
granting a mayor’s business permit in favor of Lucky South 99 to operate as a POGO
despite not being legally entitled to such permit,” read a portion of the
suspension order for 90 days issued by acting Presiding Judge Josephine Advento
of the Regional Trial Court Branch 265, Pasig City on Feb. 23, 2026.
The Presidential
Anti-Organized Crime Commission raided the POGO facilities located in a leased
property of the Royal Garden Golf and Country Club Estate in Barangay Sta. Cruz
in 2024 and subsequently filed the criminal case, which includes seven counts of
graft for violations of RA 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act).
In October 2024, the
Office of the Ombudsman ordered the preventive suspension of Capil and other
local officials for gross neglect of duty in relation to the illegal POGO
operations.
In April 2025, the
Ombudsman found Capil guilty of “gross neglect of duty” and imposed the penalty
of dismissal from service, including the cancellation of his government service
eligibility, forfeiture of retirement benefits, and perpetual disqualification
from reemployment in the government.
In November 2025, the RTC
Branch 265 issued a warrant of arrest against Capil over seven counts of
violations of (Sections 3(e) and 3(j) of RA 3019.
In December 2025, Capil
posted a cash bond of P630,000 for his temporary liberty.
MAYOR RENE MAGLANQUE of Candaba. Suspension affirmed.
In a resolution dated April
24, 2026, the Sandiganbayan affirmed its Jan. 19, 2026 resolution placing Maglanque
under a 90-day preventive suspension over 97 counts of violation of RA 3019
(Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act) and 97 counts of Malversation of Public
Funds filed against him and others in relation to the P900-million Malampaya
Fund scam.
Notwithstanding Senate
President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson tagging former Public Works Secretary
Manuel Bonoan in a “family business” connection with Maglanque’s Globalcrete
Builders that reportedly secured P2.195 billion worth of flood control projects
in Bulacan between 2018 and 2024, and their daughters, along with that of former
DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo, jointly owning MBB Global Properties, no
charges have been officially filed against Maglanque.
Punsalan. Capil.
Maglanque. They easily make the rogues’ gallery – sticking out like the
proverbial sore thumb – in the local governance milieux of Pampanga. Could not
think of any other province in Philippines with as much or higher ratio of 3:19
or 15.78 percentage on the suspended vis-à-vis the total number of municipal
mayors.
Canlas. Capil.
Macapagal.
…women stand
BY COINCIDENCE –
serendipity, mayhaps – taking over the mayoralty from the suspended three are
all women.
VICE MAYOR ANNE CANLAS of San Simon.
In matters aesthetic
alone, Canlas readily found the spot in the hearts of the Simonians – seeing
her as the very antithesis to the brash, belligerent brusko Abundio.
Her immersion in the
day-to-day concerns of her constituents – from tambak on potholes,
monitoring market prices, P20-bigas allocation, garbage collection, general
neighborhood cleanliness, street lighting, and some such domesticities – struck
their chords of endearment.
A singular project that
has earned environmental points for Canlas is the recently ground-broken
materials recovery facility, for so long absent in a town crammed with factories,
warehouses, and all that they entail.
It is in public health
though – and rightly so, Canlas being a medical doctor – that the acting mayor
is getting all the love. Hands-on, be it in medical missions, regular health
consultations, even emergencies, mayor-doc does it all. An indelible mark
Canlas imprinted in San Simon’s folklore: Her active participation in the rites
of passage of boys to manhood. Something surely to be passed on from generation
to generation.
Rather than an ad interim stopgap,
Canlas is a much-welcomed permanent replacement at the mayorship.
VICE MAYOR JEN CAPIL of Porac.
Her father’s daughter,
unarguably. But no bratty nepo baby certainly, is this CPA, magna cum laude
grad.
With a
just-another-day-at-the-office nonchalance, Capil took the LGU reins out of the
familial and familiar frame, imprinting her own brand of governance that
impacted most in arts and culture, youth and sports development, and tourism –
earning for the municipality five recognition in the recent Department of
Tourism-Region 3 TRES (Tourism Recognition of Enterprises and Stakeholders)
Awards including Most Outstanding Tourism Month Celebration 2025 Grand Winner.
In so short a time,
Poracqueños are getting convinced of the daughter already succeeding her father
in more ways than simply subbing at the mayor’s office.
VICE MAYOR THELMA
MACAPAGAL of Candaba.
Nothing out of the normal
bureaucratic rote obtains in the municipio with the man monikered “Ing
Malugud” absent from the mayor’s office: Macapagal, no more than a
Maglanque continuity in LGU matters, on the surface.
Still, the odiousness of
comparison between the suspended and the substitute somewhat permeated the
recent spiritual twinning of the Nuestra Señora de la Merced Parish in Barangay
Bahay Pare and the Basilica de la Mercè in Barcelona, Spain.
Macapagal hosting breakfast
for apostolic nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown at the town hall and standing
beside him during the civic reception raised some what-ifs among not-a-few of
the attendees: What if the graft-and-corruption-charged Maglanque were in
Macapagal’s place? E ya caya milablab, o minasuc mu man?
Yes, comparisons are indeed
despicable.
Distaff dominance
Canlas. Capil. Macapagal.
They have upped the ante among women in local governance in Pampanga with four
elected mayors – Malu Paras-Lacson of Magalang, Esmie Pineda of Lubao, Lina
Cabrera of Sasmuan, and Vilma Balle-Caluag of the City of San Fernando; three
elected vice mayors (aside from the three acting mayors now) – Rhodora “Oday”
Nacpil of Sta. Ana, Gloria “Ninang” Ronquillo of Sto. Tomas, and Lucia
"Buday" Guintu of Masantol.
That “a woman’s place is
in the house” is far from just a sexist idiom but can become a political
reality, Pampanga proved with three of its four House districts ruled by women:
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the 2nd, Mica Gonzales in the 3rd,
and Dr. Anna York Bondoc in the 4th leaving only the 1st
to Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin Jr.
And then, of course,
there’s Gov. Lilia “Nanay” Pineda at the Capitol.
Oh, the women in Pampanga politics,
further author sayeth naught.
