Attorney Attlee

ABUGADU ing kailangan ning tersera distritu.
In blazing red letters, streamers strung at just about every strategic corner in the City of San Fernando screamed for a lawyer-representative in Congress.
No, the city and the rest of the third district electorate did not get tired of their doctor in the House. The cong-doctor just opted to bang his head against the formidable, certified world-class City Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez.
The electorate, okay, the streamers, by coming up with a definitive choice, implied that the current crop of wannabes come real short of the people’s expectations for competent representation in the sphere of legislation.
Acclaimed frontrunner Board Member Dong Gonzales is an engineer. Ditto also-runner Dinan Piñon Labung. Sta. Ana Mayor Doy Gaddi is a doctor. Cong Ely ‘Tiger’ Lagman, unbeatable as San Fernando vice-mayor, is…a businessman? Sorry, but for his nocturnal habits I don’t know much about the man. “Tiger, tiger burning bright, in the forest of the night.” Indeed!
There’s just got to be a lawyer candidate. So Attorney Attlee Viray was simply shoved into the fray? In fairness to the guy, he is by no means a push-over.
His very name reeks of greatness – I supposed taken from Clement Richard Attlee, successor and predecessor to the great Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill as prime minister of the United Kingdom. Attlee succeeded Churchill in 1945 and then was in turn succeeded by him in 1951. Yeah, they also played musical chairs in UK politics.
One of the better, nay, outstanding lawyers in the province, Attlee – along with Oca, Secretary Ed Pamintuan of SCAD, Jesse Caguiat, among others – was at the vanguard of MAYAP, the Movement for the Advancement of Young Advocates of Pampanga that stood up against the Marcos dictatorship championing the cause of human rights.
True to form and character, Attlee it was too that defended us in the Angeles Sun -- Elmer Cato, Ody Fabian and Sonny Lopez – against the harassment of libel instigated by then Angeles City Mayor Antonio Abad Santos.
Aside from being a very good lawyer, Attlee writes well too – having published a book and as columnist of Sun Star Pampanga.
That he’s a real homo bono for the tersera distritu is indubitable. Now, if only elections were decided purely on capabilities vis-à-vis needs.
Suddenly I remembered the 1987 congressional polls in the first district. Colleague Ram Mercado propagandizing Bar topnotcher Lolong Timbol came up with the blurb: “King kalesa, kutseru; karing muwebles, karpinteru; king Kongresu, abugadu.”
Lolong and another lawyer, Arlene Buan, lost to Tarzan Lazatin, alumnus of the Universidad de Madrid, in ceramic engineering.
Again in the first district, in 1998, lawyer and sitting Angeles City Mayor Ed Pamintuan lost to his vice, the golfing Blue Boy Nepomuceno.
In 2004 in the fourth district the candidates were characterized as “an attorney-general, an aging actor, a wily ‘contactor’ and a clueless doctor.” It was the doctor that won.
Take heart, ye attorneys out there: It is not all losses for lawyers in congressional contests in Pampanga. Oca served four terms; Zeny Cruz-Ducut had three. Early on there was Juanita Lumanlan-Nepomuceno who also sat as governor.
So bilog pa rin ang bola. Cong Dong may be a probability as of now. But Cong Attlee is not a far-fetched possibility. Doy, Dinan and the Tiger too.
To all of them: Good luck.

Game of numbers

POLITICS is addition. Elections are a matter of numbers. Two more truths so long established to have become a truism.
So, who’s got the numbers?
The official campaign period for the local candidates is still some 40 days away, but already a number of prospective candidates are way past the initial getting-to-know-me stage and are already into the consolidation phase. As if the elections were but a week away.
Truly, if a prospective candidate let pass a Merry Christmas greeting and still awaited a Happy Valentine’s, then he would most surely get a condolence card after the polls in May. He would just be too late in the game.
An early bird that took more than the proverbial worm is Board Member Lilia “Baby” Pineda whose consultative assemblies have yielded a most bountiful harvest: 14 sitting mayors netted into her camp.
From the first district there’s Pat Guiao of Magalang.
The whole of the second district is all out for the Baby: Darwin Manalansan, Floridablanca; Art Salalila, Sta. Rita; Ric Rivera, Guagua; Lina Bagasina, Sasmuan; of course the son, Dennis of Lubao; and the greatest catch of all – Quiel Gamboa and the whole caboodle of municipal officials of Porac, hometown of the Lapids.
In the third district are Pineda ultra-loyalist Buddy Dungca of Bacolor, Teddy Tumang, Mexico; and Doy Gaddi of Sta. Ana.
Flanking the fourth district for the Baby are Tirso Lacanilao, Apalit; Jerry Pelayo, Candaba; and late additions Lucas Arceo of Sto. Tomas and Digos Canlas of San Simon.
If the gubernatorial contest were held now, and decided on the sheer basis of the vote-generating power of the 14 mayors, then the Baby would have been, most certainly, the runaway winner. All the 14 mayors, especially the three-termers – Guiao, Gamboa, Salalila, Bagasina and Lacanilao but with the exception of Gaddi – having avalanched their respective rivals.
The Baby’s numbers come too from the Old Guards of Pampanga politics: Benny Espino of Arayat, Frank Ocampo of Sta. Rita and Pending Capulong of Floridablanca, who may be out of the limelight but still have some die-hard followers.
Then there’s Dinan Labung and Tiger Lagman, also-rans in 2004: the former in the third congressional district, the latter for the City of San Fernando mayorship. Prospective rivals for the tersera distritu of the House, both straddled the Baby’s stage in the recent miting in Mexico.
The sometimes fiery and ever-eloquent Rosve Henson is worth thousands of votes for the Baby.
Easily, the quality of the supporters of the Baby brings in the requisite quantity in winning elections. Then there’s more.
The barangay chairs and councils? If the December 22 birthday bash of Mr. Rodolfo Q. Pineda at the King’s Royale Hotel were any indication, they too have been numbered in the Baby’s ledger.
So sorry, not all the barangay chairs nga pala with 26 of Porac’s 29 marked as exhibits for the sitting governor.
Still that’s a paltry vis-à-vis the numbers of the Baby. Even marking away the mayors who have yet to jump ober d’ bakod like the three Floreses – Peter of Masantol, Bobong of Macabebe and Edgar of Minalin – as well as Boking Morales of Mabalacat, Chito Espino of Arayat and Oca Rodriguez of San Fernando.
Jay Sagum of San Luis is a lone number, expected to follow bayaw Rimpy Bondoc’s purported Third Force.
So, are the Lapid days at the Capitol numbered?

Doggone loyalty

“IKINAGAGALIT nating mga Kapampangan ang pagtawag sa atin ng ‘dugong aso.’ Subali’t ito ay ipinagmamalaki’t ikinararangal ko. Sa katapatan, wala nang mauuna pa sa aso: sa kanya iniiwan ng amo ang tahanan nito, pati na magkaminsan ang pagtatanggol sa kanyang pamilya. Subukin mong saktan ang amo, at tiyak, dadambain ka ng kanyang aso. Ang katapatang ito ang iniaalay ko sa inyo.” (We Kapampangans get slighted when told the blood of dogs runs in our veins. But I find pride and honor in this. When it comes to loyalty, none beats the dog: to it man leaves the protection of his home, at times even the defense of his family. Try to hit a man and his dog will surely attack you. This is my kind of loyalty.)
Before a beaming President Ramos at the Mawaque Resettlement Project site in 1997, Governor Lito Lapid pledged his canine loyalty in gratitude for the new lease on human decency, on human life itself that El Tabaco bestowed upon those the Mount Pinatubo eruptions devastated, displaced and dispossessed.
Thence, Lapid embraced FVR’s Lakas-NUCD with a fidelity the wife could only wish he committed to his marital vows with as much devotion, if not intensity.
Lapid there made a rarity: loyalty being an uncommon commodity in politics. What is it that makes politicians and adulterers one and the same as a dysfunctional radio? Low fidelity on a high frequency, dummy.
And so it is that these days, as at the onset of every election season, the issue of loyalty comes to the fore: with all those political butterflies flitting through parties in search of the sweetest nectar.
“Porac leaders dump Lapids” screamed last week’s banner. Instantly, a ruckus on the disloyalty of the dumpers was raised, in all probability by the camp of the dumpees. Having happened in the very hometown of the Lapids, the issue assumed the gravest significance and therefore the bitterest reactions: “Isang mariing sampal sa mukha ng mga Lapid,” as one anonymous barangay chair was quoted as saying; “Isang pagtataksil,” as one Lapid supporter countered.
So, has disloyalty become Mayor Exequiel Gamboa by going over to the camp of wannabe Governor Lilia “Baby” Pineda?
Not quite, if we go by the dynamics of loyalty. On the contrary, if we go by the political record of the Porac mayor.
Gamboa served – and served well – as vice mayor to Ceferino ‘Nonong’ Lumanlan who was assassinated in the run-up to the election campaign of 1988.
Gamboa served – and served even better – as vice mayor to Roy David from 1988 to 1998.
Hatched in mid-1994, the “Grand Porac Plan” for the 1995 elections had Vice Governor Lapid gunning for the Capitol, David contesting the second congressional district, and Gamboa running for Porac mayor. How did I know? I was one of the plotters.
When David failed to get the blessings of the lord of the other Vatican, Gamboa volunteered to give his bilas his one last term and slid down to vice mayor anew. There is clearly more than fealty here.
In 1998, Mayor Gamboa did even better to show his utmost loyalty: breaking familial bonds by supporting the then-embattled and Erap-suspended Governor Lapid over the pleadings and to the utter consternation of DILG-installed Acting Governor Edna de Ausen-David, Gamboa’s very own sister-in-law. The mayor even provided well-provisioned warm bodies in all those demonstrations protesting Lapid’s suspension.
At the height of the quarry controversy, when all of Porac buzzed with the incredulously sudden prosperity of certain families, not a pipsqueak inimical to the Lapids was ever heard from Gamboa. Not even when the intrepid parish priest spewed fire and brimstone from the pulpit hitting at some royal residences sprouting in rustic Porac.
From the father to the son now at the Capitol, Gamboa had his loyalty invested: supporting Mark Lapid every which way, even his whims and caprices, some Porac residents claim; taking no offense at the Lapid boy’s failings such as his conspicuous absence in all official events of the municipio and his lack of, if not nil, support to the developmental programs of the town.
So what really drove Gamboa out of the Lapid camp? Quiel would not say except that: “Tutukyan ku mu ing kaburian da ring kabalen ku.” (I just follow the wishes of my constituents.)
Still, I so much prefer to see the answer in the dynamics of loyalty. Like communications, loyalty is more than a two-way process. It goes on a spiral – loyalty begetting stronger loyalty, on and on. It fails with a malfunction in one of the parties or in both. This happens in the firmest of allegiances, in the strongest of bonds, even in instances of dogged loyalty.
Actors as they are, the Lapids may perhaps find the greatest lesson in loyalty from that blurb of an award-winning Lino Brocka movie: “Sa bawa’t latay, kahit aso’y nag-iiba. Sa unang latay, siya’y magtatanda; Sa ikalawa, siya’y mag-iisip; Sa ikatlo, siya’y magtataka; Sa ika-apat, humanda ka!” (At every lash, even a dog changes. At the first, it would learn; At the second, it would think; At the third, it would wonder; At the fourth, prepare yourself!)

WantEd. NeedEd. ElectEd

HE holds the distinction of being the very first Angeles City mayor ever re-elected. But this is not by any means his only claim to fame.
Forged in the crucible of the Marcos dictatorship, his masa conscientization found manifest in pro bono defense of the oppressed and the dispossessed as a stalwart of the most appropriately named MAYAP – the Movement for the Advancement of Young Advocates of Pampanga: the Capampangan word mayap meaning good.
He was elected vice mayor in 1988, but he assumed the mayorship – and proved his worth as city executive – more than once: when the mayor was suspended for some anomalous transactions; when the mayor was nowhere to be found when panic and pandemonium gripped the city that fateful day of June 15, 1991; and when swirling, destructive lahar flowed through and scoured the river Abacan.
At the height of the Pinatubo devastation, when the national government position tilted to the abandonment of his city and to just “let nature take its course”, he summoned people power and drew tens of thousands of citizens rushing with shovels, hoes, sacks and pickaxes in a concerted effort to sandbag the banks of the Abacan River and protect their city from more lahar rampages.
Even in its futility, the effort – dubbed Pala Ko, Buhay Mo by the project coordinator, the Angeles City “Kuliat” Jaycees – succeeded in convincing the national government of the determination of the Angeleño to save his city, thereby altering its position from abandonment to engineering intervention.
And at the 47th World Jaycee Congress in Miami, Florida, USA, Pala Ko, Buhay Mo was recognized as the best Community Involvement Project.
In 1992, he inherited an Angeles City in the worst economic straits: devastated by the eruption, dislocated by the American withdrawal from Clark Air Base. But he did not shirk from his responsibility of leading the city rise from the ashes as the mythical phoenix, so to speak.
Agyu Tamu (We Can) reverberated across the city to rekindle hope in his despairing constituency and renew confidence among investors on the economic viability of Angeles.
And then came that stroke of genius that showed everyone that indeed Angeles City could rise and soar in the economic firmament anew – Tigtigan, Terakan Qñg Dalan (street dancing festivities) timed with the city fiesta in the last weekend of October.
That he did well in his first term found indubitable testament in his overwhelming re-election in 1995. By the end of his second term in 1998, Angeles City has fully recovered economically: all scars of the Pinatubo devastation swept in the dustbin of history.
So he lost in his congressional bid. So – asks someone who is not Alex Cauguiran – what has become of the city’s representation in the House?
So? Just ask me another question and I will tell you no lies.
Being a good man, he just cannot be put down.
He immersed himself in the whirl of protests against the Estrada maladministration and was at the vanguard of EDSA Dos.
The fledgling Arroyo administration tapped him to head the National Housing Authority.
“Homeless is hopeless. The less has to go.” I don’t know if he was even aware of this adage. But he sure did walk toward that direction with the NHA intensifying its socialized housing program. Then too, the Sword of Damocles that long hang over the heads of the resettled victims of the Pinatubo eruptions – the usufruct scheme – was finally and definitively discarded.
It was during his watch at the Office of External Affairs that the case of Angelo de la Cruz – remember the OFW set to lose his head in Iraq? – was resolved. Successfully, of course, with the now-forgotten truck driver still holding his head. Not too high though, I heard. But that is another story.
Excelling in every post the President has assigned to him, he has of late been named head honcho for the development of Subic and Clark – a signal recognition of the trust and confidence of GMA in his capabilities. Immediately, the once moribund construction of the expressway connecting the once mighty bastions of American military might in the Asia-pacific went into overdrive, registering more than 50 percent to completion as of the end of December 2006.
Indeed we have one national achiever here that can make a hell of a difference in the city he once served. Hence it brings me sadness that whenever the Angeles mayorship crops up, there is a certain ennui, if not resignation, over the perceived lack of choice.
Here is the man that Angeles City may want – and definitely needs – to elect in 2007: Edgardo G. Pamintuan.
Maging mayor pasibayu, Agyu Tamu.
(Access previous columns at acaesar.blogspot.com)