Cuentas claras

WITH GOD as his promised platform of government, Eddie T. Panlilio swept the twin evils of Pampanga politics to the moral dustbin. Now must the acclaimed “moral alternative” walk his talk, so to speak, and effect the moral regeneration of the Kapampangan.
Transparency, Panlilio’s recurrent refrain during the campaign, has to evolve presently into something manifestly concrete.
So how about Panlilio now going transparent enough to categorically state whether he had ever known – in the Biblical sense – one Yeng Zapata of San Vicente, Sto. Tomas, Pampanga or any other woman? Thus collectively asked the espresso crowd of Clark yuppies, mediapersons and local government executives at Firenzzi in SM Clark one lazy afternoon last week.
We recall that even at the early stages of the campaign, allegations were already raised of Panlilio having shattered his priestly vow of celibacy with not one, not two, not three but five women, foremost among whom was this one Yeng. Allegations that really dogged Panlilio but which, in radio-tv talk shows and press interviews, he deftly dodged with non-sequiturs, readily swallowed hook, line and sinker by his herd of faithful, if not fanatical, followers..
I would rather though that we left Panlilio to his conscience and his God in this regard.
Of greater importance to me in the aspect of transparency is for Panlilio to publicize his campaign donors and their donations – as prescribed in the election laws, someone said. I am not sure now if that someone was ex-city councilor Alex Cauguiran, tocayo Bong Alvaro, or forever-mayor of Mabalacat Boking Morales.
Even beyond election laws, I deem the publication of the donors as of the highest interest to the people of Pampanga: it would enable them to know and to give due recognition to those to whom they owe their salvation. Tune pin king kapamilatan da mikabus ne ing Pampanga – as Panlilio’s campaign blurbs promised.
The quarry collection – once grandiosely, if not shamelessly, showcased in Porac palaces and luxurious vehicles – to come out now in billboards and in the press too is transparency at its best. Cuentas claras as all caballeros y caballeras subscribe to.
All Panlilio has to do to make one hell, err, heaven of a difference in the annals of local governance is for the quarry income to accrue to the public coffers. I have not an iota of doubt that this will come to be.
My doubt lies elsewhere.
It was a self-assuming “moral force” that pushed Panlilio to the Capitol. It was the same “moral force” that Panlilio addressed in his May 21 letter “…to keep that fire burning as we journey together for the next three years.” It was the same “moral force” that I called in a past column as the Third Farce. And, unapologetically, I still hold that opinion, Panlilio’s victory notwithstanding.
Like their leader, this farce of a force has to adhere most sincerely to the diktat of transparency. Transparency as in: the businessmen among them paying the correct taxes, respecting the rights of their employees, renouncing the evil that is labor-only contracting; the doctors among them issuing receipts to their patients, dispensing with their hypocrisies and sincerely abiding by their Hippocratic Oath; the lawyers among them doing more pro bono services; and the priests among them in perpetual renewal of their vows of celibacy and obedience. Yes, they too must do their own cuentas claras.
Panlilio is right. The crusade has to go on. Isadsad ya ing crusada. The moral renewal of Pampanga has to continue and be taken to its glorious end the full moral redemption of the Kapampangan.
But it must start with Panlilio himself and his “moral” crusaders.
Only then that we in the constituency of evil – those who supported the two candidates of evil – can in turn be saved by their redemptive grace.
Then I shall stop singing Kapampangan ku, sese na ku ning diablo...

1971 redux

DÉJÀ VU. Been there. Seen that.
At the start of the campaign period, I was asked by coffeemates at Old Manila and Starbucks in SM City Pampanga how I sized up the gubernatorial contest.
With supreme confidence bordering on braggadocio, I said it would be a repeat of 1971, arrogating unto myself the wisdom of age, if not the gift of prescience. (Though still way short of the required years of enfranchisement in ‘71, I was by then already deeply enmeshed in the study of things political, be they local or global, be they elections or revolutions.)
Much too young to remember, my espresso buddies had to be oriented on the principal political events of ’71 – the bombing of the entire Liberal Party slate in the miting de avance in Plaza Miranda provoking the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by President Marcos; the elections that year being the last before the declaration of Martial Law; and, most interestingly for them, the Pampanga gubernatorial candidates then.
A repeat of ’71 – primarily with the sitting governor finishing dead last in a three-cornered fight. Such was the qualification of my 2007 projection. Thus was the result of the elections: incumbent Gov. Mark Lapid outvoted by two other candidates. (Earned some bragging rights here for being right.)
Quick flashback to ’71 – at the initial stage of the campaign, incumbent Gov. Francisco Nepomuceno (the father of Blueboy, the congressman-turned-mayor, not the alleged impostor who also ran for Angeles City mayor) was being given a run for his money by the “Baby of the Masses,” the charismatic San Fernando Mayor Virgilio Sanchez. Then, from out of nowhere materialized the never-heard-of-before Brigido Valencia, whose only claim to fame was his being a logging magnate with concessions in far Mindanao and farther Indonesia. Funny now, I can’t even remember what town he came from.
No, Valencia did not invoke the name of God as reason for running. He did the next best thing: bring to Pampanga the political demi-god of the period – Senator Benigno S. Aquino, Jr.
At the grand miting in San Fernando, Ninoy in his characteristic sarsa proclaimed Valencia the only official candidate of the Liberal Party, effectively giving the lie to Sanchez’s claim of the same. Thus was the issues joined. Thus was the election won.
Apung Bidong the victor. Baby second. Mang Kitong third, and last.
Baby – Sanchez, that is – at second so impacted in my cranium that I did not just hope and pray but strove and worked that history would not repeat with the current Baby of the Masses.
Alack, that Irish saying proved right: There is no present, there is no future, only the past happening over and over.
Alas, Aeschylus was right: Not even the gods could alter what had been fated.
Thus it was that the beloved Baby of the masa,, notwithstanding the endearing moniker of Nanay appended to her name, tempted but ultimately succumbed to the Fates.
Pray that the ’71 parallel end there. For, what had the Valencia administration wrought for the people of Pampanga?
There is nothing I can think of. Help me out. I yield this column to anyone who can give a rundown of the programs, projects and accomplishments of the logger-turned-governor.
On a different game, he scored very high though. Apung Bidong had this yen – fulfilled and consummated – for a Sto. Tomas belle. But that was a private matter. No matter its very public display.
Touché.
No, God at the Capitol will prevent this from happening all over again.

Desperate measures

DESTROY, in order to build.
Whoever was the wag that came up with that piece I have long forgotten. But he or she most certainly made an impression on the braintrust of Eddie Panlilio.
Destroy, in order to build makes the very foundation of the campaign of the priest to take over the Pampanga Capitol.
Destroy the opposition.
The first targets of destruction naturally comprised the principal obstacles to the objective of Panlilio: the sitting governor Mark Lapid, and the leading contender, Board Member Lilia “Baby” Pineda.
Bedeviled as the embodiment of the twin scourges of the province – corruption in the quarry collection for Lapid, illegal gambling for Pampanga’s favorite Baby – they were pictured as the very antithesis to the carefully cultivated goodness, nay, saintliness of Panlilio.
Thus was Panlilio packaged by his spinmeisters as the very personification of virtue. Thus was all goodness the Panlilio camp arrogated unto itself. Thus anyone not for Panlilio it consigned to the forces of darkness.
Destroy the media.
This was what one liquefied brain in the Panlilio campaign did to the Pampanga media, branding them as “bayaran” when the non-flattering issues of disobedience to Apu Ceto, and incessant rumors of peccadilloes by the sworn-to-God-as-celibate candidate saw print.
Destroy the masa.
The casique mentality obtaining in the Panlilio camp reared its most obnoxious head when it was heard as saying that the supporters of Baby Pineda were the mendicants and the unwashed who would sell their votes as easily as pawn their souls.
The characteristic effete snobbery of the local aristocracy that fans and farts the Panlilio campaign surfaced when aspersions were cast on the lowly kabos and kobradores for backstopping the Pineda campaign.
Destroy the teachers.
Panlilio himself is propagating as gospel truth – no matter if sourced only in text messages and thus totally bereft of even an iota of credible evidence – the sordid allegation that the public school teachers are being given money to cheat.
This is a total disrespect, nay, a blasphemy of a profession second only to the priesthood in nobility.
Destroy the priests.
“mga PARING nasa PAYOLA ni LILIA: (names of 11 priests, I withheld for their protection) ngeni KAPAMPANGAN, gets mu n bakit MAKANYAN la? ala lng PIALIWA kring aliwang manungkulan qng balen, mal l mu png bagya pero ASASALI L P MU RIN. Pls pass” Thus read a text message I received last Saturday.
The priests cited, err, slandered in the message are generally known as close to Baby Pineda though they have remained obedient to the guidelines issued by Apu Ceto to the clergy to stay non-partisan. The same guidelines being blatantly violated by priests rabidly pro-Panlilio, like campaigning from the pulpit – as happened in Magalang, Camba, Arayat and Cabetican, Bacolor; demanding from the faithful contributions to Panlilio’s campaign kitty, posting Panlilio’s posters in churches – as in St. Jude Village and San Agustin, SanFernando, etcetera.
Destroy. Destroy. Destroy. Far from being constructive to Panlilio, this orgy of destruction will in the end consume his campaign.
Destruction, far from being a pre-requisite to construction is – in the political game – an overt act of desperation. Desperate straits necessitate desperate measures.
Your slip is showing here. You ain’t leading. You ain’t winning. You’re losing. You’re deconstructing.



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