Politicos Attack Rivals as Campaign Period Starts

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I was in my rustic town M’lang, Cotabato Province when the official campaign period for local elective officials for the May 13, 2019 Election started.

It started in March 29 and will end 45 days thereafter in May 11.

Last Saturday, market day there, I dropped by at the Post World War II house near the plaza of my California based brother when a campaign rally of the PDP –Laban lead by the province’s gubernatorial bet Nancy Catamco, a last term member of the House of Representatives, and the town mayor lawyer Russel Abonado.

The acrimonious campaign rally in the Philippines.

During the initial verbal joust by the provincial board member bet Maybelle  Valdivieso, I, clad in my Doc Martens boots with their yellow laces, tee he, even went to the stage before the thousands of spectators as based on the mountain of packed lunches there from the 37 villages of the town when I saw my younger brother, a former military professor at the PMA, exchanged pleasantries with Maybelle who just lambasted the poor services of the provincial hospital under the watch of Governor Lala Talino.

When my sibling introduced me to Valdivieso, I told her she was good in rabble rousing.

“You’re feisty”! I quipped to her.

You know readers I loved listening to excellent verbally endowed individuals specially to guys like former Senator Ruding Ganzon, former five-time House Speaker Joe de Venecia, German Reichstag fiery speaker the Herr Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, Italy’s Benito Mussolini, who even practice his feet stomping and hand waving and lectern hitting speeches, Cuba’s Fidel Castro,  U.S Third Army Son of  a B*tch Three-Star General George Patton, who told his troops in a pep talk before the invasion of Normandy to extract German intestines so they could use them as grease for their tanks’ road wheels and iron links and others.

Even in Pangasinan, I was surprised that vice gubernatorial bet Angel Baniqued was emphatic when he rocked the crowd in a fiesta in Mangaldan with words: Aya si abogado Angel Baniqued para vice gubernador yad inar-aro tayon nga probinsiyad Pangasinan! (This is lawyer Angel Banique for vice governor of our beloved province Pangasinan). Forgive me son of a gun for my stuttered Pangasinan wannabe dialect but that’s what he vigorously declared incessantly before the hoi polloi.

The crowd went wild to the gift of gab, just like those rabble rousing American evangelists like  slut loving Jimmy Swaggart, of Baniqued – a seasoned provincial board member from San Carlos City.

I thought before the scientific survey of a proven pollster friend, Angel would be thrashed and thwacked by his well oiled vice governorship rival Nationalist People’s Coalition Mark Lambino.

But the result showed that Baniqued eclipsed the wet behind the ears Lambino who run,  just like his mayoral bet mother in Mangaldan as political kibitzers see it, as a product of the powerful position given to his father Cagayan Economic Zone Czar Secretary Raul Lambino by President Rodrigo Duterte.

The polls should be a wake up call for the Lambinos to double time as they are pitted with a feisty speaker.

Let’s go back to my hometown.

“Siling nila dapat ang M’lang ay dapat maging Carmen. Pero ang Department of Trade and Industry ay nagpaguwa nga ang M’lang ay Top 25 nga Most Competitive First Class Town sa bilog nga 1,488 nga banwa sa bilog nga Pilipinas. Karon, diin ang Carmen? (They said M’lang town has a lot to catch up with Carmen town. But according to the Department of Trade & Industry, M’lang was among the Top 25 Most Competitive First Class Town among the more than 1,000 municipalities in the Philippines. Now, where is Carmen?)” dig by M’lang reelective mayor Russel Abonado as I took photo of him at the old stage located at the town plaza.

He belittled Carmen, the town of governorsip bet  and Mayor Roger Talino, a big time retired PC Master Sergeant from Bayambang, Pangasinan, whose daughter Lala will be ending her last term on June 30 as nine years governor of the one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines.

Salamabit, every time I passed by Davao del Sur and North Cotabato bound to my town I became gloomy inside the vehicle looking at the surroundings as dilapidated houses are sparsely located unlike in the densely located jungle concrete specially in Central Luzon and even Central Pangasinan where investors and residents keep building their edifices near the roadways.

“Walang masyadong malalaking mga bahay sa lugar ninyo sa Mindanao,” quipped by my wife Miles, who grew up in Pangasinan and Makati City, when I brought her and my two kids last June in the war torn Island.

“Dahil kasi takot mga investors pumunta dito sa lugar naman dahil magulo,” I retorted.

I hope the newly approved Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), where the local government unit run by Moro brothers will have more privileges on tax collection up to 75 percent they will retain on the income of local resources, will be a magic bullet to end the perennial warfares between the Christians and the Muslims that broke up in the late 1960s.

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(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)