Bald truth

KALBONG WALANG MODO, HUWAG IBOTO!

Big bold letters scream atop the grimacing mug of you-know-who in all his Johnson-waxed shining baldness. Ready for both the web and the printing press. Ah, sweet revenge, devilishly grinned some local mediamen.

Truth is, I personally disapprove of it, dousing ice-cold water on the burning enthusiasm of the graphic artist so proud of his creation. It is politically incorrect, a pejoration of all the follically challenged.

But no sweeping generalization there, the artist grumbles, the qualifying “WALANG MODO” plus the distinguishing photo exacting the limit of its extent to you-know-who and none other.

Ay, you are too young to know the ramifications of baldness, which go way beyond the physical attribute of hairlessness.

In our youth, we innocently chanted: “Isa, dalawa, tatlo/ ang tatay mong kalbo/ pumasok sa banyo/ nabasag ang ulo.”  And laughed to our young hearts’ delight at some misfortune as though inhering in that father’s baldness. So cruel. 

Then, there is the common retort to any bombed-out joke: Nagpapatawa, hindi naman kalbo.

The great comedians of yore from Pugo and Togo to Pugak and Pipoy had billiard balls for heads. Hence, baldness becoming a requisite for laughter. Which degenerated the state of baldness as only good for laughs, never for anything serious; only for the insipid, never for the intellectual.

At the other extreme, again per movie stereotyping, baldness equals toughness,

meanness, savagery. As in Bruno Punzalan, the perennial Japanese berdugo in the war pictures of Fernando Poe, Jr. where the brutalized FPJ singlehandedly defeated the whole Japanese Imperial Army.

In between though, some laughable meanness of the baldy baddie finding manifest in Doctor Evil and Mini Me in the Austin Powers film series.  

No laughing matter however is the descent of baldness to depravation with the clean shaven death row convicts – ready for the electric chair – appending heinously criminal element to plain hairlessness.    

As there’s nothing funny, fearsome much less criminal in the de-follicled you-know-who, it is best to just discard that don’t-vote-for-him graphics.   

If you so insist – bound by your duty to let the voting public know what kind of man they may end up with as their representative for the next three years – then I say GO, just delete “KALBONG WALANG MODO.”

Why still write the obvious? That phrase is but a redundancy of the photo underneath – the same one published in the front page of Punto!.

A picture truly  worth a thousand and one words, with abusive, arrogant, bald, braggart, brat, cocky, calculating, discriminatory, disrespectful, egg-headed, elitist, flamboyant, flare-uppy, galling, grumpy, hairless, haughty, highhanded, ill-humored, ill-tempered, impetuous, jeering, juvenile, knocker, know-it-all, leery, lofty, master, miser, nasty, niggardly, obdurate, offish,  pompous, pugnacious, quarrelsome, quirky, rabid, repulsive, rude, snobbish, snooty, testy, tightwad, unapologetic, unrepentant, vainglorious, vindictive,  whimsy, wrong, xeric, yahoo, yuck, zero, and zilch but only token representation of the letters in the English alphabet. Zaldy A’s look-alike and the foremost visionary in the local media gasping for air after the litany of verbiage there.

The photo is the message itself. “HUWAG IBOTO” but the kicker. Just make sure the voters won’t mistake him for Cris Garbo.

  

Backlash

“GIVE ME a chance to help you. I cannot let Pampanga be left behind in the progress that is being attained by the Philippines.”

So said President Aquino at the Liberal Party rally in the City of San Fernando on the last day of filing of the certificates of candidacy of 2013 poll aspirants and pretenders. This, as he endorsed Eddie T. Panlilio for governor anew, and promised he would “advance the full liberation of Pampanga.”

Liberation from whom and for what, the President did not bother to explain. As he could not, Pampanga – per data of government agencies themselves – ranks among the country’s top performing provinces. Yeah, wasn’t Gov. Lilia G. Pineda recently recognized as Most Outstanding Governor in the National PESO (Public Employment Service Office) Award? 

Under the same breath though, Aquino declared: “A plan is not yet set on whether or not we are moving to Clark (as the new international gateway),” citing distance – 80 kilometers – between Metro Manila and Clark as primary deterring factor.

So what was Aquino again saying he cannot let Pampanga be left behind in terms of progress, when the full development of Clark airport makes the singular factor to a greater socio-economic take-off not only of Pampanga but of the whole of Central Luzon and, by ripple effect, of the whole north Philippines? 

“Misinformed,” said the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM) of Aquino on the Clark airport issue. Disinforming, I dare say Aquino was more likely doing with his Clark airport pronouncement.

Which leads me to muse: Some foot-in-mouth disease Aquino gets afflicted with when exposed to anything Kapampangan. Symptomatic of some manic obsession with his former Ateneo economics professor and immediate predecessor? (Aye, what was it that Professor Gloria did to pupil Noynoy that so sparked a vindictive streak in him long after he graduated?)

GMA has become not only the subject of persecution but the object of derision in the Aquino administration.

Even in far off New Zealand, Aquino did not spare her to get some pogi-points for himself before the Filipino community, thus: “’Yung mga kababayan raw ho nating corrupt sa Pilipinas kagagara ng kotse, kamamahal, katutulin. Pero pagka ginustong tumakas, ang ginagamit wheelchair (Our fellow citizens, who are engaged in corruption in the Philippines, have opulent, expensive and fast cars. But if they want to escape (prosecution), they use a wheelchair).”

Some real sick joke there, not a few – including many in Aquino’s audience – deemed at the ridicule heaped on the very infirmed GMA.

And then some more – of GMA and impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona being “reunited” in jail: “…baka po mag-abot pa sila sa kulungan ng pinalitan nating Pangulo.”  More prejudgment than prediction clearly obtaining there.

It comes as no surprise then for Aquino’s backstopper – don’t ever read that in the old  Kafamfangan locution or risk libel – Mar Roxas getting his own kick out of wronging the Kapampangan.

For one, Roxas – as Transportation and Communications secretary – served as  the single biggest stumbling block to the development of the Clark Airport, if the thesis of the PGKM  were to be believed, for his alleged subservience to the “vested interests of the imperial dragons” whose Metro Manila-based businesses would be jeopardized by a fully developed Clark Airport.  (Read the banner story today.)

Then, at the regional peace and order council meeting in Oxford Hotel last week, the Interior and Local Government Secretary shamed Governor Pineda as well as  all the governors, municipal mayors and other elected officials present when he seated at the presidential table the currently unelected, government non-posted Panlilio, in effect placing him above any and all of them.

Asked about Panlilio’s presence, Roxas simply snapped: “I am one of those who believe in the leadership of Among Ed.”

“Early politicking,” cried, albeit silently, a number of those present. Roxas is LP president on-leave while Panlilio is official LP candidate for governor.

When Roxas took over the DILG, he made a ballyhoo of his taking leave of absence as LP president to preclude any conflict with his being an “impartial DILG secretary” who has to deal with local officials with different political affiliations.

“Tinatanggal ko kung anumang maaring maging conflicts, iniiwasan ko anumang maaring maging conflict nang sa ganoon magampanan ng tama ang aking trabaho," he said then.

Roxas fork-tonguing there. The real intent of his appointment at the DILG most manifest now – master the LGUs to make the LP win the 2013 elections – from the ground up to the House and Senate – and set the stage for his presidential run in 2016.

Unfortunately for Roxas, that ambition is in grave danger of early abortion. 

Aquino’s apathy and arrogance toward the Kapampangans, dutifully amplified by Roxas, translate to the LP itself, making the party senatorial ticket fair game to some vindictiveness now rising among the cabalens. 

Already a “Proposition 0-12” is being raised by some sectors and organizations, not the least of which is the broad-based PGKM, with the singular aim of preventing any LP senatorial bet making it to the winning 12 in Pampanga.  

More radical minds are advocating to sweep the LP out of any provincial, district, city or municipal post in 2013. If only as a punishing tit for Aquino’s arrogant tat.

“For they have sown the wind, so they shall reap the whirlwind.” So it is written in Hosea 8:7

Kapampangan resbak. As the street toughie calls that backlash.

     

 

 

Equal in death

DEATH IS the great equalizer. So it has been clichéd. The one sure thing none of us can evade, be we rich and powerful, poor and dispossessed and anywhere in between. 

But in death the great social and economic divide still obtains: the magnificent funeral and the beggar’s burial, the grand mausoleum and the common grave.

And never that twain shall meet?

Not in Angeles City lately. So it seems.

The impending closure of the over-capacitated Catholic Cemetery in the aptly named Barangay Cutcut – “bury” in English – posed a most serious situation to the city government, the sementeryong luma serving for the longest time as the city’s public cemetery.  

Times of necessity require ingenuity as much as serendipity, confluencing in the right direction toward a desired resolution. In the case at hand, this instanced in the unearthing of an over-two-scores-old city ordinance and the charity of a landed family to donate part of its estate to the city.

The unity of purpose and singularity of action among the principal stakeholders of the issue, capping, if not crowning, it all.

Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan tendering the Private Memorial Park Type Cemetery Ordinance of 1968 which gave the city government the mandate to seek from  private cemeteries five percent of their land for charity burial.

EdPam heard about the ordinance in 1988 yet, when he was vice mayor, from his father, Alberto, who served as vice mayor to Mayor Eugenio Suarez.

The Most Rev. Pablo Virgilio David, auxiliary bishop of San Fernando and curate of the Holy Rosary Parish Church which has jurisdiction over the city’s Catholic Cemetery, brokering understanding between the city government and the private cemetery’s owner.

Robin Nepomuceno, long time public servant from vice governor to barangay chairman, representing the family that owns Holy Mary Memorial Park.

The end-result: a memorandum of agreement whereby the memorial park will provide the site for some 200 concrete apartment-type niches to be built by the city government along standards set by the Department of Health.  

Bishop David said the Catholic Cemetery would be finally closed soon as the the niches at the Holy Mary Memorial Park are made available.

This, even as the city government fasttracks plans for the city’s new public cemetery in Barangay Sapa Libutad  – regarded as first “real” public cemetery, with the tiny one called “patirik-tirik” in Barangay Sto. Cristo, if I am not mistaken, in disuse for the longest time now.

“It will not just be a place for burial but a peaceful park where we will also have a crematorium," Pamintuan promised of the new public cemetery in two hectares of land donated by the Ayson family, owners of the Poracay Resort in the th sands of Porac town.
The final place of rest for the city’s poor just like those posh memorial parks where the rich are buried. 

On hallowed grounds, equality comes to everyone.  Aye, death may then be the great equalizer.

In the aspect of being “the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another. "As Mitch Albom in Tuesdays with Morrie says.

Keeping the Faith

WITH TEARS in my eyes periodically welling, I fixed my mind, my heart – albeit on television – at the canonization of San Pedro Calungsod and the six other new elect in the Church’s catalog of holy men and women.

More than Filipino pride, it was Faith that made the stirrings in my soul, deeply touched at the solemnity of the occasion as the Holy Father read the brief on the saintly life each of the seven led to their sanctifying death.

The first American Indian saint, St. Catherine Tekakwitha, called the ‘Lily of the Mohawk,” a model of youthful piety and virginity, persecuted for her faith.

St. Carmen Salles Barangueras of Spain, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the

Immaculate Conception which now serves 16 countries all over the world.

The German Franciscan sister St. Marianne Cope, founder and administrator of hospitals in New York, taking on a mission to Hawaii to administer to the lepers of the islands.

St. Anna Schaffer, also of Germany, holy mystic who elevated her debilitating ailment into a “mission of suffering,” for the love of her God and neighbour.

St. Giovanni Battista Piamarta of Italy. From  pastoral work in Brescia, he co-founded the Workman’s Institute to provide vocational and educational support as well as keep Christianity in the lives of young people moving to the city for work; and the Agricultural Colony of Remedello to provide similar services to farm workers. 

St. James Berthieu, French missionary in Madagascar active in catechizing children and caring for the sick and the poor, killed by the natives for refusing to renounce his faith.

And then, St. Pedro Calungsod,  17, lay catechist who joined a Jesuit mission to the Marianas to evangelize the native Chamorros.  Persecuted for his faith killed along with his mentor, Padre Diego Jose Luis San Victores. Their bodies thrown in to the ocean.

Thus, of the seven new saints, only our San Pedro Calungsod did not have a relic or an artefact presented at the altar of sacrifice. Profoundly touching.

The rites of canonization are a celebration of Faith, in effect a renewal of baptism, aye, a re-borning to the Church. Indeed so fitting with this year – October 12, 2012 to November 24, 2013 declared by Pope Benedict XVI as the Year of Faith.

In his apostolic letter Porta Fidei, the Holy Father declared "The 'door of faith' (Acts14:27) is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God and offering entry into his Church."

The Year of Faith serves as a “summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the One Savior of the world,” the apostolic letter says, which to me means the fostering of a deeper relationship with Jesus through, with and in His Church.

At the novena Masses leading to the feast of our patron, St. Jude Thaddeus, the Year of Faith is already finding full expression, in the very theme of our celebration: “Faith that hopes; Hope that loves; and Love that has Faith.”   

On the eve of the canonization rites, the Most Rev. Pablo Virgilio David, auxiliary bishop of San Fernando celebrated the anticipated Mass that delved on the theme: Faith inspires true humility.

“Humility is essential to faith,” said the good bishop in his homily, delving on the gospel for the day, Mark 10:35-45, to wit:

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him,
"Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."

He replied, "What do you wish me to do for you?"
They answered him, "Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left."
Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"

They said to him, "We can."
Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared."
When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John. Jesus summoned them and said to them, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Human pride, the arrogance of the ego, has no place in the Christian soul. The gospel teaches us total surrender to the will of God.

“Thy will be done,” as the Lord’s Prayer instructs. And in all humility – as Christians – we submit.  As St. Pedro Calungsod and all the saints lived and died.       

It gives me therefore a sense of sadness to read this story in abs-cbnnews.com, to wit: 

MANILA, Philippines - The canonization rites at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City have started, and the image of Blessed Pedro Calungsod occupies the second highest place of honor.

Based on sanpedrocalungsod.com, Calungsod’s image hangs third from the right at the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica. 

Vice-Postulator for the Canonization Cause of Blessed Pedro Calungsod Msgr. Ildebrando Leyson said this is the second highest place of honor..

Leyson explained that the center balcony is the highest place of honor. The next ranks then move out from the center.

The website also said the “ranks” are decided by three factors: first, martyrs rank higher than non-martyrs; bishops rank higher than priests; priests, who rank higher than religious, and lay people.

Mark 10:35-45 updated there. Places of honor are a negation of Christian humility. Go, check Luke 14:7 and Matthew 23:6.

When will we ever learn?

Missing the legendary Chito Bacani

SO YOU think politics is more fun in Angeles City with this slugfest between Mayor Ed Pamintuan and his challenger Cong. Tarzan Lazatin?

Think again, how much more fun it would have been with my favorite Chito Bacani thrown into the ring.

Think some more how the lackluster contest between the all too quiet Blueboy Nepomuceno and the clueless Yeng Guiao would be spiced up by Cong Chito’s  entry into the fray.   

Ah, Cong Chito’s mere presence, by the sheer power of his intellect, would have – unarguably – raised the level of discussion high, high, high above the gutter of the guttural, out of the vise-grip of the visceral, out of… whatever…Suffice to say a towering intellect Cong Chito most definitively is.

Who among the presidential candidates of 1998  but Cog Chito could have come up with the most brilliant concept of a “gravity train” with nothing – not electricity, not fossil fuel – but Newton’s law powering such conveyance between Angeles City and Manila?

Or, the flat rate of P5 bus fare from his beloved city to any point in Metro Manila and vice versa?

Or the declaration of Angeles City – again! – as the exclusive enclave of all nightclubs and adult shows, all casinos, and the establishment in Clark of the largest cockpit in the whole world, with a seating capacity of 100,000.

Distinctly do I remember the same brilliance coming to the fore anew in his 2010 congressional run. Ranged against Cong. Tarzan and the pretender Ares Yabut, Cong Chito had the distinction of solely having a solid legislative agenda, with the corresponding focal persons for their implementation, to wit:

Agendum 1: Provision of a stimulus package, ala President Barack Obama, whereby all indigent families will be given a monthly subsidy ofP1,000 each and senior citizens, P500 each. This to increase their purchasing power and spur greater economic activity.

Focal persons for this agenda: Angeles City Councilor Dr. Ruben Maniago and senior citizen coordinator Dinong de Guzman.

Agendum 2: Opportunity to the citizens. Any high school graduate, of good moral character will be given notarial powers, in the execution of contracts, agreements and deeds of sale.

Agendum 3: The establishment of state crematories and free burial services, including coffins and burial lot. Especially crafted with the Ampatuans in mind.     

Focal person: Balibago Barangay Chair Tony Mamac.

Agendum 4: Termination of the contracts with the local government units of the transport terminals in Mabalacat, Angeles City and the City of San Fernando.

Focal persons: Attorneys Pinggoy Lopez, Bryan Nepomuceno and Pogs Suller who will prepare the temporary restraining order to be filed in court by Mayor Oscar Rodriguez and Vice Mayor Edwin Santiago in San Fernando, and Marjorie Morales-Sambo in Mabalacat.

Agendum 5: Institute the doctrines of the Iglesia ni Cristo as mandatory in the educational system to instill in the youth love of God, parents, and country.

Focal persons: Secretary Ed Pamintuan and Mayor Boking Morales.

Agendum 6: Reduction of the value-added tax from 12 percent to 8 percent to ease the burden on the citizens and the businessmen.

Agendum 7: All inmates too poor to post bail to be released from jail to the custody of the barangay chairmen who will be directly responsible for their subsequent court appearances until final verdict is handed down.

The very antithesis of the soloing politico, Cong Chito’s approach to legislation is collegial and coordinative. Witness the focal persons he affixed in many of the above agenda. And mind, those listed above are no pushovers in their respective fields of endeavor.    

So have we come across such gems of proposed legislation from any other congressional candidate, not only in the first district but even in the entire archipelago?

A big NO there, as only the supremely intelligent Cong Chito could come up with such thought-provoking ideas.

With Cong Chito out of the elections for 2013, the first district, the city as well,  is deprived of a most brilliant mind befitting its ablest representation.

What opportunities we missed there. To our utter, irreparable loss.

    

Never no more

TWO WEEKS less than a year ago – October 25, 2011 to be exact – this paper bannered “Panlilio says: I’m done with politics.” The story, with my own byline, read:

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – “No more (electoral) politics for me.”
Thus, former Pampanga Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio debunked speculations that he was angling for an elective position in 2013.
“I am still waiting for the Church’s action on my request to return to the priesthood,” said Panlilio during a novena Mass at the St. Jude parish church in Barangay San Agustin here last Saturday.
Panlilio was the guest homilist in the Mass celebrated by Rev. Fr. Raul de los Santos, the parish priest.
In his introduction of the suspended priest-turned governor, De los Santos hailed Panlilio for “answering a higher call” in running for the governorship and winning in 2007, as well as in seeking, but losing, re-election in 2010.
The priesthood remained “manifest” in Panlilio, De los Santos said, even in the field of politics with his innate “sense of self-sacrifice and service to the people.”
Panlilio said that out of politics, he would continue in his various advocacies.
These included the environmental preservation with the Save the Trees Coalition that prevented the wholesale cutting of all trees along MacArthur Highway being pursued by the Department of Public Works and Highways and endorsed by the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the city government of San Fernando.
“Thanks to the STC, we can still enjoy the cool shade of the trees,” Panlilio said.
The campaign for good governance, he said, continues with nationwide talks being undertaken by the Kaya Natin group that included himself, former Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca and now Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo.
Jueteng politics
It was in the anti-jueteng advocacy that Panlilio was most emphatic in his homily.
“As long as jueteng politics exists, there will be no chance for good governance to take roots,” he said, lamenting that some priests and pastors regularly receive jueteng money.

Panlilio claimed that in the last elections, a Christian pastor intimated to him that a group of pastors were offered “as much as P100,000 individually” with a number of them accepting the bribe...   
From no mas to uno mas.

Last October 5, the last day for filing of certificates of candidacy, a smiling Panlilio was proclaimed by President Aquino as the official candidate of the Liberal Party for Pampanga governor.

My classmate, the Rev. Fr. Larry Sarmiento, head of the archdiocesan conciliation and arbitration committee (in matters concerning priests), was quoted as saying Panlilio “opted to leave the priesthood and apply for a dispensation from the priestly office.”

Last Tuesday, October 9, I found this posted in my Facebook account from some shares: Panlilio philosophizing his return to politics, thus:

Marami pong nagtatanong kung bakit gumitna na naman tayo sa pulitika.
Sa isang banda, nagulat at natakot po ako sa mga nangyayari sa ating probinsiya. Hayaan ninyong ilarawan ko ito sa pamamagitan ng isang kwento. May isang alagad ng simbahan na dating tumitindig laban sa jueteng. Ngunit nang magkasakit ang kanyang anak at wala siyang panggastos, lumapit siya sa asawa ng hinihinalang jueteng lord na nagtustos sa pagpapagamot sa kanyang anak. Mula noon ay isa na siya sa mga nagsasabi na wala naman palang masama sa jueteng.
Walang pinagkaiba ang naturang alagad ng simbahan sa mga pari, pulis, kapitan, mayor, gobernador, kongresista, senador, presidente, alagad ng media at maraming pang mamamayan na tumatanggap sa jueteng.

Wala silang nakikitang masama sa pagtanggap ng pera na kahit ito ay galing sa imoral at nakapipinsalang sugal.
Kapag taong simbahan na ang walang nakikitang masama sa jueteng politics na nagsasamantala at pinanatiling mahirap ang mga tao at nagdudulot pa ng iba't ibang kasamaan, totoong nakakatakot na ang ating kalagayan.
Kaya noong kinausap ako ng mga kababayan na nagmamalasakit sa Pampanga, pagkatapos akong hinikayat ng mga kasama sa Liberal Party sa pangunguna ni PNoy at dahil walang gustong tumayong alternatibo, nagpasya akong tumakbo.
Nagdesisyon akong pangunahan ang kahilingan ng mga Kapampangan sa kanilang pakikibakang wakasan ang jueteng politics, patronage politics, lumalaganap na magulang-anak, anak-magulang at mag-asawang politico dito sa Pampanga.
Muli kong iniaalay ang aking sarili upang mamuno sa ninanais ni PNoy na dalhin sa Pampanga ang matuwid na daan at ang pag-unlad na tinatamasa ng bansa.
Ating inaawit sa Imno Capampangan, "... gabun ding pantas at marangal, sibul ning lugud, carinan ning tepangan.... ".
Ayaw kong maisulat sa kasaysayan na minsan tumayo ang mga magigiting at may dangal na Kapampangan upang tuldukan ang jueteng at walang prinsipyong pamumuno, ako ay inalok na manguna at sila ay aking binigo sapagkat ang tugon ko sa kanila ay natatakot ako. Na sinabi ko sa kanila na ang kanilang pakiusap ay hindi kasama sa aking tinugunan bilang pari.
Ang Laban sa Pampanga ay laban nating lahat na mga Kapampangan, saan man po kayo ngayon na nagmamalasakit sa bayan nating tinubuan. Sa inyo rin po ito kayong may malasakit sa Pampanga. Hindi ko po sariling laban ito.
Napatunayan na po natin noong 2007 na kaya nating iluklok ang Effective, Ethical and Empowering leadership sa Pampanga kung tayo ay magkasama. Patunayan natin ito ay hindi tsamba. Patunayan natin na nanalo tayo noong 2007 dahil pinagkaisahan, pinagtulungan at isinakatuparan natin ang ninanais ng mga mamamayan. Kaya nating ulitin ito ngayon. Sa tulong ng Poong Maykapal.
Past, present and future in perfect fusion.

Thus, Panlilio in 2007: “I have heeded the clamor of the laity to serve God’s people by running for public office. An extraordinary situation like that in Pampanga requires a radical option.”

So I wrote then, as I write now, how it was the image of the Dominican reformer Fra Girolamo Savonarola that I saw in Panlilio, with full recall of his compelling mission in taking over the government of Florence in 1494: “O my people, you know that I have never wanted to intervene in matters of state: do you think I would do so now, if I did not see that it was necessary for the health of your souls?...Your reform must begin with the things of the spirit, which are above the material, of which they are the rule and the life; and your temporal good must serve your moral and religious welfare, on which it depends. And if you heard say that states are not ruled by paternosters, remember that this is the rule of tyrants, or the enemies of God and the commonweal, the rule for oppressing and not for raising and liberating the city. If you desire a good government you must restore it to God. Surely, I should not meddle in state matters, if this were not so.”
As it was in 2007, so it was not in 2010. And so it will be not in 2013. 

Running solo

THE CIRCUS came to the grounds of the Angeles City hall Friday, last day for filing of certificates of candidacy by aspirants for local positions. In three acts of slight yellow, concentrated red and expansive green, the first two blending and then fading, the last one for a time remaining. Each out-noising the other with drums and bands, as well as shrieking clowns.

Soon as it came, the bedlam just as soon over, the din dying down with the last flash of cameras for the reglamentary mug shot of the now-official-candidate, his/her COC close to his/her breast.

In the intervening quiet, soft strains of divine praises – purihin ang Panginoon, umawit ng kagalakan… -- crescendoing – sa ating pagkabagabag, sa Diyos tayo’y tumawag, sa ating mga kaaway, tayo’y kanyang ililigtas.. – and rising to the heavens.

It was a beautiful day, to consecrate to God the totality of one’s being, to surrender to God one’s becoming.

So it was but city councilor Jesus “Jay” Sangil that sought the Almighty’s blessings  before going about the affairs of Caesar – celebrating the holy sacrifice of the Mass with hundreds of his supporters before walking the short distance between the city hall fire station and the office of the Commission on Elections to file his COC for city vice mayor.

Heartened at sight of the congregation of persons with disabilities, senior citizens, urban poor, laborers, tricycle and jeepney driversand the general masa that comprised Sangil’s core constituency, Msgr. Jun Mercado, the celebrant, could only exclaimed how the aspiring vice mayor lives his servitude to God in the service of his fellowmen.

“As God speaks through those He loves most – the last, the least and the lost, our presence here most manifests Jay’s commitment to God’s word,” the curate of Lourdes parish. “Go then on your journey, God is with you.”

So, who among the candidates for mayor, vice mayor and councilors of Angeles City did as Sangil, consecrating their candidacy to God, as a vow to serve His people?

Running independent – neither in Partido ABE Kapampangan, despite his being party vice president nor in Team Lazatin – Sangil is given not so much as the proverbial Chinaman’s chance or the idiomatic luck of the Irish.

Which perfectly augurs well for the three-term city council member who was always ridiculed as also-ran in all the elections he won.

On his own, Sangil is. But alone. He is not.

  

To my teachers, in gratitude

MY MATERNAL grandmother, Rita Pineda Canlas vda. de Zapata was my first teacher. Before I could learn to read and write she already had me memorizing – by rote – the prayer the Lord taught us, the invocations to the Virgin Mother, and the Rosary, plus the Confiteor.

Contemporaneous with my religious instruction was the caton from my maternal grandaunt, Carmen Pineda Canlas. That’s the Spanish alphabet, spiced with Caramba! Que horror! and the most welcome vamos a comer.

It is to my mother that I owe my love of reading, reading to me just about every material she could find, books, magazines, most especially the Liwayway which issue she never missed. This, even before I went to school.

No I did not go to kindergarten. Instead, I was salimpusa in the Grade I class of Mrs. Gloria R. Reyes, at the time a most fair maiden wooed by the debonair Joe Reyes who later founded Pampanga Times.

I started formal schooling at the San Vicente Elementary School in Sto. Tomas town as, being eight months short of my seventh birthday, I did not merit entry at the Sto. Tomas Central School. I walked two kilometres to school daily, many times bare-footed. My teacher was Miss Maria David, pursued by two suitors, Rene Velasquez and Porciano Canlas, whom she married. Indang Maring is childhood friend of my mom, so I guess that was how I was allowed in as regular grader.

Grade 2, I transferred to Sto. Tomas Central School, about five-minute walk from our home. My teacher was Mrs. Felisa Canlas, mother of former NEDA Director- General Dante Canlas.

Grade 3, my TIC – that’s teacher-in-charge – was Miss Estrelita Galang who later boarded at my Apung Mameng’s house. She returned to her native Ilocos Norte after marrying her childhood sweetheart Joe Paz.

Grade 4, my TIC was Miss Rose Intal. It is my music and arts teacher though that I remember with fondness – the most beautiful Miss Maria Galura, ardently wooed and won by a dashing young lawyer from nearby Minalin, Ricardo “Boy” Sagmit, later elected as delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1971.

It was in Grade 5 that I really got started on the writing path, with the direction of Miss Cristina Tayag who drilled us, with the zeal and discipline of a Marine sergeant, on the English language with theme writing as a regular exercise.

Grade 6 was a breeze with Miss Rosita Canlas. I earned salutatorian honors at graduation, with a silver medal and the princely sum of P50, donated by Barrio Poblacion’s richest man, Mr. Aurelio Batac, Sr.

A totally different ballgame was the Jose Abad Santos High School which has since reverted to its former name Pampanga High School.

In Section 1 of over 20 sections, I was farm boy lost in the big town with my classmates – most from the “highly advanced”  San Fernando Elementary School  -- dominating all the subjects, primarily the then novel Mathematics handled by our class adviser Miss Carmelita Perez. Current CDC vice president Teng Gorospe was the valedictorian of that class.

So I did where I thought I could excel – joined the campus papers The Pampangan with Miss Gervacia Guarin as moderator, and Sinukuan under the guidance of Miss Jasmin Dizon. I can still feel the thrill of seeing my first by-line under the article “Discipline via the squad system” on how the creme de la crème  of the JASHS freshmen maintained the highest standards in the classroom through a conduct reporting system participated in by every student clustered in squads.

On my second year in high school, I transferred to the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary where I was remanded to first year, Infima Class.

Latin instantly became my favourite, the difficulty of conjugation – with verbs, as in amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant,  and declension – with nouns, as in rosa, rosae, rosam… for the feminine and rivus, rive, rivum…for the masculine adding to the appeal of the subject. A philosophy graduate, Dan Basilio was my first Latin professor with Ars Latina. In Media Class, it was then Fr. Miles Pineda with De Bello Gallico; in Suprema Class was Fr. Martiniano Urbano with Cicero; and in Poetry Class, Fr. Paciano B. Aniceto with Ars Poetica and the Aenead.

I did well too in Geometry in second year with Mr. Velasquez, and Trigonometry in third year with Mr. Gregorio “Odo” Dayrit, also our Physics professor in our fourth year. I remember Odo most for two things: he gave me a 98 grade in Physics for being the only one able to solve the problem he gave us for our finals: A single problem with only one equation and with zero as the only given; and he introduced me to Marx and Engels, Lenin and Mao, right on my second year at the seminary.

Generations of seminarians learned their birds-and-bees with the incomparable Mr. Leoncio Lising; their history – Philippine, American, Asian, World – with Mr. Narciso Tantingco; their economics with Mr. “Hammurabi” Amurao.                     

English, the seminary’s lingua franca, I assimilated through various professors – Fr. Urbano, Fr. Jun Franco who was also president of Assumption College, Miss Julie Meneses, and Miss Nancy Ladringan, who would later become my first moderator in The Regina of Assumption College.

I learned my balarila and panitikan from Miss Estrelita David who always came to class all-smiles but would leave in tears before the bell rang due to our childish pranks. She is now Sister Lita of the Dominicans.

Finishing salutatorian at MGCS but fearful of being expelled from Rhetorics Class, I hastened to San Jose Seminary and Ateneo de Manila.

The lasting impressions I hold of my Jesuit professors there are those of Fathers Keyes and Towers, in my English subjects and Fr. Nick Cruz, in Film Appreciation.

Out of the seminary, to Assumption College. With The Regina as the center of my orbit, it was Mrs. June Velez-Belmonte, since emigrated to the US and now Mrs. June Whitmer, that may well have served as the jeweller that polished the raw gem in me as a writer and editor.

“The hand that rocked my journalism cradle,” I inscribed on all my books I brought her in my visits to her home in San Jose, California.

On this the month honouring teachers, I remember and honor all those who crafted me to what I am now.              

I shall always be grateful, my beloved mentors. 

Survival mode

THE ULTIMATE survivor. That can only be Richard Douglas Agnew.

Twenty seven bullets pockmarking the red Ford Expedition he was driving, not one stray hitting  him, not even grazing any part of him. The scratch on his forehead coming from a shard of the blasted window or the windshield. 

Maybe, this former Royal Ulster Constable had an amulet stronger than that of the legendary Nardong Putik. Else, his surviving that Saturday ambush could only be deemed an act of God. Damn ye who cry “Ambush me!”

Yeah, God’s intervening mercy and saving grace reach out even to public sinners like Agnew.

“This is the sleazy Irish businessman who wants to be King of Sin City. Ex-cop Richard Agnew is heading up an organisation of bar owners on the world's seediest red-light strip.

Our pictures show the rugby-loving Ulsterman shaming the nation and the Ulster flag by draping it around young girls and making sex workers pose for trophy pictures.”

So it is written in the web page of Sunday World/Real Irish Sunday.

“…a big name in the Angeles City sex trade

…owner of the Blue Nile Bar, Golden Nile, Sunshine, Tropican and several other sex bars in Angeles city - a focal point in the Philippines sex trade.

… arrested in 2004 after the National Bureau of Investigation raided the Blue Nile hotel and bar and allegedly found six girls aged between 11 and 13.”

So the Belfast Telegraph  tagged Agnew in a story in September last year on the killing of Agnew’s fellow RUC and business partner David Balmer and his Filipina live-in partner in the house the three shared in Barangay Amsic.

As Agnew survived his arrest and self-deportation to Thailand in 2004 in the wake of the raid by the National Bureau of Investigation on Agnew’s Blue Nile hotel and bar which yielded six girls aged between 11 and 13, so he survived police questioning on the double murder.

Easier now than to survive a volley of 27 bullets from an M-16 automatic rifle and a .9 millimeter handgun. You just have to give it to Agnew.

You have to give it to 1^st District Rep. Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin too, for standing for Agnew. He made it clear as day – the ace Punto reporter Joey Pavia says, and wrote in his story yesterday – that Agnew is a “friend” of the Cong wanting to be mayor again. That is some rare feat, considering Agnew’s media-impacted infamy.  

“The (ambush on Agnew) is terrifying.  First, the businessmen were subjected to  extortion. They were harassed and their businesses were closed. Now these  attempts to kill them,” said Lazatin, warning that the incident “will definitely cripple businesses and tourism in Angeles City.”

“Politics,” cried – expectedly – Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan. Not of the Agnew ambush but of Lazatin’s lament.

“It has all the signs and shades of politics. There is no kotong (extortion) exerted on traders in our city,” said Pamintuan. “In fact, Lazatin himself had been telling people before (he decided to run against me) that I don’t get bribes from investors.”

“Infighting between Caucasian businessmen trying to outdo and dupe each other.” So Pamintuan rooted the perceived motive in Agnew’s ambush and said he would ask both the Bureau of Immigration and the National Bureau of Investigation  to investigate alleged “foreign mafias in tandem with local syndicate groups preying on innocent and would be hapless and helpless foreign investors.”

Out of the pale of politics, into basic sleuthing now: Is there a connection between the Agnew ambush and the double murder of Balmer and his girlfriend last year?

“It’s possible but we do not have hard evidence on that,” Agnew himself said, disclosing that he has been pursuing the case against the suspects there.

“We are evaluating all the information gathered by investigators, we are pursuing all possible leads,” said Chief Inspector Luisito Tan, chief of Station 4, as well he should as a grizzled police investigator.

A cursory read of the articles on the Balmer murder and this Agnew ambush immediately shows one common denominator – the use of a white Toyota Innova.

In the Balmer case, “…a security guard in the subdivision said he saw a white Toyota Innova in the area at around 3:30 a.m… He said he saw a male Caucasian wearing a black cap and a Filipino driver inside the vehicle.”

In the Agnew case, “Police said they were informed by witnesses that a white Toyota Innova with the letter “J” and number “9” on its license plate was noticed rushing off the area after the shooting happened.  

The Innova in the first case was retrieved, its owner traced, and the suspects – who rented the car – were identified but have remained at large.

The Innova in the second case has yet to be found. But the police can take it from there.

Patterns and profiles make the signature modus operandi in the crime business.     

Meanwhile, its business as usual at Agnew’s Fields Avenue domain. Surviving? Hardly. Profiting? Magnificently.    

Election mathElection math

ELECTION IS addition.

So the maxim goes and I remember then congressional aspirant Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin being asked why he took a certain “Boy Paltik” into his core campaign staff in 1987.

“Anjan tiradur ya mu, tanggapan taya uling makasaup ya king laban (Even a slingshot is most welcome as it can be of help in our fight).” So was his reply, proven right with his subsequent election to the House, the first of his non-stop victories at the polls, to date.

More than addition, election is multiplication.

The saying – reformed – is best instanced in the Iglesia ni Cristo bloc voting practice which is known to create some bandwagon effect among the electorate.

It is also the principle behind the pyramiding-type of campaigning whereby a recruit is tasked – and paid – to recruit two others who are in turn tasked – and paid – to recruit others in a continuing process of recruitment, put in a mathematical  equation, thus: 1X2X4X8X16X32X64X128X...ad nauseam, if not infinitum.

Preconditioned on those beliefs, I listened to an old political observer dissecting the contest for the Angeles City mayorship. He did not want to be known. Not so much out of trepidation his political prognostications be readily rendered false with the election results, as by the certainty that he would become a much sought-after political prophet with their certitude. As he revelled in anonymity, he cannot handle the least tinge of celebrity.

So, from the deepest background, he postulates: Lazatin is “llamado” over re-electing Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan.

Qualify, I say.

He does more than that. He also quantifies.

One. Lazatin has never been without the INC bloc. That is some 8,000 votes, he reckons. Easily translating to 12,000 with the bandwagon effect.

Two. Lazatin has his own network of barangay workers – with family size as premium for hiring – conservatively estimated at 15,000.

Three. Lazatin’s alliance with the Nepomucenos brings a windfall of not less than another 15,000.

That totals to 42,000 votes already in Lazatin’s column even before the start of the campaign.

Simple extrapolation now: Angeles City has 148,843 registered voters as of 2010. Assume that 70 percent will vote in 2013. that would total to 104,190.           

What percentage of that total is 42,000?

A whopping 40.31 percent. All Lazatin needs is 10 percent or 11,400 votes for the win. Easily accomplished with his storied “carpet bombing” – whatever that means, however it takes. 

So, by writing all this here, am I  – at this early – already trending?

Not quite, says the local media’s Zaldy Ampatuan look-alike, convinced and confident of Pamintuan’s “overwhelming edge” over Lazatin, which he puts at “doblado.”

“EdPam as sitting mayor is the reigning champion. And the champion is most likely the odds-on favourite over the challenger,” he adds.

Using the same math, Zaldy A does his own quantification.

One. Pamintuan has no less than 22,000 card-bearing members of his Partido ABE Kapampangan, easily increasing to 30,000 with the bandwagon effect.

Two. Pamintuan has the youth vote – by virtue of age vis-à-vis the very senior Lazatin – with a most conservative strength of 20,000.

That’s all of 50,000, already superseding Lazatin’s electoral stock.

And then Zaldy A posits in turn: Election is also subtraction.

Vice Mayor Vicky Vega-Cabigting by aligning with Pamintuan over her long-time patron Lazatin takes a large chunk off their shared voters, put at a minimum of 15,000, given her winning margins in all elections she ran in.

So concluded Zaldy A: Pamintuan need not engage Lazatin in carpet bombing runs. He has all the numbers already tabbed and tagged.

Election is addition. Election is multiplication. Election is subtraction. Interesting equations there.

Lest we forget though, election is division too.

Suffice it to say that a simple quotient easily invalidates all the sum, product and difference of the other arithmetical operations.

Isn’t it always said, and done so truly: Divide and conquer?