Political landscaping

WHAT HAVE Cong. Yeng Guiao, Cong. Oca Rodriguez, Mayor Junjun Tetangco, BM Cris Garbo, and ex-Mayor Buddy Dungca have in common?

One, they all lost in the recent elections: in the 1^st, 3^rd, and 4^th congressional districts, in the Mabalacat City and the Bacolor mayorships (in the order as the names appeared above).

Two, and more telling, they all famously enjoyed the full support of Gov. Lilia G. Pineda, and all the political potency that unfailingly comes with it.

Still they lost.

Comes now the eureka moment of some armchair political sayang-tists crying: “Pampanga’s political landscape has changed!” Not the least implying the Pineda political monolith has irreparably cracked.

Changed? Duh! Cracked? Duh! Duh!

Lilia G. Pineda is governor, unopposed. Dennis “Delta” Pineda is vice-governor, unopposed. Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab is Lubao mayor, unopposed. Dare anyone challenge any of them now?

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is 2^nd district congresswoman, unopposed. No matter expending her mandate in the hospital rather than in the House.

All three board members of the 2^nd district – Tonton Torres, Art Salalila, Jun Dimson – won unopposed under the Gov’s Kambilan banner.

All three board members of the 3^rd district – Dinan Labung, Rosve Henson and Junior Canlas – ran and won on the platform “Nanay’s Choice, Delta Boys.”

Of the two winning 1^st district BMs, one belongs to Kambilan – Cherry Manalo, the other – Benny Jocson (Ind), had the Pineda mom and son in his campaign posters.

So one of the two 4^th district BMs – Pol Balingit (NP) is dyed-in-the-whole Bondoc man. But the other – comebacking Nelson Calara (UNA), had had some konek with the Pinedas in his SP past.

What better proof of the permanence of the Pampanga political landscape than Mabalacat City Mayor Boking Morales? He, who has been mayor since 1995 and just re-elected to his second term – as city mayor – in 2016! A span of 21 long years there!

So it was the star-crossed Cris Garbo that the Pinedas supported! So it was Boking that had more – and bigger – tarpaulins with the Pinedas’ mugs beaming beatifically beside his.

Pigeonhole now Pampanga’s elected mayors. Bona fides in Kambilan: Mylyn in Lubao, Carling de la Cruz in Porac, Dagi Salalila in Sta. Rita, Nardo Velasco in Sasmuan, Anette Flores-Balgan in Macabebe, Edgar Flores in Minalin, Leonora Wong in San Simon, and the unopposed Asiong Macapagal in San Luis – eight in all.

With the Liberal Party – which as everyone knows aligned with the Gov for these polls: Bon Alejandrino in Arayat, Dan Guintu in Masantol, Teddy Tumang in Mexico, Norberto Gamboa in Sta. Ana, Dante Torres in Guagua and Edwin Santiago in the City of San Fernando – six.   

With the NPC, with VG Delta as chair of the provincial chapter: Peter Nucom in Apalit, Malu Paras-Lacson in Magalang – two.

All by his lonesome in Lakas: Darwin Manalansan in Floridablanca.

All alone too in Aksyon Demokratiko, but self-professed loyalty to the Pinedas: Boking in Mabalacat City.

Being first-time mayor and an independent candidate, Candaba’s Danilo Baylon we tag as stray chick, ready for the Pineda picking, and nurturing.

Only two mayors can really be considered out of the Pineda coop: Bacolor’s Jomar Hizon (LP) after a bitter war of attrition with Pineda protégé Buddy Dungca and Bondoc thoroughbred neophyte Mayor Johnny Sambo (NP) of Sto. Tomas.

Kambilan, NPC, LP, Lakas – multi-parties with multi-directions but spelled one way in Pampanga: P-I-N-E-D-A.       

A change in the political landscape? Duh! Duh! Duh!

More of the same too even in politics played as familial sport.

Mayor-father and councilor-son in Mabalacat City – Boking and Dwight, as well as in Angeles City – EdPam and Edu.

Brothers, the elder as congressman – Carmelo “Jonjon” Lazatin II; the younger as city councilor – Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin Jr.

Magalang Mayor Malu Pecson-Lacson is sister-in-law of her VM Norman Lacson.

More intramural than internecine is the elections in Macabebe with re-electionist Mayor Anette Flores-Balgan beating her brother former Mayor Bobong whose son Vince was re-elected vice mayor. Re-elected too as councilor is Balgan’s daughter Bembong.

Vice mayor brother – Dexter David, and councilor sister Fritzie victorious both in Porac.

Doble pusuy in Floridablanca with three-term Mayor Eddie Guerrero doing a Duterte – fielding his daughter Dr. Leck for his post and sliding to vice mayor, and miserably losing both.

Apalit’s Junjun Tetangco running for congressman and his wife Jen for vice mayor met similar disastrous results.

In Mabalacat City, Cris Garbo losing his mayoralty bid while daughter Win-Win proved his name right for the city council. 

Only one Sangil in the Angeles City council – comebacking Jay, his aspiring younger brother Teta and the re-electing Uncle Max falling by the wayside.

It’s strike three for the Lapids: the father Lito avalanched by EdPam in Angeles City; the son Mark, far off the Magic 12 in the Senate; and the brother Rey, missing the cut at Number 9 in the eight-man Porac sangguniang bayan, where the other son, Meynard though managed to land.   

Only the faces change. With the infrastructure in place, the landscape remains the same.

More than the surf's up beyond Baler

BALER, Aurora – Thanks to its “magnificent waves” this once somnolent town found itself etched in the world surfer’s map.

Seasonal though – November to February, when the waves crest to nine feet and even higher – surfing’s sustainability as top tourist draw for Baler made a valid question. So what is there in Baler, other than its waves, that shall lure even the unadventurous and less-sporty?

More. Much, much more. Pampanga mediamen discovered over a week back. At a time when the mighty Pacific Ocean is at its serene best, read: waves so gentle they would not even overturn a paper boat.

Purposely, the Department of Tourism Region 3 and the Aurora Tourism Office billeted us outside the surfers’ paradise that is the Sabang Beach area – at a boutique resort called SeaSta in Barangay Cemento, long ways from the town center.

But 100 arthritic steps from the resort is the Baler fish port, perfect site to view sunrise, though the early morning clouds deprived us of what is bruited about as one spectacular sight.

A short bird’s flight are the spectacular rock formations and tiny islets, with the well-paved road serving as the perfect viewing deck.

Why, the rock formations make a scenic constant along the stretch of the coastal highway leading to other Aurora towns, notably to Dipaculao with its 20-kilometer long beach in Dinadiawan with its white sand that approximates Boracay’s. A good thing though that Dinadiawan’s 23 hotels and resorts did not follow the bara-bara template of the country’s top beach attraction.

Besides the beaches, Baler’s agricultural base is now being pushed in the service of tourism too. At the Buenavista Farm, one can pick calamansi, pet the goats – the most photogenic ones, so it is blurbed – feed the native pigs, and thereafter refresh with fresh coco water, direct from the fruit, and calamansi jam on bread. Products that the farm sells too, wholesale or retail.

Herbs, guapples and pomelos, tilapia straight from the pond, and soon honey from its own apiary, plus upland rice – both in grains and as coffee, and turmeric powder are what Azbahaen Farm Resort offers.

Yes, products added to Baler’s staples of sabutan items, such as hats, fans, mats, slippers, table runner, place mats and bags. And food stuffs like suman, Nanay Pacing’s peanut butter and coco jam, pako salad, bukayo and pakumbo and banana chips.

The usual and more comes with tripping the past heroic through Baler’s historical trail, starting off at the San Luis Obispo de Talosa Church – we were privileged to have prayed at the wake of esteemed prelate Bishop Julio Xavier Labayen at the time of our visit, giving it a deep spiritual dimension – to the Maria Aurora Aragon Quezon house, to the marker of the Lt. Gilmore Rescue party (1899), to the Quezon Park and the Museo de Baler. 

Then, there’s Costa Pacifica – a destination on its own with its luxurious appointments, great food and location – right at Sabang Beach.

Rains prevented us from a host of other activities as a seaborne tour of the Dicasalarin Cove and the Artists’ Village thereabouts, plus the lighthouse; a trek up Ermita Hill and down the Dima-dimalangat Islets; and splash at the Ditumabo Falls in San Luis.

But then, as the seasoned traveler holds, “Don’t do overdo it the first time, so there’s some to come back for the next time around.”

Yes, sated as we are, for now, with Baler and Dipaculao, plus – on the way home to Pampanga – the Millennium Tree, purportedly Asia’s oldest and largest balete, in Maria Aurora town.

      

         

The virtue in losing

TRUE TO her name, so graciously conceded Sen. Grace Poe the presidency to Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

And instant was change of heart for not a few of those who disparaged her during the campaign, now professing to vote for her in 2022.  

Yes, for Poe and the rest of the losers – from the national to the local levels – the world has not ended. Clichéd in “Hope springs eternal,” or in the philosophy of the kanto: Habang may buhay, asa ka pa.

The also-ran can find solace in the 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’?”

Losing an election early in political career is deemed constructive. As Safire says, “a therapeutic trouncing introduces a little real humility into candidates who must at least profess humility.”

I do not know if wide-reader Mabalacat City Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales has even heard of Safire, but he makes the poster boy for the language maven’s wisdom.

Deemed the “sure winner” in the Mabalacat mayoralty contest of 1992 – what with a formidable war chest, the support of the contending Lakas-NUCD and LDP parties – he had Fidel Ramos on stage at his opening salvo and rival Ramon Mitra in his miting de avance, the INC bloc vote, not to mention his youthful appeal and on-stage bombast – Boking lost to the self-effacing, Dr. Catalino Domingo.

Humbled at the polls, bourgeois Boking attuned, if not immersed, himself in the ethos of the rural poor who comprised a clear majority of the Mabalacat constituency. Handily winning in 1995, he has not vacated the mayor’s seat since. Notwithstanding his Comelec-decisioned defeat in 1998. Notwithstanding the mandated three-term limitation.

Even in its transformation from mere municipality to component city, Mabalacat has kept its constancy with the Boking mayoralty.

That constancy finding even greater permanency in Monday’s election results, to wit: Boking’s 40,147 votes way over and above the combined votes of all his rivals – Board Member Cris Garbo with 17,710, former VM Noel Castro with 10,788, and fiery Boking-basher Pyra Lucas with 5,807.    

This, notwithstanding Boking’s flip-flop-flip in filing-withdrawing-refiling his certificate of candidacy.

This, despite Boking’s suffering the loss of the sanctioning grace of Pampanga’s powers-that-are.   

Perceivably, what Safire called the “law of political return” applies well to Boking, inhered in, aye, ingrained as he is with the “comeback quality.”

“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,” Safire holds.

Thus: “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.”

So characteristically Boking. Finding the greater virtue in losing. Then never stop winning.

The INC blot

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 Pamintuan, and, more telling, by the ruling political interest in the whole province. Just the same, the retired bemedalled police officer kept his stewardship of Angeles City’s premier barangay Balibago.

So the INC has kept off Mamac in the 2016 vice mayoralty race in favor of Atty. Bryan Matthew Nepomuceno. Same difference, Sir, as in 2013 when the T-Mac aspired for the same post and came second. Different results wished for this time though.

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.

In the blog INC Silent No More, Antonio Ramirez Ebangelista recently posted “The Controversial INC Bloc Vote: Obeyed-No-More” with caveats to politicians seeking the sect’s blessing, to wit:                     

…(S)a pagkakataong ito, ang mga kapatid ay HANDANG BUMUWAG SA KAISAHAN at maghalal ng kandidatong KAYANG MANINDIGAN SA NARARAPAT anuman ang maging kahinatnan nito.

…(H)indi gaya sa mga nagdaang halalan kung saan buo at solido ng boto ng Iglesia, ngayon ay alam ng lahat na basag na ito at maraming mga kapatid ang nagpahayag na hindi nila susundin ang ie-endorso ng liderato ng INC. Sa kasaysayan ng Iglesia, ngayon lamang nagkaroon ng ganito napakatinding krisis sa liederato, at dahil sa lantad na ang mga ebidensya ng katiwalian, dadaanin namin sa pagboto ang aming gagawing malawakang protesta.

That’s some blot in the INC block that makes these elections even more interesting.

The fate we choose

AT NO time in Philippine electoral history has the basest in the Filipino character emerged in all its blackness than in this election at hand. Arguably, I must concede.

Even as the breadth of ignorance has always vastly covered the political field, nothing compares to its expanse this time, unreason and illogic the standard rule of exchange from the longest disquisitions to the shortest one-liners. To the inordinate advantage of the brute over the sapient.

Indeed, to paraphrase some philosopher: “By simply going on being absurd, a thing can become godlike; there is but one step from the ridiculous…” to the insane. 

Yes, and there is never a lack, on the contrary always a surfeit, of fanatical fools to behold eminence in tomfoolery. As we see now, they who find hilarity in the hideous, propriety in profanity, righteousness in absolute wrongs.

While vitriol has always formed part of the campaign arsenal, the past has nothing that can approximate the level of toxicity attendant to the current political discourse.

Indeed, the bigotry and hatred of high partisanship this time already abutting on depravity.

What one wished not on one’s worst enemies, is now routinely cast upon anyone differing from one’s choice for the presidency – from murder and mayhem, to rape of the entire family, infant members not excluded. Melai Cantiveros, Renee Julienne Karunungan, you are not alone. I feel you.

Why, rape – in rigor mortis, notwithstanding – has ceased as heinous degeneracy to become no more than a stand-up joke! All protests to its inhumanity dismissed with a condescending “Shut up!” Verily in character with one who has resorted to bluster to get the better off blunder. 

Yes, and what can one make of one who announced to all and sundry that for all he cared, his candidate can kill anyone he deemed an enemy of public order, rape all the women he wanted, even his own wife, and still would not budge from voting for him! 

Ah, to what absurdity have we indeed reduced ourselves!

Even the sacred lessons from the Bible, now no more than fair game to the truth-twister’s spin.

So God did not call the qualified, but rather qualified those whom He called – from the stuttering Moses to the adulterous David, from the cheating Jacob to the womanizing Samson, from the denying Peter to the persecuting Paul. So one imperfect candidate’s hordes now preach in the web.

So shall God too qualify the cursing, womanizing, self-confessed murderer then?

Not so fast, ‘tards. The qualification from God – as the Good Book also holds – comes after the remorse, atonement, recompense and renewal of those He called.

When but a simple apology, much less repentance is inextricable from the one He now supposedly to have called and be still the chosen one, then God could have as easily qualified Beelzebub himself.     

Ah, to what abyss have we sunk!

So how can we then vote, as we should – to quote Baruch Spinoza – with the full “… use in security all (our) endowments, mental and physical, and make free use of (our) reason”?

Alas, we have always pined for the honorable might-have-been.

Woe unto us to soon be ruing the despicable might-not-have-been.

Such is the fate we choose.  

          

On leadership

LEADERSHIP – the word as well as its application – has been so much abused and misused that we now have a warped sense of it. So shallow is our notion of leadership that we automatically affix “leader” to any elected official, to presidents and chairs of just about any organization with at least two members.

So long as there is one to command and another to follow, there exists leadership. There too bogs down our concept of the word. For leaders and followers do not make the whole dynamics of leadership. There is the third element of goal.

From the book Certain Trumpets, the thesis on the nature of leadership by Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills, I quote: “The goal is not something added to leader and followers. The goal is the reason for the other two’s existence. It is the equalizer between leader and followers. The followers do not submit to the person of the leader. They join him in the pursuit of the goal.”

Wills further expounds “…the leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leader and followers…all three elements (leader, followers and goal) are indispensable.”

Critical indeed is the requisite of a goal shared by both the leader and the followers in the holistic perspective, in the true nature of leadership.

Sadly, it is there – in the element of goal – that political leadership in the Philippine context is much, much wanting and thereby we the people almost always suffer.

More often than not, in fact as a matter of practice, the goal – as translated to interests – of the leader does not match, if not altogether contradicts, the goal or the interest of the followers.

No self-respecting presumptuous leader would ever accede to that. Thus, we all hear our so-called political leaders on the campaign trail vow their very “sacred honor” to the interests of the people. See those screaming streamers posted around: Bayan ang Bida, Serbisyong Tapat, Serbisyong Totoo, Serbisyong Todo-todo, Paglingkuran ang Bayan, ad nauseam.

Behold what political leaders do after getting elected! Conveniently forgetting their campaign promises, dishonoring their very vows to work for the interests of their constituency.

While honor may still obtain among thieves, it is a rarity among Philippine politicians.

So how and why do they get away with it? I mean thieves getting positions of leadership and robbing us, the followers, blind.

It is in the manner we choose our leaders. As a rule, Filipinos vote with their emotions, rarely with their intellect. Comes here the magic word charisma.

We are mesmerized by anyone with a flashy lifestyle: moviestars, entertainers, athletes, the pa-sosyal crowd, the perfumed set. Instantaneously, we stamp the word charisma on celebrity.

From the essential “divine grace,” the meaning of charisma has been so twisted that it is now a synonym to just about anything that is “attention-compelling” even to its essential antonym of “infamy”. Yeah, the infamous we now call charismatic.

And so we appended charisma on Joseph Estrada. To invest “divine grace” in one who makes the grandest mockery of the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Commandments of God is the most detestable sacrilege, the most damnable blasphemy. But did we know any better? (Shades of the same charismatic character no leading the pack of presidential pretenders. With his public flouting of the Fifth Commandment to boot!)

Star-struck, blinded by the flash of celebrity, bewitched by their larger-than-life personae, we readily elect fame over capability, choose passion over vision, favor make-believe over hard reality.

Erap was deposed, tried, imprisoned, convicted and pardoned. Erap nearly won the presidency a second time, but for the death of the sainted Cory Aquino that catapulted her son to Malacanang.

Again, Santayana’s damnation is upon us: We are a nation that cannot, that refuses to remember the past. We are a nation damned.

In the 1970s, a great political mind distilled the nature of Philippine politics thus: “Personalist, populist, individualist.” Then he went on to arrogate unto himself all the powers that can be had, and more – elevating himself to the pantheon of the gods, assuming the mythic Malakas of Philippine folklore with, naturally, the beautiful Imeldific, as his Maganda.

A keen student of history, Ferdinand Edralin Marcos took unto his public persona semblances of the charismatic leaders of the past: his World War II exploits – later proven false – invoked Napoleon, if not Caesar; his political philosophies gave him an aura of the Borgia and Medici clients of Machiavelli; his vision of a New Society paralleled Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal; his patronage of the arts that of Frederick the Great of Prussia.

Marcos even exceeded himself in self-cultivating an image of being his country’s hero-in-history in the moulds of Napoleon of France, Bolivar of Latin America, Lincoln of the USA, Garibaldi of Italy, Lenin of the Soviet Union, Ataturk of Turkey and Mao of China.

A wee short of divine rights, Marcos took upon himself a Messianic and Mosaic mission for the Philippines: Save the country and its democratic institutions from anarchy, lead the people to prosperity.

Indeed, what other Philippine leader did possess “charisma” greater than Marcos? Still, what happened to this nation?

Why, 30 years after the end of Marcosian misrule, the man remains a force to reckon with. His Junior is all but officially proclaimed vice president of the republic, on the right trajectory to reclaim the family heirloom. The dead man himself, still a burning issue in the presidential debates.

Which only goes to show as much the abysmal quality of leadership as the blinded followership in Philippine political practice. (Update of a piece first published here in August 2009)      

It has to come to this

SEETHING IN righteous anger over his maculated persona, comeback-wishing Cong. Dong Gonzales, nuked nemesis re-electing Cong. Oca Rodriguez with the most serious, if not insulting, accusation ever impacted on one publicly esteemed as the very avatar of good governance – thievery.

Cong Dong’s J’accuse moment replete with all the elements of a courtroom drama – television cameras and mics, phone recorders, voluminous legal documents, newspaper clippings, and hundreds of photocopied checks spread over a table. Aye, a table hardened by evidence?

It was too great an opportunity to miss. Thus the front page photo accompanying our banner story last issue: Oca is a thief!

There was just something that looked eerily familiar in the photograph. Yea, the photocopied checks. Which spurred some search in the internet, finding the answer in acaesar.blogspot.com where I stored past columns dating back to 2006. Here, dated Saturday, June 15, 2013:

 

It has to come to this

THE GODSON seethes.

Pampanga 3rd District Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales has taken his losing cause to the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) charging his nemesis – and wedding godfather – City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez as having purchased, wholesale and retail, his victory in the recent polls.

In his 10-page protest, Cong Dong alleged that Cong Oca caused his hand to sign and issue “numerous” checks in favor of as numerous payees just a few days before the elections, charged to the account of the City of San Fernando, Pampanga and the Municipality of San Fernando, Pampanga with the Land Bank of the Philippines, San Fernando Branch.

Cong Dong said that on May 10, 2013 at the city’s Heroes Hall, Cong Oca handed out “financial assistance” each in the amount of P5,000 to his so-called scholars at the Don Honorio Ventura Technological State University.

Numbering some 1,000, the supposed scholars, Cong Dong alleged, are residents not only of the City of San Fernando but also of other parts of the third district of Pampanga.

“The indiscriminate issuance of the above checks and the distribution of ‘financial assistance’ to numerous recipients, beneficiaries and/or scholars just a few days before the elections obviously constitute massive vote buying,” Gonzales charged, citing Cong Oca as having violated Section 261 of the Omnibus Election Code, which prohibits any public official or employee, including barangay officials, from releasing, disbursing or using public funds during 45 days before a regular election.

Also flouted, he added, was Comelec Resolution 9585, which implements Section 261 of the Omnibus Election Code that prohibits the release, disbursement and expenditure of public funds effective March 29, 2013 until May 13, 2013.

Were it not for Cong Oca’s “acts of massive and widespread vote-buying,” Cong Dong could have easily won last May 13. So believed his lawyers, citing his two previous landslide victories as proofs positive of his sure triumph over the comebacking Cong Oca.

“Having been elected twice already for the same position in the 2007 and 2010 elections, the sudden loss of some 87,376 votes is simply unexplainable and statistically improbable.” So the lawyers said.

The godfather speaks.

"It is all too ironic that he is protesting what he himself precisely did during the campaign and days before the election. I think he is very guilty of that, driving him to desperation. We never bought votes and we stand by our previous statement that we were never beaten by his money.” So was Cong Oca quoted in the local papers, in effect accusing his godson of projecting his image unto his godfather, of outsourcing the blame for his defeat on him.

Cong Oca turned the tables on Cong Dong on the very issue of scholarship assistance, blasting his godson as "an official who corrupted education."

Firing away thus: "It is very sad to note that he corrupted education. Saan ka makakakita na pati kindergarten binigyan ng P800 tapos scholar na. Iyung iba naman, P10,000 per family. We have proof and evidence too of such activities during the pre-election days but we kept it to ourselves para walang gulo. Besides, it is not my character na manira ng kapwa at mag-akusa. Indeed, his protest is very, very ironic. Pero kapag hindi niya itinigil ang kalokohan na iyan, kami naman ang magsasampa ng mga kaso laban sa kanya."

How did it ever come to this? Godfather versus godson? Politics sundering all spiritual bonds.

Politics has no relations to morals. Yeah, Machiavelli, as right today as then. 

YEAH, BACK to one ending. To start a new beginning toward a different ending?