Tarzan swings

TARZAN LAZATIN is running for mayor of Angeles City.

The report sent shivers down the spines of die-hard cadres and partisans of Mayor Ed Pamintuan. They who have harboured thoughts – for lack of a credible candidate against the 2012 World Mayor Prize finalist – that May 2013 would be no election but mere coronation for EdPam.

Tarzan Lazatin is not seeking re-election as congressman of Pampanga’s first district.

The report sent true-blue supporters of Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao and dyed-in-the-wool followers of Blue Boy Nepomuceno into convulsions of ecstasy. They who have been breaking their heads to untie the Gordian knot binding the first congressional district to Tarzan.

Tarzan moves and the whole of Angeles City, Mabalacat and Magalang become some fault line hit by Magnitude 8 tremors in the political Richter scale.

Why the sudden swing – from re-election to the House to a city hall comeback – for Tarzan?

Sans any pronouncement – as of 10:31 a.m., June 26 as this is being written – straight from the Jungle Base, I can only go about maybes and perhapses. 

Maybe the congressional post has become so tediously ordinary that it has lost any attraction to Tarzan.

Bills, bills and more bills. Too many to still care for billing. Yeah, “Most Outstanding Congressman” three years in a row, while no mean feat to others, may have become more of the usual for Tarzan. There’s ennui too rising out of overabundance.       

Rejuvenated perhaps with his reported stem-cell procedure, Tarzan seeks some greater challenges posed by a more formidable opponent in the city mayorship than the perceived palookas primping for the first district congressional contest. And I don’t mean my perennial favourite, the genius Chito Bacani, here.

Rather than a simple mood swing, Tarzan may be in some mind shift to try and test his restored, if not remade, stem-celled self.

A re-election to Congress, is no sweat, leisurely walk through the woods for Tarzan. Barely worth a pop of a pill, blue or whatever, even for the pre-stem celled septuagenarian. .   

Au contraire, contesting the Angeles City mayorship – from a well-ensconced, publicly-acclaimed performer – is a veritable war, demanding the best of Tarzan, physically, mentally, spiritually, and by no means the least, financially.

There is the greater challenge. So there Tarzan the darer goeth.

No maybe here but methinks that, rejuvenated and all, Tarzan’s rightful place is still the House rather than city hall.  

Tarzan’s wisdom of age and wealth of experience translate to statesmanship, which, in the scheme of things political, is essentially congressional not mayoral. 

Of course, it’s just me. And methinking is nowhere near any worth to Tarzan.

Still, it’s worth writing down here.

No maybes now but Tarzan versus EdPam makes one battle royale. Indeed, the only battle in Pampanga next year really worth our whiles.