Governor Baby Pineda

AT the rate things are going in the political scene here, Board Member Lilia Pineda – Pampanga’s favorite Baby – may yet emerge the most formidable candidate for the Pampanga governorship in 2007.
And Governor Mark Tadeo Lapid would have no one to look – and blame? – but himself for this.
More than the mayors, it was the Pineda couple – the Bong and the Baby – that Mark rebuffed with his public rejection of their son Mayor Dennis as his running-mate.
“The Pinedas were not only slighted by the governor’s act, they were insulted. They felt scorned,” said one mayor who was not Candaba’s Jerry Pelayo.
So grievous was the perceived insolence of Lapid – said another mayor who had no resemblance to Bacolor’s Buddy Dungca – that the Pinedas would now settle for nothing less than the governor’s downfall.
“It does not take a rocket scientist to see where realpolitik lies in Pampanga. It is not in Porac, notwithstanding the senator and his son. It is in Lubao,” so averred yet one more mayor who looked the least like Apalit’s Tirso Lacanilao.
To prove his point, the mayor cited the 2004 gubernatorial contest as a “sure Zeny Ducut romp before the great turn-around of the Pinedas that paved the way to a Lapid victory.”
And absolutely no mayor dared contest the affirmation of “a truth so trite as long ago to have become a truism” in local politics: the Pinedas can make crowned kings out of even the weakest pretenders to the throne.
For all his vaunted popularity, the upstart Lito Lapid still needed the organizational and financial back-up of the Pinedas to secure his victory in 1995. So remembered a former mayor who could be mistaken for Sta. Rita’s Frank Ocampo.
Alas, Porac’s Roy David could not be sought out from the spirit world to verify this.
Still, there is no iota of doubt about it: the Pinedas are the most potent political force in Pampanga. And there lies the problem of Lapid’s re-election.
By herself alone, Baby Pineda – I repeat – is a most formidable candidate. Doubly formidable is she with the unquestioned support of – I personally reckon – a dozen sitting mayors, and even a greater number of former mayors.
You want a head count? See the photo of those being sworn in as Kampi members in last week’s issue’s front page, minus the three who appeared with Lapid in the other photo.
Secure in the Pineda stable, aside from Pelayo, Lacanilao and Dungca, are: Sta. Rita’s Art Salalila, Sasmuan’s Lina Bagasina, Floridablanca’s Darwin Manalansan, Guagua’s Ric Rivera, Magalang’s Pat Guiao, Sta. Ana’s Doy Gaddi, and San Luis’ Jay Sagum.
As his tormentor Ernesto Punzalan is a permanent fixture in the Lapid camp, it is safe to assume that Mexico’s Teddy Tumang is going Pineda too.
Yet another network the Pinedas have easy access to is that of clergymen and pastors. Anyone who has had some inputs in Politics 101 would know the influence wielded by the religious on the masa vote.
The Pinedas have the numbers. Undubitably. How about the issues?
There, the Lapids will be hard pressed too. All the Pinedas have to do is tap Vice Governor Yeng Guiao. A recitation by Guiao of the litany of sins the Lapids allegedly committed against the Kapampangans is an invitation to their damnation.
So the Baby is sure ball for governor? Politics being a sport, there’s no sure thing until the last shot is made, or missed. Llamado she definitely is, but bilog pa rin ang bola.
Then, will she run?