Classics in politics

“THAT’S VERY politics.”

A classic heard around Pampanga and beyond – as it was aired over dwRW – in the early 2000s. The sayer – a mayor known for his pugnacious ways and pugilistic means – reacting to the litany of perceived anomalies and corrupt practices he purportedly committed which his vice mayor was reciting in Perry Pangan’s radio show.

“No can do. Never say die.”

His yet another classical phrase, a corrupted take on the Kapampangan “E yu agawa yan. Mikamatayan tamu” and the Tagalog “Hindi n’yo puwedeng gawin yan. Magkakamatayan tayo.”

The hizzoner shouting at the onrushing wave of policemen led by the regional commander axing and smashing their way into his barricaded office where he holed himself in for two weeks to prevent the police from forcibly unseating him. This after the Comelec ruled it was not him that won the election in 1995.  

A case for Ripley’s: Our man landed third. The second-placer filed an election protest but before the case was resolved to his favour, he was incapacitated by a massive stroke. And third-placer took the mayoralty seat, which prompted the initial first-placer to protest too, and, after a rather long period of hearings, was declared winner.   

His outrageous murder of the King’s language notwithstanding, the mayor could rise to some rarefied air of eloquence when forced to defend some profitable enterprise, as when he was threatened with charges for illegal extraction of sand in his municipality, to wit – delivered in his unique way: “There is no quaaarrrying in (his town). There is ooonly the scrrrraping of the volcaaanic debrisss from our agricultural laaands, pursuant to our noooble oobjective to renew theiiir prrroductiiivity.”

For all his barako, some even say – lovingly – pusakal persona, this man had a pusong mamon to his friends and needy constituents.

Another mayor – Apalit’s Tirso G. Lacanilao, God bless his soul – was, by, of and in himself a classic.

Possessed of a mug he himself claimed not even his own mother could love, he was ridiculed for being – political correctness, now – aesthetically-challenged. His election posters were stamped “Pangit!” by his opponents.

Right there and then, he found the stock-in-trade with, and by, which he won his three terms, easily. He simply capitalized on his ugliness, to be blunt about it.

“Sinasabi po ng mga katunggali ko na ako ay pangit, na ako ay mukhang kabayo. Sinungaling po sila. Kayo na rin ang makakapagpatunay na hindi ako mukhang kabayo. Mukha akong tsonggo.” (My rivals say I am ugly, that I look like a horse. They are liars. You see for yourself that I don’t look like a horse. I look like a monkey.) So spake Tirso on the political stage, so the crowd roared in delight.

Then his segue to: “Alam ng buong bayan na matatapang at nakakatakot ang aking mga kalaban. Hindi po totoo yan. Hinahamon ko sila ngayon, kung sila’y talagang matapang at walang takot, sige nga, magpalit kami ng mukha!” (The whole town knows that my opponents are brave and fearsome. That is a lie. I challenge them now, if they are indeed brave and fearless, let us trade faces!)

A campaign rap was even composed for Tirso: “Y Tirso mayap ya / Maganaka ya pa / Andyang matsura ya” (Tirso is good / He is kind-hearted / Though very ugly). To the sound of which Tirso pranced on the stage like an ape. Again, to the paroxysms of delight of his audience.

A laughingstock, Tirso made of himself. An undefeated mayor, the people of Apalit made of Tirso.

Tirso could have served the very template for one other politician who never retreated, never surrendered, but never won the seat he coveted all his life.

Instead of making positive his un-aesthetics, he despised any mention of it.

The now-lamented Ody Fabian – God bless his soul – was slapped with a case for grave slander after he nonchalantly said in his radio commentary over dwGV-FM     “Masuwerte ka, mababait ang mga kababayan ko, at pinapayagan kang gumala man lang diyan. Hindi mo ba alam, bawal ang pangit sa bayang yan.” (You are lucky, my townmates are tolerant and they allow you to roam around. Don’t you know my town is off-limits to uglies?).

They don’t make politicians like these anymore. How I miss them!