Damned nation

WE DO not remember the past; we are a nation damned.
Thoughts of Santayana there as I behold Joseph Estrada lording it over the opinion polls of 2010 presidentiables.
How could have we forgotten so soon?
Erap’s fall, so was headlined the commentary I wrote in the April 27, 2001 issue of Sun Star Pampanga. It read:
POWER corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The immortality of Lord Acton’s lines has been proven true anew – and so succinctly – by Joseph Ejercito Estrada.
So much has been said about the rise and fall of Erap. I cannot add anything new or better. The best have been said by the likes of Amando Doronilla and the editorial writers of Today and the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Anything I write will just pale in comparison.
However, one of my favorite philosophers, Santayana, beckons again. We have to learn the lessons from this our Erap experience in order not to be damned to repeat it.
Lessons like that embodied in the Filipino saying “Hindi lahat ng kumikinang ay ginto; may kislap ding taglay ang tanso (Not all that glitters is gold; brass has its own shine.)”
Clearly, the Filipino people were, in the language of the kanto (street), natanso (we’ve been had) with their choice of Erap for president.
Not only the bida (hero) but also the kampeon ng masa (champion of the masses), Erap turned out to be the very scourge of the people he was projected to champion, to protect, to serve. No, he was never a Robinhood as he robbed both rich and poor. He was more of the insatiable Pacman, gobbling everything in sight. No matter his pro-poor projections.
An eye opener: Bida sa pelikula, sa buhay nama’y kontrabida (Hero in the movies, anti-hero in real life). Let this be a guide then to our electorate vis-à-vis all the movie actors seeking elective posts. Sikat (popularity) is but an interchange of vowels away from sakit (misery). Elect the popular for a life that will surely be penitential.
Corollary to these lessons is Lincoln’s dictum: “You can fool all of the people some of the time. You can fool some of the people all the time. But you can never fool all the people all the time.”
Yes, something’s got to give somewhere sometime. Even idiots have their lucid intervals.
From a heavy hallucination brought by heavy doses of cinema images, the people woke up to a sordid reality. And dumped Erap.
More than anything else though, what really did Erap in is that basic element in Greek drama – hubris, the arrogance of power. Power got into Erap’s head so much that he started believing he was invincible. That the people would always believe in him. No matter what. Thus his unbridled braggadocio: “Ano sila, sinusuwerte? Pupulutin sila sa kangkungan. (No English translation can capture the essence of the phrases. So we leave it at that.)
Believing in his own invincibility, he defied moral conventions, flaunting both mistresses and mansions, protecting mafiaesque minions.
That was hubris. That was Erap’s own undoing.
Sic transit gloria mundi. Thereby goes the glory of the world. Everything is transitory. Yesterday the Palace. Today the prison. This is the story of Erap. This is a lesson for us all. Let there be no more Eraps among our leaders. Be it in the whole nation, province, city, town, barangay.
A caveat then: Iboto ang sikat, iluklok ang panibagong Erap, nang tayo ay higit pang maghirap (Elect the popular, seat a new Erap, and make our life even more miserable).
We are truly a nation of self-flagellating masochists. Sic transit gloria mundi.
SIC TRANSIT indeed!
Unseated, convicted for plunder, imprisoned, but pardoned, Erap is again foisted on the nation as the most popular among the presidential pretenders for 2010.
Damned nation, we truly are.

Notes for Panlilio

DOES HE truly believe that the presidency is a higher calling than the priesthood? That gaining material prosperity for 90 million citizens is more pleasing to God than saving one single soul from going to hell?
The priests who ran for public office in Latin America at the height of the fad called liberation theology have realized, or will soon realize, that Christ’s kingdom can never be fully realized through social action alone.
“The poor will always be with you,” Christ said, which I interpret to mean that our ultimate purpose in life is not to make people prosperous but to save their souls.
Which is why I believe, honestly, that a parish priest’s work is infinitely more important than the work of the President of the Philippines , his entire Cabinet, the Senate and the House of Representatives combined.
If you want to help in the establishment of heaven on earth, then the best way to do it is to work for the salvation of souls, not to work in government where the best you can hope to achieve is to improve the material lot of people.
Listen to the Archbishop, Among Gob. The priesthood is worth more than the entire nation—even the whole world. Even if you think you can win, even if you know you will win, a small parish is still the most precious pearl of all. Even popes and emperors gave everything up for the chance to retire in peace and obscurity.
Then you’ll see: your legend will grow even more.So wrote my younger – much younger – seminary brother Robby Tantingco in his Sun-Star Pampanga column a few days back.
If there is one truly constant and consistent backstopper to Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio, that would be Robby. Most often, the position he takes on the governor and his acts ran in diametrical opposition to those I hold.
Nevertheless, this advocate of the promotion and preservation of Kapampangan – that is Robby, not Panlilio – is one among the very few Panlilio supporters who – in the words of the American President James Madison – “have not suffered a blind veneration to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense.”
A really outstanding piece, Robby wrote there. Which elicited an equally good response from my Ars Latina professor, Dan Basilio.
He wrote in our materboni@yahoogroups.com:
Kudos to you Robby. That was a magnificently crafted opus which eloquently synthesizes the profusion of thoughts simmering in my mind lately.
If he (Panlilio) is bent on throwing his hat into the presidential derby, as any literate bona fide citizen is entitled to do, then let him renounce his priestly status and shed the god-sent, god-anointed saintly image he has been so reluctant to part with, lest he be accused of exploiting his priesthood for political expediency and fostering that twisted notion that he is divinely inspired and charged with a messianic mission to reform the government. Intelligent people won't buy that.
There is nothing wrong with being ambitious and visionary. Let him run as a secular person, let the people decide on the merits - or demerits - of his political platform, his managerial prowess and the qualities of leadership he displayed in his stint as governor of Pampanga, and not on any messianic or religion-tinted crusade of sorts. That way he will elicit more respect, sympathy and support from his peers. The Crusades and the inhuman atrocities committed in the name of God are better forgotten and relegated into the distant past. My Sir Dan’s genius has not ebbed a bit through all these years. Wish I can write even only half as good as he does.
I leave this space for today to these my very distinguished Mater Boni brothers.

Talks not so divine

"I WENT down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me: that we could not give them (the Philippines) back to Spain – that would be cowardly and dishonorable; that we could not turn them over to France and Germany – our commercial rivals in the Orient – that would be bad business and discreditable; that we could not leave them to themselves – they were unfit for self-government – and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died.
And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the ..War Department map-maker, and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States (pointing to a large wall map), and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!" So God called President William McKinley to benevolently assimilate the Philippine Islands, as recounted in The Christian Advocate issue of January 22, 1903.
Thus came to pass Imperial America’s “civilization with a Krag” of the Filipino nation. The impact of which we still feel to this time.
One hundred and six years after McKinley, here is another man so blessed that God Himself called him to run for the Philippine presidency.
"Noong nagpasya po ako na i-offer ang aking sarili (When I decided to offer myself (for the presidency)), I felt at peace. I'm doing this not for me, not for myself. I felt God wanted me to go on a higher service...After a period of discernment, I said 'God is calling me to run for the presidency'."
Not as incredulous, but harsher than the reaction to McKinley is that heaped on Panlilio.
“Talking to God is prayer but claiming to hear God speak is dangerous.” So was Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz quoted as saying.
“Let us use first what God Himself has given to us by using our rational faculty which has the competence to see reality or fantasy,” Apung Oscar said, his words bound for countless interpretations on Panlilio’s state of mind.
Where the Lingayen-Dagupan prelate was kind, even genial, San Fernando Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David was blunt.
“I can only pray for him. I think he’s in a state of delusion. I still hope he’ll see the light before it’s too late,” Among Ambo said. “I just wish he’d at least stop saying it’s all for the love of the priesthood. It begins to sound like a political campaign strategy.”
“Perhaps if he had just quietly asked for dispensation, we would have just quietly respected his option. But he wants to have his cake and eat it, too.” Among Ambo’s perceptive genius – already manifested in his infima class, his very first year at the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary when I was in my fourth year – in full bloom there!
Talk of delusion now, where one claims it is God that talks to him, others could only see the devil.
Hear now the admonition to Panlilio of his formator at the Divine Word Seminary, Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes: “Forget about the politics. That is a temptation of power, even Jesus, rejected. That was what He did. That was a temptation of our Lord, after He was declared a Messiah during His time, He went to the desert and freely He was tempted by Satan to enjoy the earthly power in order to serve people.”
Wasn’t that the same thing the good Apu Ceto has long been telling Panlilio? To beware of the “temptation of power”?
At the secular realm now, two congressmen had some digs on God talking to Panlilio..
“That’s interesting! I guess everyone can say that. I want to know what God has to say,” Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante, chairman of the House committee on public information, said.
“Puwede ba iyun? Para na siyang si Santino niyan, Bro! Hindi divine will ang pinag uusapan dito, kundi human will (Is that all right? Now he’s like Santino, Bro. We’re not talking of divine will here but human will) – the choice is up to us considering all the circumstances. ” So was Nueva Ecija Rep. Edno Joson quoted as saying, referring to the main character, Santino, who directly communicates with Jesus Christ whom he calls Bro in the ABS-CBN top-rated telenovela “May Bukas Pa”.
“Spare God from politics,” Joson asked Panlilio.
So it is written: “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

The call of a god

SO HE said he was prepared to leave the priesthood to run for president.
And – should he lose – he would seek reinstatement to the priesthood.
“That’s the point. That calls for a big sacrifice because I truly love being a priest. In fact should I lose I will still return to the priesthood if I could.” So was his response to the warning aired by the good San Fernando Archbishop Paciano Aniceto that he should ask for dispensation from the Church should he remain in politics. Yes, even if he only sought re-election, not only in case he made good his run for the presidency.
Now what does that make of Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio? Better yet, what does that make of the priesthood for Panlilio?
Panlilio here becomes the perfect Lothario who leaves his lawfully wedded wife, cohabitates with a mistress, and when he gets fed up with the latter, promptly returns to the former. And all is well?
An even better analogy: Enamored, nay, seduced by a Jezebel, he dumps the wife, but he gets spurned by the seductress, so he returns to her, the wife that is. And they live happily ever after?
A suffering, martyr of a wife in both cases, unworthy of the philanderer of a husband.
Insolence finds personification in Panlilio with his pronouncements of leaving the priesthood for a shot at the presidency and returning to the holy orders should his aim get off target.
Panlilio regards the priesthood as nothing more than an expediency, treating it as a trapo, a dispensable rag, finding use for it on a need basis.
As a matter of habit since he got into politics, Panlilio has made Roman Catholic practices, if not beliefs, purely expedient to his secular calling.
Like removing the image of the Virgin Mary from the Governor’s Office in what he said was “in the spirit of ecumenism.”
Like attempting to remove the First Friday Masses from the Capitol lobby and replacing them with “Born-Again Christian services.”
Like attending a pagsamba with the Iglesia ni Cristo, and religiously attending Jesus Is Lord fellowships.
Leading not a few saradong Catolico to ask: Is Panlilio still Catholic?
So what’s one more element of Catholicism – the priesthood, in this instance – for Panlilio to shed at will, and pick up anew when the need arises?
So the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines had said that Panlilio could no longer be reinstated once he was granted dispensation.
A reportedly “undeterred” Panlilio was quoted as saying: “I will contest that because there are past cases where a priest who has left the priesthood, for example, because he wants to take care of his mother, have been allowed to return. In my case, we are not just talking of taking care of our mother but our motherland.”
Yeah right, the political assuming the greater moral weight over the familial to Panlilio. Fallacious analogy there, the Canon Law having neither proscription nor injunction on a priest seeking dispensation to take care of an ailing mother, as it does on a priest joining electoral politics, notwithstanding his noble intention of taking care of the motherland. Go, ask Archbishop Oscar Cruz, a foremost canon lawyer.
A defiant Panlilio defiant reinforces opinions that he be deprived of any dispensation and just be simply, and unceremoniously, defrocked. A school of thought holds that Panlilio is making a mockery of the institution of the Holy Orders itself.
Before God, on the day of his ordination, he vowed obedience to his superiors, only to break that vow at the altar of politics. Five times it was said, Archbishop Aniceto pleaded with Panlilio not to run for governor in 2007. Five times he turned down his superior.
Now, with the threat of non-reinstatement poised over his head should he persisted in pursuing his higher political ambitions, Panlilio is going even more ballistic.
So why should he be bothered with warnings from Apu Ceto, threats from the CBCP, and even sanctions from the Church herself?
“God is calling me to run for the presidency.” So Panlilio himself said.
Pray, that the god calling Panlilio is the same one we all call God. Or the omen is upon us.

Woe unto Panlilio

“ROUGH SAILING for Panlilio.” Screamed Sunday’s banner headline of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio’s presidential bid has “elicited worried, angry and even outraged reactions from his superiors and fellow priests in the Catholic Church and from Church members.” So reported the PDI.
This, as Panlilio “formally offered himself as a candidate for President in 2010” Saturday at an event at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City.
In a separate PDI story of the event, Panlilio said “he is the most qualified to face this challenge” meaning the presidency.
To which Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz retorted: “When his supporters say that he is the only one qualified to run for President, it is impossible that among so many Filipinos there is no one principled, there is no one qualified to become President.”
Indeed, an insult to the over 80 million Filipinos!
Especially given the utter incompetence of Panlilio to lead. As proven in his misgovernance and maladministration of the province of Pampanga, including the now greatly reduced – from the P1-million-a-day benchmark – quarry collections.
No hubris – he simply has not the required greatness to earn it – Panlilio saying he is the most qualified of the presidentiable is sheer braggadocio. an empty boast, kaparatutan in Kapampangan.
His “promising a leadership that listens, works with and empowers people,” is an utter lie, many times proven beyond an iota of doubt by his own actions: breaking his priestly vow of obedience when he ran for governor despite the pleadings of his superiors; his estrangement from his campaign donors and supporters; the resignation of 13 of 15 members of his confidence team; his running feud with the sangguniang panlalawigan and with all but one of Pampanga’s 21 mayors; his summary dismissal and harsh treatment of the very people that enabled his lone accomplishment, the quarrymen of the Biyaya a Luluguran at Sisikapan.
Panlilio indeed “listens to, works with and empowers” only one person: his (still putative?) provincial adminsitrator, Atty. Vivian Dabu.
“So who will be Among Ed’s first lady?” asked the PDI story.
“Panlilio said he would not be on the look out for a first lady.” The news report answered.
Indeed, why should he, when he has more, much more than a first lady already? You still don’t get who, you’re much more than a dummy!
On a higher plane now, San Fernando Archbishop Paciano Aniceto was said to have “angrily rejected Panlilio’s plans to run for president and leave the priesthood.”
“He is drifting from his original priestly mission. A priest is a servant of the city of God, not of the city of man.” So the revered Apu Ceto made a paraphrase of the great doctor of the Church, St. Augustine of Hippo.
The good bishop said that Panlilio’s presidential bid will “further confuse the faithful…will put them in a dilemma .”
By running for President, Panlilio will be the negation of all the Church’s recent proclamation and initiatives for the laity to “evangelize politics” by actively participating in the electoral process by running for office and ensuring clean and honest elections in 2010, even as it practically barred them from pushing priests to politics.
“Confuse the faithful…put the faithful in a dilemma.”
The good Apu Ceto’s words assume some prophetic essence when taken along with the gospel readings of the day they appeared in the PDI, Sunday, July 19.
The First Reading from the prophet Jeremiah 23:1-6 says: “Woe unto the shepherds who mislead and scatter the sheep of my pasture.”
This is the message of Yahweh, God of Israel, to the shepherds in charge of my people, “You have scattered my sheep and driven them away instead of caring for them. Now I will deal with you because fo your evil deeds.”
A lost shepherd, the Church is inflicted with in Panlilio.
And he is the most qualified presidentiable? Allah, spare us.

The Recount:Truth and Consequence

“IN THIS species of controversy involving the determination of the true will of the electorate, time is indeed of paramount importance—second to none perhaps, except the genuine will of the majority. To be sure, an election controversy … should be resolved with utmost dispatch, precedence and regard to due process…
“The term of an elective office is short. There is the contestant’s personal stake which generates feuds and discords. Above all is the public interest. A title to public elective office must not be left long under a cloud. The efficiency of public administration should not be impaired…
“It is thus understandable why pitfalls that may retard the determination of election contests should be avoided. Courts should heed the imperative need for dispatch.”
Thus the Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for a recount of votes in the 2007 gubernatorial race in Pampanga.
The tribunal also ruled that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) did not abuse its authority when its second division ordered a vote recount on July 23, 2007, prompted by a protest filed by Board Member Lilia “Baby” Pineda who “lost” to Panlilio in the count by a slim margin of 1,147 votes.
In her protest, Pineda, said ballots had been misread against her favor, notably the “Nanay Baby” cast for her, and that the Panlilio camp allegedly resorted to vote-padding and vote-shaving – that’s dagdag-bawas – and outright vote-buying.
“A welcome development, a vindication for Madame Baby, albeit too late in the day.”
So said Vice Gov. Joseller Guiao, Pineda’s running mate in 2007.
“I feel that it’s a little late in coming. It should have been earlier. I really feel that Madame Baby (Pineda) won in that election,” Guiao averred, adding,“I believe that due process should have been allowed to take its proper course without intervention.”
Without intervention?
Already, one Ernesto Francisco, purportedly one of Panlilio’s lawyers is already sizzling: “We will definitely file a motion for reconsideration and oppose every move to proceed with the recount pending resolution of the said motion.”
We have long been led to believe that the “miracle” of Panlilio’s victory in the gubernatorial polls was an intervention from God Herself. So what is there to be afraid of in a recount?
If God is with Panlilio, who can be against him? To paraphrase the Good Book.
The Truth will be out in the recount. That Panlilio’s victory was ordained by a different god.
Now, we go to the realm of the possible.
What if – God, not Panlilio’s god -- willed the recount to Nanay Baby’s triumph?
Would that make Panlilio a usurper, a presumptive governor, a fake? What of the time he spent at the Capitol, of the salary he drew, of the orders and directives he issued? Yeah, what of his dismissal of provincial engineer Jay Macatuno, of his “illegal” transfer of Dr. Eddie Ponio, of his suspension of social welfare doyen Luchie Gutierrez?
And what of Atty. Vivian Dabu? What about her?
With less than a year left in this term, ending on June 30, 2010, what is there left for Governor Lilia Pineda to do?
To re-elect, most obviously, her vindication an impetus to resume her political life and service to her people.
So what of Vice Gov. Yeng’s announced plan for the governorship?
To the backburner, most probably.

Sermon on the trees

"WE ARE stewards of the earth, not despoilers of the environment. God’s creation is ours not to destroy but to preserve and protect for the next generation.
I will not allow the cutting of those trees.
Trees are sources of life, for the number of creatures, including humans, who depend on them for food and nutrients, as well as shelter. Plus, of course, the oxygen they produce out of their sequestration of carbon dioxide.
I will not allow the cutting of those trees.
In these times of worsening global warming conditions, all the more that we should preserve our trees, plant more trees, and secure their survival.
I stand in solidarity with all environmentalists and the people in fighting against the cutting of the trees along the highway, and should the need arise, will march with them, will encamp with them, to prevent any attempt to cut the trees.
I will not allow the cutting of those trees.
The Department of Public Works and Highways should not be so short-sighted as to forego alternatives to the widening of MacArthur Highway. If their intent is to ease traffic between the City of San Fernando and Angeles City, they could look for alternative routes to develop like barangay roads, and even a service road parallel to the North Luzon Expressway, just like those in Bulacan and those along the South Luzon Expressway too.
This would even spur the development of the barangays where those roads will be constructed.
I will not allow the cutting of those trees."
So went the sermon on the trees of Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio, as culled directly – only reformatted for effect – from the front page story of Punto! Central Luzon dated June 17, 2008, headlined Panlilio bucks highway tree-cutting and kickered with Gov goes green.
So hailed the lead paragraph of the story: “The rising opposition to the planned cutting of trees along MacArthur Highway has gained a new and formidable adherent in Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio.”
Since some two weeks back, the DPWH, armed with a license to massacre provided by the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources, has gone into a tree-felling spree along the MacArthur Highway portion of Barangays Sindalan and Maimpis in the City of San Fernando.
And we have yet to hear even but a whimper from Panlilio on this utter degradation of our environment.
So whatever happened to Panlilio’s expressed conviction to “stand in solidarity with all environmentalists and the people in fighting against the cutting of the trees along the highway, and should the need arise, will march with them, will encamp with them, to prevent any attempt to cut the trees”?
Gone the way of his priestly vow of obedience too? That is to political nothingness?
Suspended as a priest, the Honorable Governor may be, but still he has to live by his sermon, practice what he preaches, act on his word, walk his talk. As a matter of principle. As a man of honor does.
Else, Panlilio ends up reducing himself to the very being he so loved to loathe: the babbling, all-promising, nay-delivering trapo.
Speak out, better yet, act now, Sir.

A culture of graft

WRITER’S BLOCK. I am warped in this worst nightmare of journalists. Nothing to worry about, says a doctor-friend, it will pass after sometime. Yours is part of andropause. That’s saying I am getting really old. Ouch.
I just have to make do with this reprint of a piece I wrote in Zona Libre in The Voice, September 6-12, 1998 issue.

A culture of graft

NO, this has nothing to do with horticulture and that method of plant propagation whereby a part of one plant is cut and attached to another to improve the species.
Yes, it has everything to do with that incurable disease endemic in the Philippine bureaucracy. That which is so deeply rooted and pervasive that not a few anthropologists hypothesized is an integral part of Filipino culture.
Values and traditions define the culture of a nation. Where lies graft there?
The family. The basic unit of Philippine society. The font of love and unity, the binding and bonding fabric of values. There is another facet to the family though. It can likewise serve as the breeding ground of all that is not true, not good, not beautiful.
All in the family. It is often said and heard. Of the conjugal dictatorship of the Great Ferdinand and the Beautiful Imelda then. Of the wife behind – in front, at the side, and just about every which way of – dearest mayor, governor, or congressman. Or haven’t you heard of the wifey herself knocking at the doors of the jueteng lord’s manor at every month’s end? Or the mistress of the house talking trusses, divots and vibra-rollers with contractors? Of yet another madame counting her footprints in the quarried sands of time? And still another missus who comes fortnightly a-visiting her husband’s office to withdraw from Treas (that’s treasurer, dummy) – sans vouchers and supporting papers – the wages and allowances for the cook, the driver, the gardener, the maids, and above all, for herself and the kids?
To be politically correct and gender sensitive, there is the case of the hubby too who skims the fat off the honorable wife’s barrel of lard and promptly forks it over to the oh-so-unwifely-looking pretty-pretty GROs.
Starting ‘em young saves time. The kids have been initiated too. Oh, how they took to the game like young alligators to the swamp. One wife may have the jueteng fund but the son holds everything else, from the contractor’s 30 percent SOP, to the grease from the amusement tax. Uh-oh, there is another son – endowed with his own sandy kingdom transcending defined political boundaries.
Then come the other relatives, from cousins to in-laws, for the remaining pittance.
From the family, the culture of graft spreads to the circle of friends. “For the boys,” as euphemized.
Whence rises cronyism. One compadre to handle all medical supplies. Another confederate for the most lucrative Q. A cohort for the small contracts. The friend of a friend for the office supplies. And hey, why not a long-time ka-kosa as corporate partner in the numbers game?
Pakikisama (loosely translated to fellowship) is one strong, prevalent Filipino virtue. Taken to the extreme, it becomes redolent with pungent meanings. A UP lecturer on Filipino values says thus, “Mabuti ang pakikisama basta hindi ito nagiging pakiki-sama.” The stress in the last word is on the last syllable. Fellowship is good so long as it does not end in something evil.
Very strong too among Filipinos is the padrino or godfather syndrome. This works with another value – utang na loob (debt of gratitude). Political mentors and contributors make the bulk of the public officials’ list of favors to return or to be paid back. While a Pac-man has yet to evolve on the local scene, a number of gobblers, past and present, have made their presence felt. Or have you forgotten the Voltes Five, the Pajero Gang, the Chinese connection that lorded it over Pampanga’s infrastructure scene?
The first order of the day in any winning official’s agenda after each election is the repayment of all debts. Especially, those of gratitude.
The primacy Philippine society puts on material things as the yardsticks of success further tightened the grip of graft among our local officials and their families, both immediate and extended. And with the grafters among local officials apparently making more the rule than the exception, graft in government has become the “normal” way. To which our people have fallen in resignation, in indifference.
But for the local officials who may have felt alluded to here, who will raise a hoot over our thesis of a deeply imbedded and expansive culture of graft in the Philippines? Indeed, who gives a damn over this our damaged culture?

Our own Bren

TODAY -- July 9 -- marks the 75th anniversary of the birth of Bren Zablan Guiao of Magalang, Pampanga, the first governor ever appointed in the post-EDSA revolutionary government of Corazon Aquino.
This time for remembering moved me to rummage through my files of yellowed clippings of past writings. Here’s one Zona Libre column titled “Sense of history” in The Voice , May 21-27, 1995, just after the elections of that year.
BREN Z. GUIAO lost the governorship of Pampanga. But he won the adulation of the whole nation.
His early concession of defeat is a total departure from the standard praxis of Philippine politics. From a politico, Bren Z. Guiao transfigured into a hombre de estado, the ultimo caballero.
We are reminded of a column we wrote here on “Guiao’s legacy” a month before the elections which a Guiao lieutenant termed an “advance obituary” for the governor.
Our piece proved – modesty be damned – prophetic: “The three-term administration of the Honorable Bren Z. Guiao, governor of Pampanga, will be long remembered, nay, forever enshrined in the heart of the Kapampangan, not so much for its grand edifice complex but for its strong political will to uphold the sanctity of the ballot in May 1995.”
No, egocentric as we may seem, we have not yet the conceit to claim that the good governor heeded our word.
Guiao has a keen sense of history. Key player as he was in major epochs of contemporary Philippine politics – victor in the Constitutional Convention of 1971, victim of Martial Law and the 1984 Batasan polls, victor anew in the national epiphany of EDSA and its immediate aftermath. This was the factor at work on the night of May 8.
Our column concluded thus: “A few years from now, people shall be misty-eyed when they remember Bren Z. Guiao of having the courage, the supreme will to uphold the Kapampangan’s sacred democratic right, whatever the price. Even at the cost of losing that which he cherished most.”
No, we were not fully right. More than the governorship, Bren Z. Guiao cherishes his place in history.
Shame on us for forgetting Guiao’s by-phrase oft quoted early in his term but lost somewhere in the exhilaration the governor’s seat invariably brings: “Power is ephemeral. All this will pass. We just have to give our best to our people. And be the wiser for it.”
Godspeed, Sir. And thank you. If only for the memories.
Just for the record: Under the governorship of Bren Z. Guiao (1986 to 1995), Pampanga became Number 1 in investments – beating Cebu – prior to the Mount Pinatubo eruptions, and bounced back to Number 5 in two years since; the Paskuhan Village and the Pampanga Sports and Convention Center that hosted the 1990 Palarong Pambansa were constructed; the engineering interventions to contain the lahar rampages and the Bualon and Mawaque resettlement sites were set in place.
To me, the greatest contribution of Guiao to his people is that which I enshrined in but a few paragraphs in my foreword to the book Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan spirit.
E ko magmalun, mibangun ya ing Pampanga
The exhortation of Governor Bren Z. Guiao for his people to end their collective grief, rise from despair, and believe in a renascent Pampanga brought the first ray of hope in the wake of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions.
It was the faintest flicker of hope though, the Kapampangan trapped in the most desperate straits: damned in a wasteland of buried homes and broken dreams, doomed in a landscape of death and desolation.
Beyond PR savvy – of which Guiao was a guru – the slogan was founded on the governor’s unwavering faith in the Kapampangan character: of grit and resiliency, that had served him well in rising from every adversity: be it socio-politico-economic, as in the agrarian unrest, the Marcos dictatorship, and the communist rebellion; or natural, as in the floods that perennially devastated the croplands and aqua farms of the province and damaged its infrastructure.
Today, we are all witnesses to the triumph of Guiao’s faith: Pampanga has risen from the ashes. Today, we remember our Bren with respect, with fondness, and yes, with misty eyes.

The difference

“POLITICAL POSITIONS are the realms of the laity and not of men and women of the cloth. I believe that the laity of Pampanga is now more mature and ready to take active part in governance and look among themselves for a leader.”
So spake San Fernando Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David as he asked the Kapampangan laity here to “stop pushing priests and religious leaders to run for public office.”
He may not have spoken ex cathedra, but the bishop’s words are no less binding on the faithful.
Still may we be privileged to ask: So where was Among Ambo two years and four months ago when the “reluctant” Rev. Fr. Eddie T. Panlilio was pushed to run for governor? He should have said as much then, better yet, walked his talk.
Besides the laity, perhaps the good bishop should address priests and religious leaders too: that they not allow the laity to shove them into politics. It takes two to tango, as everyone very well knows, bishops included, even if they don’t dance.
Brilliant theologian as he is, Among Ambo has a ready rationalization on Panlilio’s case – “a different situation” obtained in May 2007, “the circumstances were not the same as today’s political situation.”
How different, he did not elaborate in the news report where he was quoted.
A quick look back to 2007: contesting the governorship were the twin evils that scourged Pampanga – illegal gambling and the quarry plunder. Thus the need for a moral alternative. That obviously makes Among Ambo’s “different situation.”
The lamentations of Panlilio himself though belie the bishop’s contention. Jueteng, under the guise of the small town lottery, is a recurrent refrain in the governor’s already discordant song of good governance.
And then there is the already announced Capitol comeback of Leon Guerrero, er, Lito Lapid, the very embodiment of the perceived plunder of the provincial quarry coffers. That which Panlilio recently took to the Ombudsman, although Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao has long lodged that same complaint with the same office.
In the scheme of local politics now, it would seem that the 2010 elections would just be reprise of 2007. Same issues of evils. Same contenders and pretenders. Therefore necessitating the re-election of the same moral alternative.
“We must stop pushing the religious to run for public office. It is a different realm altogether from religious ministry.”
So the bishop re-stressed his point for effect.
Now, what if Panlilio runs for re-election, or inshallah, for president of the Republic?
So what will Among Ambo do? Come out with another rationalization of a “different situation” obtaining in Pampanga or in the whole Philippines?
The difference is not in the situation. Most clearly now, the difference is in Panlilio. No, make that: The difference is Panlilio.
So can you do anything about it, Your Excellency?

Different SOCAs

NO ZERO-SUM situation here. I am certain a lot of good things did happen in Angeles City this past year, and even more certain that Mayor Francis “Blueboy” Nepomuceno could not have missed them in his state of the city address (SOCA) scheduled at SM City Clark yesterday. (I wrote this piece Sunday.)
Yeah, a lot of things Mister Blue did accomplish, the most dazzling – literally now – of which are those multi-colored dancing lights at the “beautified” islands and round-about along MacArthur Highway near Chevalier School.
But I want to hear also from Mister Blue a SOCA of a different kind – the state of crime in Angeles.
Last time I heard, the city police are still cluelessly contemplating a blank wall on all the cases of killings, heinous killings at that, in the city dating to 2007 yet – in no definite order now: culinary icon Aling Lucing, businessman Arwin Ting, trader and disc jockey Heherson Punzalan, Apple d.app half-brother Joven Pineda Deala, Angeles City oldtimer American national George Lavalley, Barangay Pulung Maragul Chairman Edilberto Cayanan, American tourist Jerry Melton, former Barangay Malabanas Chairman Thelmo Lalic, to name just the high-profile ones.
Then there are the carnapping cases, snatchings and robberies so reportedly rampant across the city. All these making a mockery of Angeles’ self-anointment as the “city of friendship.” All these making the whole Angeles City police corps the bumbling, inept, idiotic Keystone Cops of silent-movie Hollywood. Or, in the local parlance, the pulis patola and the pulis pansitan combined.
One more SOCA Mister Blue had to deal with is the state of corruption on aliens, or, to put it simply, the extortion activities reportedly undertaken by a so-called “Jojo Group” with purported links to the city government on business establishments along Fields Avenue which, as everybody knows here, are pre-dominantly owned by foreign nationals.
At least one alleged victim had bravely come out in the open, aided by the brave Barangay Balibago Chairman Tony Mamac to denounce these alleged city hall-backed “predators.” The city government slapping these whistleblowers with libel will not clear the city of the muck of extortion in any way, Mister Mayor.
A related SOCA here is the shakedown of collared aliens. This refers to the trumped-up cases police file against foreigners patronizing the local flesh market.
A most celebrated case is that of Dr. Stephen Soul, a former justice of the peace in Australia, who claimed to have been framed up by a conspiracy of local police, prosecutors and judges. His story – and more – is splashed all over the web. Just log on to centralluzoncorruption.com. While the allegations there can be too sweeping, they nonetheless merit some introspective, if not intensive, investigation.
No SOCA this time but a SOGA – the state of garbage in Angeles – needs urgent addressing too by Mayor Blue. What with the barring of the city from dumping its waste at the Kalangitan landfill in Capas, Tarlac owing to its – Angeles’, that is – over P60-million debt.
So where is Angeles’ dumping site now, may we be privileged to know, Sir?
Then there is the SOCA that the city’s barangay chairmen have been clamoring for: the state of collectible arrears of their share in the internal revenue allotment (IRA).
The bread and butter of barangay development, the IRA share is life-and-death situation for the village chairs. IRA share delayed, is barangay development denied, so paraphrased so correctly one chief who looked like Mamac of that maxim on justice.
And last but not least of the SOCAs we’d like to hear is the state of the (sports) complex of Angeles.
So, whatever happened to this centerpiece project of the Nepomuceno administration to wean away the city youth from drugs and nurture a culture of sports excellence in the city?
So what happened to the bitterly opposed -- by Vice Mayor Vicky Vega-Cabigting and her flank of councilors, and as doggedly defended – by Councilor Pitong del Rosario and his silent partners, plan to secure a loan of over P600 million for the complex?
These are the SOCAs we expected to hear from the Honorable Francis Nepomuceno. No state of the city address of his will be complete – and true – without them.
Unless Mayor Blue’s SOCA meant statements of crafty alibis. Which we simply refuse to deem.

Edna de Ausen-David, governor

“WITH UTMOST dedication and efficiency,” she served Pampanga as its acting governor from January to July 1999, and gave “merit to her office and honor to the province.”
So read the Certificate of Recognition the provincial government handed to Board Member Edna de Ausen- David last Wednesday.
“Atsing Edna has been one of the most visible figures in public governance and we are honored to have her today as one of our previous governors even though it was only for a brief time.”
So hailed Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio of my ninang.
By operation of law, then Senior Board Member David took the reins of the Capitol after the Ombudsman’s preventive suspension of Gov. Lito Lapid and Vice Gov. Clayton Olalia over the quarry scam.
It was no walk in the park for Governor Edna. My Zona Libre column titled “Let her be” in The Voice, February 21-27, 1999 issue had this to say in part:
EDNA de Ausen-David is but a stop-gap fixture at the Capitol. Hers is but a transition governance. Fixed at six months. Unless something really damning to the suspendidong magka-kosa of Gov. Lito Lapid and Vice Gov. Clayton Olalia crops up.
But already Edna de Ausen-David is the object of a propaganda campaign which vile and venom make the bitterest election campaign like a romp through the bush.
The flak makes one conclude that overnight, Edna de Ausen-David has become not only gubernatorial timber but the very “man to beat” for governor.
Inadvertently, these propagandistang pulpol have achieved the very opposite of what they set out to accomplish. Instead of demolishing Aling Edna, they even raised her political stock.
Already, Aling Edna enjoys the full support of the Pampanga mayors. Of all but one.
Already, Aling Edna has been hailed as “a woman with balls of iron” with her singular devotion to pursue President Estrada’s uncompromising line against drug trafficking with her creation of an anti-drug and anti-illegal gambling task forces.
Already, NGO groups and the top religious leaders of the province have manifested their full support to the David administration. Their prayers too.
With the so-called Voltes V group of Mayors Benny Espino of Arayat, Jun Canlas of Bacolor and Frank Ocampo of Sta. Rita, and Board Members Rosve Henson who served as vice governor, and Dinan Labung forming her formidable core group, it was during Governor Edna’s short term that the seeds of the Central Luzon drug rehabilitation center in Magalang germinated.
In another column, Tailspin in the Angeles Observer issue of November 20-26, 1999, I wrote:
AT the recent met mel mission of Fil-Am doctors from panhandle, Florida, USA held at the Bulaon Resettlement, former Gov. Estelito P. Mendoza lauded BM Edna de Ausen-David for working for the completion of the Rodriguez District Hospital at the site.
Before a throng of cabalens, Apung Titong reminded everybody that it was at the time of Gov. Edna de Ausen-David that the hospital became truly deserving of its name.
It was not lost on the people at the occasion that Apung Titong’s testimonial to Aling Edna was uttered in the presence of the returned Gov. Lito Lapid. If that’s not one pitik at the Bida, I don’t know what is...
...Aling Edna also received some accolades from the officials of San Simon town.
Azor Sitchon’s people take pride in pointing out that the fence around the town hall wasconstructed with funds extended by Governor Edna.
“Sa kokonting panahon ng panunungkulan ni Governor Edna, totoong marami siyang napagawa at natulungan. Hindi kamukha ng iba diyan. Maraming nagawa hindi para sa bayan kundi sa sarili lamang,” so said a San Simon official.
Yeah, Governor Edna de Ausen-David deserves her own niche at the Capitol.
­

Back on hallowed walls

THE SAGA of the portraits of Pampanga’s governors is finally concluded. They are back to the hallowed hall to where they rightfully belong.
Sometime in the late August 2007, the portraits of the past governors suddenly disappeared from their lofty perches on the second floor lobby of the Capitol.
In a delayed reaction, we wrote in our editorial of November 16, 2007, thus:
No explanations were ever given. Giving rise to a multitude of speculations, as their banishment to parts unknown came after the papering – and peppering – of the walls of the Capitol with photographs of the Reverend Governor Eddie T. Panlilio and his holy warriors.
Yeah, there was Panlilio, unfrocked but more priestly in all poses of prayerful saintliness; his fanatical faithful in the throes of devotional delight upon regaining this plot of Paradise once lost to the forces of evil.
Yeah, the virtual mural celebrates the epiphany – if not the agony and the ecstasy – of Panlilio triumphant.
Not content with the still photographs, a video box at the second floor continuously played and replayed Panlilio in excelsis to the accompaniment of Kapampangan music appropriated by his camp for their exclusive use during the election campaign.
And in what could only be interpreted as adding insult to the injury Panlilio caused the sangguniang panlalawigan, plastered at the very entrance leading to the session hall is a picture of the (un)confirmed provincial administrator, Atty. Vivian Dabu and the equally (un)confirmed provincial legal counsel, Atty. Ma. Elissa Velez lounging on hammocks: an in-your-face do-your-worse-what-do-we-care sneer at the provincial board.
So, what gives?
Is the Panlilio administration doing a tabula rasa -- clearing the slate of col colive remembrance of the Kapampangans of their past political leaders, to imprint and impact Panlilio’s “good governance” into their memory?
Something of a belief that the past – evil as it was – mattered not. Only the present – good as it is – is worth keeping. Some perverse faith put to the extreme by Hitler and his Nazis that sought the extermination of all Jewry, of Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that aspired for the obliteration of China’s pre-communist culture, of Stalin’s rewriting of his own history and that of the Russian revolution, and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge’s extinguishing of Cambodia’s intelligentsia. In their vain, if futile, attempt to perpetuate a memory all their own among their people.
No, Panlilio is too small, too holy yet, to join that unholy league of distinguished, err, infamous tyrants. But by removing Pampanga’s political pantheon, Panlilio can be rightly accused of ordaining his own apotheosis.
And there are not a few people who call themselves civil society who are only too glad, if not too blind, to indulge Panlilio’s every wish.
Eight months later, on July 4, 2008, and the portraits still missing from their place of honor, we wrote here thus:
Reeling from media flak, Panlilio after sometime announced that the portraits of the former governors were taken down for restoration, having been hung too long and exposed to dust and grime.
So where were they taken for restoration? In the ceiling of the Benigno Aquino Hall, for the indulgence of rats, mites and cockroaches.
Utter disrespect of the memory of past leaders is no manifestation of pride in the Kapampangan.
On Tuesday, June 30, 2009 – nearly two years after their disappearance, the portraits – this time of all who served as Pampanga governor, down to Panlilio – are back in renewed splendor.
So all’s well that ends well?
Yeah, right. But what if media did not make a ruckus of the disappearance of those portraits, and later of their being dumped in the ceiling of the Benigno Aquino Hall?
Let’s do our own dumping of our malicious speculations now. Let us just take it from Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao who, during the re-dedication program, thanked Panlilio “for honoring the past governors of the province and putting premium on the importance of service.”
Amen.

Cong Randy

“MAGPEPERYA.”
Derisively dismissed a number of Pampanga politicos of UP Professor Randy S. David with his throwing the gauntlet at the House aspirations of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Magpeperya refers to operators of peryahan or karnabal ­ -- travelling small-time amusement troupes that come to barrios every fiesta time.
Yeah, it has come to mean political wanna-bes that show up in their hometown whenever elections are coming around.
No, Professor David is nowhere near such kind. He’s no show-up in Betis, nor in the rest of Pampanga, only election time. He’s very much into the Kapampangan day-to-day grind.
And yes, Professor David has the requisite breeding, education, and stature to fill up any political post, so far superior to the current cretins that demean, if not totally shear off whatever honor left in those “Honorable” appendages to their names.
I remember what I – as then president of the Pampanga Press Club – wrote in nomination of Professor David as Most Outstanding Kapampangan for 1990. Here it is – direct from my mementoes of that presidency:
NO OTHER figure in the field of contemporary journalism – both print and broadcast – has as much faith in the inherent wisdom of the common folk as our nominee. A strong faith that is articulated in his widely-read column Buhay Pinoy in the national daily Diyaryo Filipino and translated in his unstinting efforts, via his popular Public Forum program, to raise the voice of the masa to a level audible to lawmakers, law enforcers, government decision-makers, as well as the pillars of private industry.
By these twin endeavors, he has achieved the very essence of media – of being the coordinate point between the governing and the governed; of being the social equalizer in a democracy. A rare feat even among the best journalists.
Our nominee’s achievements continue to earn recognition from various national award-giving bodies, the latest from the 4th Star Awards for TV for his Public Forum, adjudged Best Public Affairs Program for 1990 and him adjudged Best Public Affairs Program Host, given last October 27. That these were awarded despite his program having been forced off the air sometime in September yet is a testament to Public Forum’s great impact and its host’s deep imprint into the national consciousness.
As the nation has done its share, it is now high time for Pampanga to give that long-due recognition to a son who has given her much honor.
We are therefore privileged to nominate Professor RANDOLF S. DAVID Most Outstanding Kapampangan in the field of mass communications.
It was dated 30 October 1990.
Of course, Professor David was bestowed MOKA honors that year.
It is not a generally known fact too that Professor David was one of the more active civil society representatives at the Mount Pinatubo Commission (MPC) at the time of the lahar rampages.
Professor David was a greater, and much oftener presence, at MPC brainstorming sessions than say, Gov. Lito Lapid or some other congressmen and local government executives that time. I should know, I represented Lapid, as his senior consultant and spinmeister then, at the MPC.
And then, in the “miracle” of the Panlilio victory in the 2007 gubernatorial polls, Professor David was an element there too.
Professor David has all the right to run. All the Kapampangans, not only in the second district, should look at this as a most welcome development. As it has long been clichéd: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the country.
We should all encourage Professor David and some other like-minded citizens to contest political posts. More than an audacity of hope, they embody the heroic element, that patriotism inherent in the Filipino but long lost in patronage, in the deal-or-no-deal sell-out of principles that is Philippine politics.
So one Lorelei Fajardo, one of GMA’s battery of spokespersons, questioned David’s motivation in running.
“We should have the right intention and right motive in running, and I think there’s no better intention for us than to serve our country, serve our people and make a good difference. “This should be the ultimate intention, and nothing else,”” So said she.
“If she runs, I will think about it very seriously. Yes, I think so. She will not go unchallenged. She will not go unopposed; we will oppose her every step of the way…It’s probably the most foolish thing to do. I know it’s quixotic to run against the President—somebody who has no qualms about using all the powers of her office—but I think somebody has to stop her. And if we get to that point, I will do my part even if that may be myself.” So said Professor David.
That is more than enough right intention and right motive for running. Run Cong Randy, run.