Cabinet Sec as Santa Claus to Reporters

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

I thought the portly, jolly, white bearded Saint Nicholas, er, Santa Claus and his flying reindeers full of gifts pulling sleigh came directly from North Pole to my province's Pangasinan but instead he came garb in a U.S edition Levis Strauss Jeans, black leather belt, and blue and white striped polo long sleeves with varied sizes gifts probably carried by pickup or in one of the SUVs he brought.

The name of Mr. Claus is Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin M. Andanar. He came in this politically acrimonious but gargantuan vote - rich province and treated its likewise rambunctious media men (just read their Facebooks how members exposed each other payolas on the Perya te-he!) with sumptuous lunch last Sunday at the iconic Dagupeña Restaurant and thrilled them with a generous raffle of yuletide dole outs of rice cookers, iron, industrial electric fans, and television sets.

GIFTS. Pangasinan media men during their Christmas engagement last Sunday with  Presidential Communications Operations Office  Secretary Martin Andanar held at the Dagupeña Restaurant . Members of the Fourth Estate in the mammoth province relished the party as each one of them went home with gifts from the secretary.

“Since time immemorial I became a media man you are the only high ranking government official who gave gifts like these stuffs,” I told in Cebuano vernacular the six - footer Cagayan de Oro resident Andanar in a huddle.

“Tinuod ka bay (Are you sure my friend)?” he quipped.

I even won an iron and a rice cooker.

“I was already surprised about your generosity with those cash gifts last year's Christmas you gave the members of the Fourth Estate here. Media colleagues told me about them,” I added.

I did not know that I was going to his gift giving party arranged by the regional top brass of the Philippine Information Agency at the function hall of  Dagupena after fellow columnist in this newspaper Vir Maganes texted me on my phone to bring to him his allocation of the Northern Watch Newspaper at the  pre-war restaurant ( the renowned resto was in Dagupan City before its owner transferred it sometimes in the 2010s in the nearby Calasiao town).

“Mortz please bring my Northern Watch at Dagupena. Andito si Andanar,” Vir, who can speak Bisaya, SMS (psst Short Message System) me.

When I told the portfolio positioned executive that I told fellow cabinet secretary and Mindanao Development Authrority (MinDA) Chief Many Pinol  at his farm in Kidapawan City  that he can be catapulted to a senate seat in 2022 if he could chalk-up an economic turn – around at the southern Island but the former agriculture secretary pooh pooed it because of the prohibitive price tag of P100 million campaign kitty.
“If you can make an economic turned around to the plight of the downtrodden Filipino farmers in Mindanao, you can be a senator in the 2022 election,” I said as quoted on my political blog (psst the biggest in Pangasinan te he) while I picked up my second huge durian pulps while Mindanao Political Kibitzer Luvin Candari opened with his bare hands the tough purple outer rind or pericarp of the mangosteen before he could eat the white bitter-sweet fruits.
The former Province of Cotabato's governor was deadpan. He said he was happy serving the people of the southern island with his advocacy particularly in agriculture.

“One needs to have one hundred million pesos to effectively run for the senate and I don’t have that amount,” he told me.

He said that before the May 13, 2019 election, President Duterte asked him to run for the upper chamber of Congress but he declined the offer.

Andanar, who was rumored too before the May 2019 election to run in that August chamber, told me the P100 million campaign chest is not enough.

“One needs P300 million for an effective campaign for a senate run,” he said.

He was attentive when I told him that when I was doing P.R works with Alan Peter Cayetano (Yes Virginia, the present Speaker of the House of Representatives and Senators Grace Poe and Cynthia Villar, too during their hustling days) years before the May 2016 National Election with the various interest groups in the huge 44 towns and four cities’ Pangasinan, he generously gave P100 thousand or more gratis to EACH of the organizations like fish market vendors, sari-sari (small retail store) owners, jeepney operators' organizations, Tricycle Operators and Drivers Association (TODA) and others whose members could borrow the money for their needs. He dubbed his generous altruistic tens if not hundred of millions of pesos program son of a gun all over the country as Presyo-Trabaho-Kita at Kaayusan or PTKK for bravery, er, brevity.

“Para sa inyo  iyan. Babalik ako after two months. Titingnan ko kung lumago iyang lending ninyo at  dagdagan ko pa iyan, ” Cayetano, a senator then, told the amazed and grateful blue collars crowd in 2014 in a "town hall style campaign" when he ingratiated with them to buttress his stocks for his moist eye of the elusive presidency.

But history told us that he settled for the vice presidency of then presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte when his stocks at the Social Weather Station and Pulse Asia hardly picked up just like a man with an erectile dysfunction against presidential polls juggernauts Jojo Binay, Mar Roxas, and Grace Poe.

Duterte was even in the cellar in those early stages of surveys but his expletive laden tough talks to kill those narc pushers and make Manila Bay turned red with their blood thrilled and salivated the hoi poloi for blood that Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp or Wyatt Earp Mayor of Tombstone Davao City eclipsed and buried with ignominy those poll leaders I mentioned recently and he eventually became president of this rambunctious republican system of governance where one of his appointed secretary is Martin  Andanar.

Author with Secretary Andanar.

Before becoming the PCOO top man, José Ruperto Martín Marfori Andanar (born August 21, 1974) is a former Filipino television news personality and news anchor, radio commentator, podcaster, audio blogger and voice-over artist who last worked for TV5, according to Wikipidea.

Martin spent his high school years in Cagayan de Oro and Manila. After a year in University of the Philippines-Los Baños, he moved to Australia with his mother where he graduated with Bachelor of Arts in Social and Political Studies & Film and Media Studies at the Federation University in Australia.^[6][7]

Andanar completed his Master in Entrepreneurship at the Asian Institute of Management in 2007.

In 2008, along with 30 Filipino Youth Leaders, the US State Department sent Andanar to Northern Illinois University for an International Visitors Leadership Fellowship Program. On June 2009, he went to Georgetown University in Washington, DC to attend an Executive Course in Public & Non Profit Management. He also completed a Senior Executive Fellows Program at the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University on March 2010.

Andanar attended courses on Communications in Public Policy Delivery (2015) and Countering Violent Extremism (2017) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. As well as the FB News Literacy (2017) and APAC news literary executive course at the Hong Kong University. He also pursued further doctorate studies on Public Administration at the University of the Philippines-Diliman.

Because of space constraint in our newspaper, I will write later my queries to Secretary Andanar on his takes on the incoming promulgation by the Regional Trial Court on the barbaric massacre of Genalyn Tiamson -Mangundadatu, the wife of the present Congressman Toto Mangundadatu (Genalyn was my school mate in high school), Mangundadatu's sister and 56 people including 32 journalists (it should be 33 including myself if did not migrate from North Cotabato to Pangasinan to practice my craft)  by  Maguindano Governor Zaldy Ampatuan his brothers the insane mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. and Sajid Ampatuan and others and The Magnitsky Act and the U.S Senate Resolution on the ban by Washington to top civilian executives and police brass in the U.S mainland, the possible freezing of their assets there because of the human rights violations of the Duterte Administration, and the release from the slammer of Senator Leila de Lima and the withdrawal of the tax evasion cases filed by the government against Rappler.com CEO Maria Ressa.

READ MY OTHER BLOG/COLUMN:

Stingy reelectionist senator lost bid

(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)