Panlilio does Palito corny

SO DID Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio go home – to wherever he calls home – yesterday the way he went to his office at the capitol, via passenger jeepney?
I asked one Marifa Mercado of the provincial information office over the phone – number 961-0917.
“I don’t know, Sir, as I did not see him leave. I have to ask.”
So, is he commuting again by public transport to the capitol today?
“He has a meeting in Quezon City, Sir.”
So did he take the bus?
“No, Sir, he rode a private vehicle, a Toyota Revo, he has long been using before he became governor.”
I assume he paid for his own gasoline, there.
“Yes, Sir.”
Thank you, Ma’am.
Minutes after that call, came this text message from phone number +639108001555 – “Umuwi po si Gov Panlilio kahapon sa capitol halos 10pm na. Ginamit po niya ang kanyang personal na sasakyang toyota revo dhil wala ng jeep na namamasada. Salamat po”
So gentlemen and ladies, what was all that public commuting Panlilio did on September 1 all about? He took a passenger jeepney from the University of the Assumption to the San Fernando city proper, transferred to another jeepney to the capitol, then took a tricycle to a function at King’s Royale Hotel.
“The governor’s office has run out of budget. We don’t have funds for gasoline and even meals,” Panlilio’s putative provincial administrator Atty. Vivian Dabu was quoted as saying.
So without funds for gasoline, Panlilio had to take public transport. So without funds for meals too, Panlilio would now stop eating? That is to follow Dabu’s (un)reasoning.
You’re governor and you’d run out of funds, all you had to do was ask.
So, the sangguniang panlalawigan did not approve your proposed supplemental budget that would have covered your expenses.
So, go to the SP and defend your proposed budget. You just don’t give them the figures without any justification and expect to give it to you, pronto. Unlike in running a parish, there’s such a thing as line budgeting and some processes to follow in government.
Still finding it hard to crack the SP nut?
Listen to ex-Bulacan Congressman Willy Villarama, once Panlilio’s strategist: “I suggest he call up his friends – Governors Amor Deloso of Zambales, Jonjon Mendoza of Bulacan, Tet Garcia of Bataan, Oyie Umali of Nueva Ecija. They will be very happy to teach this ‘man of the year’ how to produce money for his gasoline needs.”
That would have been normal routine. But how do you milk media mileage out of routinary procedures?
The thing is Panlilio had to produce a grand morality play out of his current plight at the capitol, a high drama along the recurring theme of good-versus-evil that pushed him to the governorship. Where before the demons were his rivals, the Pinedas and Lapid, now the devil takes the form of the SP.
So, with local and national media informed way ahead of time, Panlilio took the jeepney to the capitol and the tricycle to a function.
That is sheer propaganda intended to draw public sympathy to Panlilio, especially as the recall movement against him is gaining steam; “snowballing,” says main proponent Rosve Henson, with the avalanche of signatures triggered by the Pampanga’s Tocino Queen, Madame Lolita Hizon, who singlehandedly brought in more than 500 signatures in under four hours.
Panlilio’s high drama of September 1 though turns to comic relief at close watch.
So Panlilio rode the jeepney. But his bodyguards followed in a back-up vehicle, albeit seeming unobtrusively. So said a long-time callboy, err, caller, at the Assumption-Plaza route. The boss sweating it out in a public transport, the bodyguards in air-con privacy. Insipidly funny, worthy of a second rate Palito comedy movie.
Take a look too at the photo of the tricycle from where alighted Panlilio. You don’t see anything wrong there? Get your eyes checked.
The trike had neither a body number nor a plate number. That makes it a colorum vehicle. Paging the Land Transportation Office. The Governor, unwittingly perhaps, is supporting, err, patronizing this patently illegal mode of transportation. Legitimate TODAs (that’s tricycle operators and drivers associations, dummy) of Pampanga, unite and complain!
So will Panlilio continue taking public transport until such time the SP gave him his operational funds?
Yes. But only when the media are watching.