Zaplan mulls to challenge Arenas in 2019

                                             

WITH ESPINO BACKING

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

SANTA BARBARA – The mayor of this first class town is ambivalent if he will heed the advice of a political kingpin to challenge the reelection of the incumbent congresswoman of the Third Congressional District in Pangasinan.

Mayor Carlito F. Zaplan said that Fifth District Congressman Amado T. Espino, Jr, a former governor and Pangasinan Political Kingpin, prodded him to challenge the bid of Representative Rosemarie “Baby” Arenas in 2019.

DREAM FIGHT - Sta. Barbara Mayor Lito Zaplan and
Pangasinan Third District Congresswoman Baby Arenas.

“I am thinking about it because my son my Junior will be running for the mayoralty,” Zaplan, who will end his last term in 2019, cited.

He said his son Carlito Zaplan, Jr, a graduate of La Salle University and a businessman, will be facing this town Vice Mayor Joel F. delos Santos for the top post here in the next election.

Councilor Bobby G. Barbiran who was rumored to tangle with the younger Zaplan will not be running but instead chose to run for reelection, according to the elder Zaplan.

Arenas and her daughter former Congresswoman Maria Rachel Arenas are the political nemesis of Espino as the duo zealously supported the 2016 gubernatorial candidacy of former Congressman Mark Cojuangco versus Espino’s son and namesake who heavily won on that election.

Political pundits see Zaplan will be giving the Arenases a tough fight with the former piggybacking on the popularity of Espino whose feat in the 2016 election was by immensely trouncing the reelection bid of Representative Ma. Carmen “Kimi” Shulze Cojuangco in the Fifth Congressional District – the bailiwick of the Cojuangcos – and defeating her husband Mark with more than 200 thousand votes.
The same pundits said that Zaplan - with Espino backing - is a superior opponent compared to those rivals the Arenases faced in their past reelection bids in the one city five towns' District. 

“I asked Congressman Espino to convince Vice Governor (Ferdinand) Calimlim to run on my stead,” he said.
Zaplan cited that Calimlim, a resident of Mapandan town, can give also the Arenases, who used to live in Makati City, a run of their monies.

 “The vice governor can run toe- to- toe with the wherewithal of the Arenases as Ferdie has lucrative business and huge inheritance from his deceased parent,” he said.

Zaplan, who is building his P60 million state- of- the- art palatial mansion, is one of the moneyed persons in the District what with his mammoth construction company backed up by hundreds of trucks and construction equipment.

Calimlim will be ending his nine years straight term for the vice governorship in 2019.

Last term Pangasinan Second District Congressman Leopoldo Bataoil is seen as his replacement for the vice governorship under the tandem of reelection governor Amado Espino III.

Zaplan ventured in politics in 1992 by winning the vice mayoralty here and won the mayoralty in 1995 and bowed out from office in 2004.

His wife Jinky, the present President of the Barangay League and Ex-Oficio member of the Provincial Board, succeeded him for the chief executive post. Zaplan ran for the mayoralty in the 2007 mayoralty poll but lost to former police general Rey Velasco.

Groomed Vice Gubernatorial bet Pol Bataoil (extreme left) and
outgoing Pangasinan Vice Governor Ferdie Calimlim as they
receive the Holy Communion  from the Catholic Priest.

He defeated Velasco in the 2010 and 2013 mayoralty polls and defeated Vice Mayor Juan Emmanuel T. Cabangon, Velasco brother-in-law, in the 2016 mayorship election.