Doing a Diogenes

POLITICAL diplomatese may have taken the sting out of the November 16 statement of the Pampanga Mayors League but its blow on the perceived failings of the Mark Lapid administration was no less telling.
“There is no turning back,” read the statement’s opening lines. Fuzzy there, maybe, but the temper of the times – the PML presscon coming in the wake of the unceremonious rejection by Lapid of the mayors’ strong proposal to field their president, Lubao Mayor Dennis Pineda, as his running mate – gives the definitive stand: the mayors to pursue Pineda’s candidacy, and there shall be no 360-degree turn in this, as well as in their turn to turn their back on Lapid?
That is how it reads to me. In plain, unadorned sentences: You don’t like our man? We don’t like you too.
Or, given the nature of politics as the art of the possible, are the mayors merely trying to up their ante to secure a better deal?
But draw first blood – Mark’s, that is – the mayors already did.
“There is a need for strong leadership and a sense of direction at the provincial level which can guide and complement the united efforts of the municipal chief executives,” read the statement.
Clear as day: the Capitol is clueless in its direction, Lapid is a weakling in matters of leadership. And the mayors are united.
Conspicuous in their absence at the presscon though were Mayors Quiel Gamboa of Porac, the Flores brothers: Peter of Masantol and Bobong of Macabebe, Chito Espino of Arayat, and Teddy Tumang of Mexico.
Candaba’s Jerry Pelayo, the PML spokesperson, was quick to point that all the mayors were in on this endeavor. So there…
If there was any lingering doubt of the mayors’ true intent in their statement, this was totally dispelled by two facts at the presscon.
One, the presence of Vice Governor Yeng Guiao who minced no words in hitting at the current Capitol occupant’s běte noire – the quarry issue – on national television at that! So Yeng was there. Curiously, he was never in any meeting of the PML for as long as I can remember. That was one whole issue altogether.
Two, the symbolic lighting of lamps by the mayors.
It was I that asked: “Nagsindi po kayo ng ilaw sa katanghaliang tapat. Ibig po bang sabihin nito’y pusikit ang kadiliman sa Pampanga? Ano o sino po ang sanhi ng kadilimang ito?”
Kuya Jerry made a lengthy peroration that did not come any near to answering my question. I do not know if he or any of the other mayors was aware of the significance of their collective act.
The lighting of a lamp in broad daylight was first recorded circa 320 BC. The Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope went about the streets of Athens with a lantern in the daytime looking for an honest man – but he never found one.
Mayhaps in the same search as Diogenes, will the mayors find their man?
Better for them to store a lot of kerosene, this may take long in coming.
(Access past columns at acaesar.blogspot.com)
******************
ANNOUNCEMENT: The Pampanga High School Class of 1957 will have its 50th Golden Jubilee Reunion on January 20, 2007 in the City of San Fernando, Pampanga. For inquiries, call Norma Lising Quiambao at 961-2517, and Adoracion Dizon Canlas at 961-4681.