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.
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.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 12:37 PM
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