The mammoth Cojuangco's rally

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

When my media friend Harold was confined at the air conditioned room of Specialist Group Hospital and Trauma Center in Dagupan City for hypertension, I told friends about it.

GRAND RALLY. Nationalist People’s Coalition candidate for

 governor Mark O. Cojuangco speaks in a grand rally last Monday 

at the town plaza of Lingayen before tens of thousands of leaders

 and supporters who came from the six districts’ Pangasinan province.

Most of the congressmen and mayors of the 44 towns and three 

cities province joined Cojuangco, his tandem vice governorship 

aspirant Mark Roy Macanlalay and ticket for the provincial board. 

MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

One of them reminisced how witty the broadcaster was.

“Noong sinabi ko na Tulisan si Politician A, sabi ni Harold hinde Two-lisan si Politician, kung hindi Three-lisan kasi masyadong suwapang sa pera kaya ayon nademanda”.

I butted in: Oo, parang si Atong (another media man) iyan noong tinanong ako, kung ano ang mga katabi na bansa ng Singapore when he guest me in his radio program.

“To’, di ba college professor ka? Ano ang mga bansang katabi ng Singapore?

“Ahh, ang alam ko dalawa lang. Singa-Three and Singa-Five”.

Harold immediately butted in and even chided (pinagalitan) me on my ignorance by telling Atong that Malaysia and Thailand are the immediate neighbor of Singapore.

***

I was conversing recently with some government brass that is pro Mar Roxas for president and quizzed them what if Rod Duterte leads by five points against Mary Grace Poe a week before the May 9 presidential election.

 One of them said "Special Ops".

I told him "it can be an option, but the logical thing there is President Benigno Aquino asked Roxas to withdraw "kasi sabi ng Pulse Asia if Roxas withdraws almost 50% of his votes go to Poe, and we can just do our math to see how that translate to Poe's votes versus Duterte".

I added that in case Duterte eclipses Poe, the President would be obliged to do it since he and Roxas faces the non-bailable plunder cases on the Disbursement Allocation Program ( DAP) aka billions of pesos of pork barrels and others after they stepped down.

The Bilang Pilipino Social Weather Station's Mobile Survey of March 22, 2016 has the following national scores in the Presidential race: Grace Poe 35%, Rody Duterte 26%, Jojo Binay 18%, Mar "Daang Matuwid" Roxas 17%, Miriam Defensor Santiago 2%, and undecided/others 1%

***

Last Monday, I experienced how a monster traffic cost me two hours and a half to reach Lingayen from Dagupan City.

Normal travel in this 11.3 kilometers stretch is only 30 to 45 minutes if one rides in a private car or a public vehicle.

Son of a gun, hundreds of vehicles stalled for hours as pro Mark Cojuangco and Mark Macanlalay for governorship and vice governorship convoyed vehicles with tens of thousands of leaders and supporters from different towns and cities in Central and Eastern Pangasinan travel via Binmaley-San Carlos Road in Barangay Manat to reach the grand rally of the duo in Lingayen Plaza.

“Grabe ang rally. After 26 years ngayon lang ni held and rally sa Capital Town,” a wide eyed supporter quipped.

“Mas grabe ang fireworks, ang haba! It was an ostentatious display of how powerful ang candidates ng NPC. Pang psychological warfare effect iyon sa mga taga-Capitol. That was the longest and extravagant fireworks with different colors and effect,” somebody commented.

The grand rally was concluded at 9 pm of that day attended by almost 40 mayors and several congressmen.

***

But don’t you know somebody wanted to sabotage the rally when we were stuck at the traffic jam at the boundary of Dagupan City and Binmaley where traffic enforcers prioritized the convoys of the NPC to motor to Lingayen, we were diverted to Quibaol-Nansangaan Regional Highway 20 so we would not worsen the bottleneck at the town proper of Binmaley.

When we turned left to Quibaol four policemen flagged us and redirected us to Matalava (remember the town’s garbage hauling area?) because the provincial road at Quibaol was closed because a ten-wheeler dump truck conked out in the middle of the ingress of Quibaol or near the Labrador-Lingayen highway.

When I passed Quibaol I saw the blue colored 10 wheelers behemoth, its driver’s cabin inclined.

“The driver left the truck as convoys from the West, Central, and Western Pangasinan surge to the Lingayen town plaza had a hard time entering the area,” a source from the police told me..

“We used that strategy to block vehicles of left leaning groups in the roads in coming to a rally in Manila,” he continued.

He blamed the blocking of that road to somebody  who does not like Cojuangco.

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)