No foretelling

FEARFUL AND faithful, rather than fearless and forward were the forecasts the cerebral Jun Sula and visceral I made over Sonia Soto’s Boto Mo, Kinabukasan Mo show over CLTV-36 last Tuesday.

Time – so very precious in broadcast – constrained us to a snip-and-snap take on the candidates’ whys and wherefores of getting elected, sans some truly enlightening and deeply rationalizing arguments. Not that we failed. Au contraire, the tweets and texts Ms. Sonia received during and after the program bordered on the awesome, the public taking keen interest and active participation in the discussion.

It’s just that I felt I shortchanged the audience and thus needed to make some amends by expanding and expounding some more on the issues discussed.

Under siege. Truly, I will bend my knees before 3^rd District Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales if – Mr. Sula would rather say when – he gets re-elected.

Cong Dong is in a camel-through-the-needle’s-eye dilemma, facing the most  formidable forces ever confluenced in Pampanga politics.

His rival, Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez by his lonesome is already an irresistible force to reckon with. His stature in local politics concretized in his multiple terms in Congress, monumentalized in his award-reaping performance as city mayor.

Then, there is the President himself as Oca’s quarterbacker. As though that were not enough, Gov. Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda took Oca’s cause as her own notwithstanding her being on the other side of the political divide.

The GMA factor likewise impacts against Cong Dong, his leaving her party at a most critical moment still rankles Kapampangan sensitivities.

Deemed the final nail to Cong Dong’s political coffin is the Iglesia ni Cristo vote going to Oca.

Against such forces, what candidate would dare stand, could ever even hope to win?

Only Cong Dong, the faithful forecaster Mr. Sula is confident: “He has the people. And that’s all that matters.”

Yeah, I will kneel before Cong Dong IF he wins.          

Odds evened. The candidate ridiculed as “Paciencia Paras Yabut” and relegated to an also-ran may – Mr. Sula is certain he will – have the last and loudest laugh in these elections.

Joseller “Yeng” Guiao, long languishing in all surveys, has levelled up with the  comebacking Cong. Francis “Blueboy” Nepomuceno.

Yeng has not evened up – Mr. Sula is cocksure – but has overtaken Blueboy, the INC vote going to the mercurial PBA coach most manifest of this.

With Nanay Baby on his bench, Mayors Ed Pamintuan of Angeles City, Boking Morales of Mabalacat and Romy Pecson in his starting line-up, Team Yeng will fare more favourably well in the first district tournament than his Rain and Shine did in the PBA’s Commissioner’s Cup. So Mr. Sula is convinced.

Now, if Yeng can shatter the storied parochialism – they vote their own – of the Angelenos, I will also be convinced.

Upset in the making. We were rather rash in consigning Candaba’s Jerry Pelayo to certain defeat, convinced of the invincibility of the Bondoc name – with all its resources, influence, stranglehold of the fourth district from father to son to daughter, and seemingly to son again.

Then, too is that news that the INC – as usual – goes Bondoc, again. So it was – to our mind – as usual in the district again: contenders from Candaba beaten black and blue by the champions from Macabebe.

Yeah, we failed to give due notice to the support John Lloyd – call him Panchito, says his rival Juan Pablo – is getting from the mayors of the district: San Simon’s Leonora Wong, Sto. Tomas’ Lito Naguit, Minalin’s Katoy Naguit, Apalit’s Jun Tetangco and Macabebe’s Annette Balgan-Flores. The last two notably, being unopposed in their own re-election bids.

If the mayors make good their pledge to campaign wholeheartedly for Pelayo there will be less reasons for him not to beat Rimpy.

And then as we write this, sources “in the know” say the INC decision has just been overturned in favour of Pelayo. Now, the fight is in Rimpy’s hand.

Jungle juggernaut.  Congressman Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin is a sure win in the Angeles City mayoral contest, history being on his side. So Mr. Sula declared.

No mayor of the city – in its recent and remote history – has ever been elected without the INC vote. Tarzan has the INC in his pocket, so he wins.

As though that were not enough, there is too Tarzan’s double doctorate in politics, earned with his “carpet bombing” thesis and his end-game mastery.

I was – still am – fearfully cautious to make any forecast in the city. I’d rather put it under a close study. Eager to see the efficacy of Alexander Cauguiran’s Partido Abe Kapampangan with its bruited-about over 43,000 card-carrying members whipped up to EdPam frenzy for over a year now.

Just how Abe Ka will stand up to the jungle juggernaut can make a grand piece of local history, and may even devolve INC invincibility in the city to mythology.