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!)