Class war

“THERE WILL be no political alliance. That’s for sure as of the moment."

So Sun-Star Pampanga quoted in its banner story Monday Irish Calaguas, senior political adviser to 1^st District Rep. Carmelo "Tarzan" Lazatin, in the wake of reports of a brewing coalition between the sitting congressman aspiring to be city mayor and the former city mayor and once and future Congressman Francis "Blueboy" Nepomuceno.

Calaguas was quick to note though: "But we have our supporters in the Nepomuceno camp and theirs on our side.”

In an interview over a week back, Nepomuceno expressed, albeit cryptically, his support of Lazatin thus: "Of course, I would support the mayoralty candidate who will not support my congressional opponent." Or something to that effect if the interviewer got it right.

Yeah, as the friend of my enemy is also my enemy, so the enemy of my enemy is my friend too. 

Re-electing Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan has virtually put all his eggs in Vice Gov. Joseller "Yeng" Guiao's basket -- taking all 28 of the city's 33 village chiefs to Guiao, making Guiao ever-present in his Partido Abe Kapampangan's barangay bingo binges.

With the battle cry "Rain or Shine, Agyu Tamu," Pamintuan has indeed forged a united front with Guiao.

So Nepomuceno has nowhere to go but to Lazatin.

Besides, it won't do any good for the Nepomuceno ego to side with Pamintuan, the bitterness of his 2010 trouncing in the latter's hand still too much, too painful to swallow.  

“Thank you! We appreciate that gesture of Blueboy.” So Calaguas said simply of the proffered Nepomuceno support.

Still, no formal alliance. Not for the moment. Not as yet?

May as well be never.

The best thing that can happen to Pamintuan's re-election efforts is a Lazatin-Nepomuceno alliance.

Conversely then, the worst thing that can happen to Lazatin's run for the mayorship is an alliance with Nepomuceno.

For one, the "double cross" charge that Lazatin hurled against Pamintuan will bounce back at him.

"I was the victim, not the perpetrator, in 1998, junked at the last moment by my ally." So the then Lazatin-allied Pamintuan maintained of his defeat in the congressional contest against his then-vice mayor Nepomuceno.

An alliance therefore between Lazatin and Nepomuceno will give most credence to the double-crossed Pamintuan, and the lie to a double-crossing Pamintuan, having put on record his support for Guiao came only after Lazatin's mindshift to the mayorship.

A short trip down memory lane now: In 1995, when Pamintuan took Nepomuceno for his running mate, Lazatin was quoted as telling the mayor: "O'bat bibyayan mo pa reng mete. Datang ing panaun ila pang makamate keka ren.(Why are you resurrecting the (politically) dead? Time will come when they will (politically) slay you)."             

After their doble-pusoy defeat in 1988 -- the patriarch Mang Kitong losing his mayoralty seat, firstborn son Robin avalanched in the gubernatorial race -- the Nepomucenos by 1995 were already consigned to the dustbin of political history.  

Credit Pamintuan then for their resurrection through the then "non-political" Blueboy. 

Prophetic, indeed, was Lazatin. With Nepomuceno besting Pamintuan in the 1998 congressional contest.

Phlegmatic, might Lazatin now seem. In an alliance with Nepomuceno, virtually swallowing that he vomited to Pamintuan in 1995. More rightly than wrongly, 'tis said that Nepomuceno can come back to political life only without Lazatin or Pamintuan as opponent.

Pathetic, could Lazatin also look. An alliance with Nepomuceno (mis)construed as  clutching at straws -- ever the metaphor for a desperate move. Unless he is not anymore the political kingpin he has long been pictured to be, Lazatin would have no need for Nepomuceno just to fight the upstart Pamintuan.  

Best -- or worst, depending from where you look -- of all, a Lazatin-Nepomuceno alliance hews perfectly to the age-old struggle of classes -- the "history of all hitherto existing society…"

On one hand: the landed gentry, the feudal lords, the political dynasties embodied as the immovable object -- preserving the status quo, keeping their socio-economic and political stranglehold of the nation.

On the other: the working classes, the intelligentsia, the greater mass of Filipino society -- banded as the irresistible force to crush bourgeois domination.

All it takes is some romanticism from the anti-dictatorship struggle, some grassroots pedagogy on the imperative of the rebellion of the poor towards their ultimate liberation, some activist steeped in dialectics…Alexander Cauguiran, is that you?

Lazatin. Nepomuceno. No formal alliance. Not for the moment. Not ever. Only for their own sakes.