VG Mark Lambino for Governor?

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

While Manila based tabloid writer the still athletic septuagenarian Erning Cayabyab and I were partaking our lunch last Monday at one of the food stalls in the Capitol Compound in Lingayen, Pangasinan, Erning told me to turn my head because there was a towering figure behind me walking to another stall.

Son of a gun, it was nonpareil reporter, broadcaster, and the dark media working horse Atong Remogat. 
The warm blood is “Man of the Hour” and the “Newsmaker” what with three pretty actress Barretto sisters and a niece not only “emotionally” linked to him but scuffled by pulling each other hair, kicking stunts, and one slapping incident that involved Marjorie Barretto that ensued in front and near President Rodrigo Duterte.

MY FIRST VISIT at the chic office of Pangasinan Vice Governor Mark Ronald Lambino (center) at the Capitol Compound in Lingayen, Pangasinan. I posed here for posterity with (from left) Radio Commentator Manny Celso, me, Lambino, 5^th District Board Member Louie Sison, and nonpareil reporter, broadcaster, and the dark media working horse Renato “Atong” Remogat.

That fracas continued at the boob tube and the social media as the kin ripped each other’s reputation to the glee of the Filipino nation.

“Atong!,” I shouted  with zeal while I beckoned him to join us. But he just nodded nonchalantly and proceeded to the restaurant to order his meal sponsored by the office of 6th District Board Member Dong Perez. Perez, just like his father former mayor Badong, is Atong's close pal.

“To’, lika dito!” Atong, who was already sitting, shouted at me using the Ilonggo endearment title of “Toto” for a male who hailed in the southern part of the country and not the rock band “Toto” or the toilet bowl brand with the same name tee-he he he!

“You eat again because I saw Atong ordered another set of lunch while I video interview him because he is unprepared that will make the footage scintillating to the viewers,” I told Erning, whose eyes wondered what does the word’s scintillating mean.

“Hinde na ituro ng editor ko sa Manila iyan, To’ ah!” Erning, a half-Bacolodnon and Pangasinense just like our kabaleyan Larry Henares, told me in Ilonggo as he went to Atong.

While my left hand anchored on the back of Atong while my right hand held my mobile phone, I asked him in the vernacular: Kasalukuyang  nasa gitna ng kontrobersiya sina Gretchen at Claudine Barreto at ang pamangkin nilang si Nicole, ang tanong ko sa iyo totoo ba na may relasyon ka sa kanilang tatlo?”

It brought down the house as the matron looking owner and her waiters and waitresses guffawed (laughter was an understatement) like a pig with an African Swine Fever (ASF) as captured by my video and could be seen at my Facebook page “Mortz Ortigoza”.

Look at the matron cum restaurant owner  (red circled) shrieked in laughter when I asked Atong if he had romantic relationship with the Barrettos.

Of course the “Atong” that I inquired was murky skinned Atong Remogat and not Atong Ang, the fair skinned and doppelganger of that shaolin or kung fu actor, whose Meridien jueteng liked gambling game earned P50 million a day, yes Virginia “A Day”, according to the Esquire Magazine.

Here’s the excerpt of that article titled: Who Is Atong Ang Again byline by Mario Almario Limos.

“Meridien Vista Gaming Corp. (MVGC), the gaming company in which Ang is a consultant, is said to be earning as much as P50 million a day from jai alai and other gambling, prompting the Bureau of Internal Revenue to conduct an investigation”.

A gigantic amount that could make a whore out of those pretty members of a clan? HesusMariaHusef, indeed what evil could money bring to people.

VICE GOVERNOR MARK RONALD LAMBINO

“Join me and I will introduce you to Vice Governor Mark Lambino,” Atong, with his “trademark” imperious demeanor, told me.

I stumbled inside the chic office of the youthful vice governor Lambino Iglesia ni Kristo's radio commentator Manny Celzo who interviewed him.

After the interview, I joined the conversation where Manny told the second highest elective provincial official about some board members resorting to lengthy hour long privilege speeches that border to grandstanding.

“Some of them do that with little substance as based on my observation and criticism on my columns in the past,” I butted in Tagalog.
Even former governor Amado Espino, Jr. assailed in the last election campaign how Board Member Raul Sison, the congressional rival of his son Jumel, could not speak a correct sentence in English but had the propensity to speak lengthily there.

Lambino said he will ask them to reduce for a certain minutes as there are more pressing agenda in the pipeline that wait the August Chamber.

“In Bulacan, there was a board member whose privilege speech went to several hours,” the soft-spoken vice governor added.

“It happened in the U.S Congress when some senators or congressmen if they did not like the bill they procrastinate by having that long speeches that they mumbled with “litany” for a day or two. There is a term for it. Darn, it’s on the tip of my tongue,” I told everybody of course in Filipino.

“Filibuster,” Lambino quipped.

“Yes, filibuster!” I brightened up as the vice governor came to my succor fighting that hated mental block that wrought havoc on me inside his office.

 “That word was taught to me also by my respected Political Law Professor Attorney Raul Lambino,” I retorted.

Lambino of course is the father of Mark who is the powerful administrator of the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) in Region 2. That designation from Imperial Manila sent ripple effect that made some powers that be in Pangasinan insecure in their posts.

Remember Raul Lambino’s political architecture’s victims: Seasoned former Board Member Angel Baniqued Sr. and Mark’s vice gubernatorial rival and veteran politician six years’ Mangaldan mayor Bona Fe Parayno and Raul’s wife Marilyn electoral opponent.

Parayno had a shocked of her life when she saw how the financial and political juggernaut of the Lambinos alienated her from the voting hoi polloi in the Tapa Town as they massed in to the mansion of the rival that caused traffic congestion in that part of the town for several days before the May 13, 2019 poll.

The older Lambino was not only given that plum post by President Duterte, he was even given a cabinet portfolio as Presidential Adviser for Northern Luzon (PANL).

That mandate is to ensure that timely government services are rendered to countrymen from Bulacan to Batanes, coordinate with national agencies and local government units, and focus on economic development and social services

“I even told former Agriculture Secretary and concurrent Mindanao Development Authority Chair and Secretary Manny Pinol when he butchered a goat and roasted native free range chicken for me recently at his farm in Kidapawan City about the chutzpah of your father,” I told the University of the Philippines’s alumnus on Bachelor of Science in Geography notwithstanding two graduate school diplomas from Ateneo de Manila and Asian Institute of Management.

“You are the man to be looked at in the 2022 governorship election versus Governor Pogi Espino,” I continued while Atong nodded and Manny smiled.

“Huwag naman baka may magagalit niyan,” he downplayed my declaration.

My projection was based on sources at the Capitol who told me that “amidst the financial drought in the absence of you know what” felt by elective officials in the 44 towns and three cities’ humongous province, mayors, vice mayors, village chiefs, other solicitors and indigents were seen every Monday’s session inside the office of the vice governor to confer with him or just visit him or air their predicaments, usually financial, to his staff there.

“We report here every day,” Lambino’s senior consultant Arnel Montemayor told me as I quaffed two cups of instant hot coffee at one of the tables there while we have productive conversation after I left the office of the vice governor.

Montemayor, a native of Lingayen but a top brass during the administration of Malasiqui Mayor Armando Domantay, told me that he was the teacher of Raul and Marlyn Lambino.

“Estudyante ko sila”.

Some former bigwigs of the provincial politics like ex-vice governor Oscar Lambino and former Board Member Roger Law have been reporting in that office especially during the Monday’s session because they were hired as consultant of the young promising vice guv.

RJ Abellera, Lambino’s media liaison, was on the sideline to entertain media men who entered that office.

Mark Lambino for governor? Let’s wait for the 2022 Election if my prediction holds water.   

(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) 

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