Ordering Oca

EASY AS one plus one equals two.
What? I asked Don Mariano C., a contractor who I occasionally chance upon at Starbucks in SM City Pampanga.
The reason why Governor Panlilio denied having endorsed Mayor Oca for governor in a recall election or in 2010.
You talked to the Governor?
No. I did not have to talk to him to know.
So how did you know?
From you. With this. He shoved to my face yesterday’s Punto! with the headline Gov asserts rights over Arnedo Park, orders Oca to stop issuing permits below the kicker Mayor’s support of Panlilio doubted and bylined Bong Z. Lacson.
What about it?
Can’t you get what you yourself wrote? The Governor felt Mayor Oca is not supporting him as much as he said he did. So why should the Governor now endorse him? Tit for tat, you know.
No, I don’t. I deal with facts not impressions when I write news stories. And the Governor is a priest for Christ’s sake. And priests never demand unconditional support, as they never hit back at those who oppose them.
Being a suspended priest and now a politician, he has become all too human. See the heavy disappointment in the tone of his letter.
I read from the news article: “For more than a year in office now, I have considered you and your city as my friend. You have in the past expressed your support to my administration. For this, I am deeply grateful and appreciative…However, recent events confound me on the extent of the said expression of support…”
To the Governor, Mayor Oca’s issuance of permits to the dismissed Balas Boys to rally and denounce him gives the lie to all that profession of support. The truth of the action gives the lie to the words.
So, Panlilio is embittered?
So embittered that you can practically taste the bile in his letter. Here, sense the sarcasm in this portion.
I read again: “The Macario Arnedo Park is within the capitol compound and is owned by the provincial government of Pampanga. The capitol compound might be located within your city but administration and governance over it is lodged within the provincial government.”
There is even some insult thrown in Mayor Oca’s way when the Governor dealt with the question of legality on the declaration of Arnedo Park as “freedom park” by the sangguniang panlalawigan, writing: “Granting arguendo that its declaration as freedom park is legally tenable, a permit is not necessary for people to hold a rally or express their grievances…” Of course the insult is not lost to you having put in your article “the non-lawyer Panlilio told the human rights lawyer Rodriguez.
That is an expression of a fact. No colors there on my part.
The Governor is practically telling Mayor Oca to keep off his turf, not to meddle in his realm. And therefore, he was – as you quoted – “asserting that permits should not be issued by your (Rodriguez’s) office to any applicant who wish (sic) to make use of the Macario Arnedo Park for whatever purpose they intend to utilize it.” Do you realize the ramification of this assertion?
Yeah, it gives one more confirmation to the emergent clerico-fascism in Pampanga I tackled here a few days back. So, Panlilio will now unleash the local police on the protesting Balas Boys to drive them out of Arnedo Park?
You don’t remember what you wrote? Don’t you read your own story? It is not the police that will deal with the Balas Boys. It will be Mayor Oca. The Governor has ordered him so. Here: “The rallyists are very noisy and their streamers are libelous and defamatory. Their sound system should be toned down and their defamatory and libelous streamers should be put down by your office being the one who allowed them to do so…I expect your prompt response to this simple request.” That is an order. As though given by a superior to a lowly subordinate. Which from the looks of it was really the intention, the letter being more of a memorandum in tone and in form. See, how the Governor addressed Mayor Oca – as plain “you” sans the niceties and diplomatese as “your goodself” in courteous correspondence.
In sum, Panlilio is hurting, feeling he’s been spurned by Mayor Oca so he strikes back?
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, remember?
Dummy, Panlilio is no woman, how can you say that?
So who do you think wrote his letter? Who is behind all that the he does? Who is that one the Governor can’t be without?
Now, that’s not as easy as one plus one equals two. It’s more complicated, as in… aaa… six times nine plus five plus ten equals malice. And that would mean libelous and defamatory, Panlilio said – not so rightly though – about those Balas streamers. Spare me, I don’t want to be ordered “put down” like those streamers at Arnedo Park.
And with his caramel macchiato, Don Mariano C. raised a toast to his Among Eddie.