Panlilio is not alone

EVERYBODY who is somebody in the political realm in Pampanga was there in Malacañang Thursday, pledging unwavering support to the President, the most exalted of all cabalens.
Everybody. Except Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio, the perceived source of the President’s latest woes – the 500,000-peso Pandora’s box the governor opened.
“We showed to the President that what Governor Panlilio did…he alone made that decision. As you can see…he was the only one left in Pampanga,” the papers quoted Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo, the spokesman of the Pampanga Mayors League, as saying.
The numbers gave the proof to Pelayo’s allusion to Panlilio all alone: Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao with the whole sangguniang panlalawigan in tow; PML President Dennis Pineda and all the mayors; Pampanga Vice Mayors League President Diman Datu leading the vice mayors; the city and municipal councilors and the barangay chairmen led by their respective presidents, Rolly Macalino and Cesar Magat – “close to a thousand,” again, per newspaper reports.
Again, the ever-loquacious and often hyperbolic Pelayo with yet another dig at Panlilio: “As though I die a thousand deaths whenever I see Panlilio hurt the President with his nonsensical political gimmicks.”
One – Panlilio, against a thousand – the elected officials from the barangay to the capitol. The numerical equation certainly tilts in favor of the latter. Now, were politics only factored on addition and multiplication…
Panlilio is far from politically isolated by the mere superiority of numbers. In the first place, he ran – and won – by his lonesome self: no political party, no political machinery, not even a slate of candidates.
Nothing has been taken out of Panlilio, from the politics-as-the-superiority-of-numbers perspective. He never had the numbers in the first place. His winning edge of a little over a thousand votes is a testament to this. Claims of “divinely-inspired people power” by his fanatics notwithstanding, Panlilio is not a “majority governor.”
A political base – of myrmidons, Panlilio certainly has: the self-anointed, self-appointed, self-proclaimed so-called civil society.
Even as the elected political leaders were crying their voices hoarse in singing all those hosannas to the President last Thursday, Panlilio’s loyal legions were digging the trenches, so to speak, for a war against the SP and the mayors.
For the love of their governor and all his work, the Kapampangan Marangal, Inc., Abak na Balen, Pampanga Association of Non-Government Organizations, and the Save Pampanga Movement have started their petition-signing campaign for a local initiative to repeal Ordinance 176.
Yes, that same mayors’ league-sponsored ordinance on the quarry operations vetoed by Panlilio but pushed through just the same by the SP with a 12-nil override of the veto.
First time ever to be experienced in the province, the local initiative as a legal recourse is mandated by the Local Government Code of 1991, pursuant to the spirit of people empowerment, the operative word in the Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos administrations, if I may add for context.
Panlilio’s chorusline is confident of getting at least a thousand signatures of registered voters to file their petition with the SP.
This is yet another front opened in the fast-becoming protracted war in Pampanga politics.
(Zona Libre/Punto! Oct. 29, 2007)