If the foot fits

CINDERELLA MADE it from oppressed obscurity to happily living ever after only after her dainty foot fit into the little glass slipper she left behind in her haste to leave the palace past midnight.

No glass, but rubber, slippers Edwin Santiago wore and made his own fairy tale come true – beating by a wide margin once three-term mayor and one-term congressman, Dr. Reynaldo B. Aquino, in the mayoralty contest of the City of San Fernando.

Tsinelas nang EdSa. No originality though in the campaign collateral of Santiago. The lowly slippers having been appropriated much, much earlier for the still much lamented Jesse Robredo, Ramon Magsaysay Awardee as Naga City mayor, the people’s hero as Local Governments secretary.

Of Robredo’s patented “tsinelas leadership” then Energy Secretary Rene Almendras said in tribute: “…the willingness to wade in the flood, willing to go where you normally do not go, to the most remote areas, just to be with the most disadvantaged people…Naiilang lumapit ang nakatsinelas sa nakabarong. (Those who wear the tsinelas feel shy to approach those who wear the barong.) Leaders must be accessible to those they serve; that was Sec Jesse Robredo.”

And this is Mayor Edwin Santiago. Mayhaps conceding that the shoes left by Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez at city hall were just too big for him to fill, he opted for that in his character which readily identifies with the masses, thus: Tsinelas nang EdSa: Ing kaparis ning sinelas ku atiu kekayu – a pair of slippers, one worn by Santiago, the other by the public he serves. Government keeping in step with the people there. Swell.

Yeah, of what use is a slipper without its matching pair. Like that tall tale says of the young Pepe Rizal who, after losing one of his slippers on a boat ride at the Laguna de Bay, threw the remaining one in the hope that some fisherman may find both and be of great use to his barefooted son.

Tsinelas ng EdSa, kaparis na sulud ta ya. Santiago finding match for his other pair  in Vice Mayor Jimmy Lazatin there.

“Sa tagumpay at pagsubok, kami po ang kapares ng tsinelas ninyo. Bilang ka-partner ng executive branch, asahan po ninyo na ang sanggunian ay kaagapay ninyo upang mabigyan ng legal na mandato ang mga programang makakabuti para sa mamamayan. Makakaasa po kayo at umaasa din po kami sa tatlong taon ng mabunga, masaya at mapayapang pagbibigay serbisyo sa mga Fernandino (In triumph and in trials, we serve as the other pair of your slippers. As the partner of the executive branch, expect your council to work hand in hand with you in providing the mandate to your programs for the welfare of our people. Like you, we are hopeful that the next three years will be most productive in rendering our services to the Fernandino),” Lazatin said.

That, in response to Santiago’s presentation of his executive agenda covering education, health, economic, environment, business, livelihood and social programs at the opening session of the city council, even as he vowed: “The city council will be pro-active and at the same time reactive to what is needed to be legislated. I am optimistic that the 5th Sangguniang Panlunsod will be one of the most dynamic, productive and innovative legislative bodies the City of San Fernando will ever have.”

Lazatin, himself, has some big shoes…okay, in the EdSa context, tsinelas to fill, recognizing that: “It is a challenge for us to at least maintain, if not surpass the previous Hall of Fame awardee and most outstanding sanggunian (in the Philippines), as I am positive that the current composition of this august body will definitely produce substantial legislation in consonance with the need of our constituents, as a real working council.”

Here’s hoping those tsinelas at city hall will not easily wear out.   

Or worse, figuratively take their English meaning of flip-flops. As in that syndrome of the Corona-virused Supreme Court manifested in somersaulting over its own decisions. 

Simply hate to cry then, tsinelas nang EdSa, e la pudpud, gasgas la pa. God forbid, the masses going barefooted.