Starting on the wrong foot

MECADALPAC NENG barag, mitalusad ya pa qng taclang damulag (He not only stepped on a monitor lizard, but also slipped on carabao dung).

A man of wit from Mandasig, Candaba who did not look like once-and-future Mayor Jerry Pelayo any, described rather cryptically what he perceived as the misfortune befalling Mayor Rene Maglanque right at the very start of his tenure at the municipal hall.

Maglanque was front page material of the Philippine Daily Inquirer this weekend. For the worst of reasons – playing most gracious host to one implicated in the alleged P10-billion scam in ghost projects financed with the priority development assistance funds of congressmen, otherwise known as pork barrel.

Emblazoned right at the top of PDI’s page 1 with the paper’s masthead  juxtaposed is the photo of a streamer taken by E. I. Reymond T. Orejas that proclaimed: “Mabuhay at Maligayang Pagdating Madame Jenny, Jimmy and James Lim Napoles from Mayor Rene E. Maglanque at Pamilya.”

We read in the sidebar story of the lensman’s mother, the intrepid Tonette Orejas,  that the streamers had lined the road leading to the town center for over two weeks, having been put up before the oath-taking of Maglanque last June 30. Those who were welcomed though were said to have failed to come to the event.

But this did not stop speculations – more malicious than suspicious – of some connections Maglanque may have had with the Aquino administration’s bête noire of the moment.

Especially so, as we learn from Ms. Orejas’ well-researched story, that Maglanque’s public persona had been far from lily white to start with.

In 2005, Maglanque, then an assistant secretary at the Department of Transportation and Communications, was fingered by jueteng  whistle-blower Sandra Cam as “one of the bagmen” of then  Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo.

It was also reported that Maglanque failed a subsequent lifestyle check, his white mansion most ostentatious, and certainly garish, amid Candaba’s rusticity. 

Even worse: “In 2012, the Inquirer learned that Maglanque had allegedly tried to bribe a leader of a fishermen’s group in Masantol town in an attempt to silence the group about an irregularity involving the distribution of farm equipment,” read Ms. Orejas’ story.

Exposing: “Some 2,500 fishermen in Masantol were reported to have received farming tools and seeds worth P89.2 million from the Department of Agrarian Reform. The supposed beneficiaries, however, claimed that their signatures had been forged and that they did not receive anything from the DAR or its listed partner, the Kaudpanan para sa Mangunguma Foundation Inc. (KMFI).

KMFI is one of the fake NGOs Napoles reportedly set up.”

And damning: “Maglanque, one source claimed, had asked a leader of the Masantol fishermen to keep mum on the issue in exchange for P1 million. The amount was rejected.”

Barely two weeks as Candaba mayor and already reeking of some strong stench, it is incumbent upon Maglanque to come out clean, and necessarily fragrant, here.

His earlier missteps of downsizing Candaba’s signature Ibon-Ebon festival, and his reported “lax implementation of the ordinance on (banning) bird hunting to a point that enforcement no longer exists” have given rise to doubts about his sincerity and capability to pursue the interests of Candaba on the national and global stages.

Now, this perceived Napoles connection has started to raise questions on his  personal integrity, on his moral ascendancy to lead the people of Candaba.

Already, the bird-lovers, the melon-growers and the buro-eaters are pining for the days of John Lloyd and wishing for his immediate second coming.