Perpetual conflict

Free Zone
Perpetual conflict
FRANCIS “Blueboy” Nepomuceno versus Carmelo “Jonjon” Lazatin II versus Eleonor “Nong” Abad Santos: the war of political families in Angeles City continues, the scions picking up where their now departed elders left off.
Here’s a historical vignette dug up from the files of stories I wrote for People’s Tonight. This one was dated December 21, 1987 and was carried in the front page teaser “Angeles kingpins in final showdown.”
THE FINAL CONFLICT
A storied political rivalry that started in the immediate post-war period is set to culminate with the January 18, 1988 elections.
Two aged and grizzled political warriors – ripe enough for the geriatric ward, their detractors scoff – are fixed to meet in a final conflict with the city mayoral post as plum.
Don Rafael Lazatin, 83, former governor, city mayor and assemblyman heads the UNIDO ticket against Don Francisco Nepomuceno, 74, former governor and immediate past city mayor who is running as independent.
Far from dotage despite their advanced age, both still pack political savvy and sting that have made them survivors in the changing national political landscape.
Both of the landed gentry, they have for decades dominated local politics, making Pampanga little more than a fiefdom titled between them.
Lazatin started his political career in 1937 as city councilor. Nepomuceno initially crossed his path in the late ‘40s. From then on, Pampanga politics was reduced to a two-family affair, notwithstanding Lingad, Valencia, Mendoza and Guiao who provided the interregnums in their dominion.
While some sort of a political détente existed between the two in the wake of the Ninoy Aquino assassination and went on through the Batasan elections in 1984 – where Lazatin and Nepomuceno’s wife ex-congresswoman and ex-governor Juanita ran and won – and the snap presidential polls in 1986, still the enmity between them remained.
The contest for the city mayoral post, no matter the outcome, is speculated to be the two’s final confrontation. Their advanced age, in all probability, would prevent any other battle in the future.
However, the storied rivalry may end in a denouement instead of a climax for both of them. As they are by no means the only serious contenders for the post.
Seeking to break the stranglehold of the Lazatins and Nepomucenos of Pampanga and Angeles City politics is Antonio Abad Santos, the PDP-Laban official bet.
Though “lower” in economic status than the old titans, Abad Santos, himself a scion of a former city mayor, Manuel, claims a mass base of people support enhanced by an organization of determined men and women transcending all sectors.
Then too is Gov. Bren Guiao’s “all-out support” for Abad Santos.
If only for the fact that Lazatin and Nepomuceno are locked in their final conflict, January 18 in Angeles will be worth watching. The entry of Abad Santos is an added political bonus.
ABAD SANTOS won of course and the two elders receded to oblivion dying in the ‘90s but not before burying the political hatchet and bonding in friendship.
Come the elections of 2007 – the son against the grandson against the daughter of the 1988 key players. Will history repeat itself?
I can’t help but recall Karl Marx: “Hegel says somewhere that all great events and personalities in world history reappear in one fashion or another. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.”
If God isn’t dead – and the dead Marx was right – then may He have mercy on Angeles City.

Romancing Avanza

BEING a first for me, I never knew that owning a brand-new car can be this intriguingly humorous – or is it humorously intriguing? I don’t know though if it’s the car or it’s just me.
“The official campaign period for local candidates has yet to start and already you have your miting de Avanza,” punned good friend Sonny Lopez speculating on my 2007 Toyota Avanza as a political favor returned for some propaganda job.
The chromed letter J stamped at the back of the car indicative of its model type or variant was a dead give-away of its funding source to the imaginative Lopez, J being the publicly perceived power-packed letter in contention for the Pampanga governorship. The other is Q. You’re a dummy if you don’t know what and whom the letters represent. Okay dummy, it’s jueteng and quarry.
After asking me to drive him around the City of San Fernando, Deng Pangilinan had a double vision of my car – as family sedan and taxicab, promptly calling Arnel San Pedro of CIAC to get me a franchise at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.
Deng’s bossman, my dear compadre Perry Pangan had a different take on my car. So what got into me getting a Toyota, he asked.
I write for this paper that is part of the Laus Group of Companies which holds the dealership for just about every car manufacturer hereabouts – American, German, Korean and Japanese – except Toyota. Ain’t there some sense, if not act, of disloyalty for having an Avanza in my garage?
Ay, here’s the rub. Owning a Toyota was not my choice. The company that so graciously let me avail myself of its credit line happened to be a dyed-in-the-wool Toyota loyalist. My car being the least of a dozen it recently purchased. So there…
Avanza J is a steal at 585 grand. It’s the only car that meets both my budget and my needs: the downpayment and the monthly installment fall well within my reach, and it’s good-for-seven-but-can-seat-eight configuration comfortably accommodates the whole Lacson family, the hyper-active grandson included.
Its DOHC 16-valve 1.3-liter engine merely inhales – never gulps down – unleaded gas, making it a truly economical car. This, thanks to VVT-i technology that is now standard in all Toyota cars. That’s variable valve timing-intelligence, not vigay ni Vaby ang taksing ito, as Deng shrieked in gayspeak, still pursuant to the J mindset. Anak ng jueteng, talaga!
Though basic stock, the J comes with a CD player cum AM-FM radio branded Toyota, but of course. Ah, one never felt as much joy in driving as when Bach and Beethoven, Mozart and Wagner, Vivaldi and Tschaikovsky, Groban and Bocelli take one to the very realm of the divine. That the audio system is but a single-slotted CD player matters not: the great sound is all.
But can the Avanza stand its ground against, err, side by side those heavily loaded dump trucks, container vans and passenger buses?
Well, mine proved its worth at the North Luzon Expressway. With but the slightest shake when passing or being passed by these multi-wheeled monsters of the highways.
A good car this Avanza. Made even better by the sales and after-sales services.
I got the car in two working days, and that was already “delayed” due to my own fault. The first oil-change – after 1,000 kilometers – Thursday last week was a breeze too.
Waiting has never been this fun for me – only at Toyota. There is a fiesta atmosphere – complete with food and drinks – at the cool, cool lounges. The marketing persons and mechanics are both professionally polite and very friendly. A stand-out among them is Ms. Joy Isip. Already a joy to behold, she makes an even more enchanting conversation piece, err, charming conversationalist.
She is – like my Avanza – sheer customer’s joy. And no pun is intended there.

An upright father

THIS is a story I picked up at the Beatico coffeeshop in SM Clark and is purported to be the current buzz not only in other coffeeshops but in socio-civic, even in church, circles.
Suddenly bitten by the political bug, a son approached his father for help. No, he did not go the way of the biblical Prodigal Son to ask for his rightful inheritance to finance his candidacy. He just asked for help, a loan from the family coffers.
Here is – insofar as I can remember translated verbatim – what the father reportedly told his son.
“Son, ours is hard-earned, honest wealth. For what purpose are you going to use it? As dole out to buy your election?
“Granting that you win, how would you repay the loan you’re asking for? Your salary would not even be enough to meet your personal needs much less those of the poorest, and the most opportunistic and parasitic of your constituencies that throng into your office daily, asking you to pay for their basic necessities.
“Short on personal funds but wanting to satisfy them, so shall you fall into the pit of graft, into the eddy of corruption. Do not ever forget this: Money filched from public funds find no justification even for the noblest of deeds. And there is no way I can accept honest money repaid through dishonest means.
“I need not remind you that our name was founded on our honesty and integrity, our companies on corporate conscience and good citizenship. I intend to keep them at that.
“This is not being judgmental but the politicians you’ve cast your lot with don’t have an exactly immaculate image in governance. May our name be unblemished by your association with them.
“So you want to serve our people. Can’t you not find other outlets for that desire? I too serve, even as a corporate person. It is not only through politics that we can best serve the public.
“Still, you are my son. I will help you to the best I can. But not at the expense of the principles I stand for.”
What can I say?
There remains a glimmer of hope in this benighted land.
So did the son pursue his political plans? We shall know come March 29 when the filing of certificates of candidacy goes past the deadline.

Sinking ship syndrome

ARAYAT Mayor Chito Espino is reported to be the latest mayor to have abandoned the camp of Governor Mark T. Lapid, leaving only the “Tres Flores” – Peter of Masantol, Bobong of Macabebe and Edgar of Minalin – and Mabalacat’s Boking Morales as the remaining hold-outs.
How long can these “stubborn” four cling to Lapid’s boots is everybody’s guessing game now. One of them is being bruited to do a somersault this week. Not Boking, “most definitely,” after his cable-televised vow of “101 percent support for the governor.” Plus, there was Boking’s perennial antagonist Anthony Dee dropping his usual white t-shirt in favor of a polo shirt – though still in his signature shorts and slippers – to have his hands raised as the Pineda-Guiao candidate.
This is a first for the province. Not the collared Dee, not Boking’s vow, dummy, but the junking of Lapid. I cannot recall in my long years of observation-study-involvement in Pampanga politics of any other time that incumbent mayors deserted en masse an incumbent governor.
Or have you ever heard or read of the witty Governor Kitong Nepomuceno jilted by his mayors? Or the venerable Governor Paeng Lazatin junked?
Even in 1995 – at the height of the Lito Lapid magic – did the mayors dump the doomed incumbent Governor Bren Z. Guiao. Notable of those who dug their foxholes beside Bren’s in that war of attrition, so to speak, were Boking – loyalty is this guy’s middle name, Magalang’s Joey Lacson, Apalit’s Oca Tetangco, San Simon’s Maning Bondoc, Guagua’s Manoling Santiago, Mexico’s Ferdinand Meneses, and Sta. Ana’s Monching Barro.
There must be something about Bren and the other governors that epoxied the mayors to their person, no matter how futile their chances were at getting re-elected. That something is apparently sorely missing in the young Lapid.
The sinking ship syndrome, thus termed Guiao propagandist Jun Sula of the mass defection of the local executives from the Lapid camp. The mayors opting they would rather swim with Board Member Lilia ‘Baby’ Pineda – more appropriately perhaps, to ride the waves in her sleek yacht – than sink with Mark.
The ratty opportunism attached to the idiom does not apply here though, Jun was quick to say. With the mayors disclaiming any past favors to have received from the governor or future ones promised them by the Baby.
I have another take on the sinking ship thing. This is that of the admiral and his crew who sink with their ship. There is loyalty here. There is commitment here.
Had Lapid been committed to the needs of the mayors and their constituencies, would they have abandoned him?
The answer is all moot and academic.
Indubitably definitive though is that the dumping of Lapid by the mayors makes the strongest – and soundest – argument against that survey proffered by the governor’s camp – bitten and swallowed hook, line and sinker by undiscerning local mediamen – that the governor rates a high of 71 percent over the Baby’s miserable 13.7 percent.
Think. If Mark Lapid were really winning by a wide margin as that survey would like to make us believe, why are the mayors abandoning him? Something must be really wrong with the mayors. Or everything’s wrong with the survey.
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MY appreciation to The Outstanding Fernandino Awards Committee for voting me TOFA 2007 awardee in the field of journalism. Bista man e ku mibait San Fernando, pinili kung maging Fernandino. Iti e ku mu pagmaragul, nune dangalan ku.