FOR
THE 2022 ELECTION
BY
MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA
Former
Pangasinan First District Congressman Jesus “Boying” Celeste will
soon announce to the public his intention to duke out, geez this
early, with Philippines second richest town’s Sual first term mayor
Liseldo ”Dong” Calugay for the May 2022 National and Local
Elections, a source who is closed to the ex-solon texted me.
”Paki
bullhorn mo na brother si ex-Congressman Jesus "Boying"
Celeste. He is out to challenge Mayor Calugay
of Sual para maumpisahan na ang Sual”
My
mole, as what the spooks say, was the same man who gave me the scoop
in October 1, 2018 that former Pangasinan Governor and Congressman
Amado T. Espino, Jr. trusted ally’s Board Member and then
congressional wannabe Raul Sison deserted him to challenge the former
son Jumel in the acrimonious 2019 congressional race in the Second
District of the province.
Here’s
what I wrote:
2022
POLL'S DUKE OUT: From left: Former Nine-Year Pangasinan First
District Congressman Jesus "Boying" Celeste and Philippines
second richest town's Sual, Pangasinan Mayor Liseldo "Dong"
Calugay.
“A
major blow struck the camp of a marquee political family in the huge
Pangasinan province when a hardcore ally jumped ship to a rival
(gubernatorial bet Arthur Celeste) because
he was not anointed and felt betrayed to run for a
congressional seat. Exiting Board Member Raul Sison, the point
man of Governor Amado “Pogi” I. Espino, III in the Second
District, abandoned him and his congressman father with the same
namesake after feeling being cheated for his congressional
ambition in the second district of the province”.
At
the caption of that then breaking news I penned and posted on my
Political Blog:
Sison, in that covert Manila meeting, joined
the camp of Alaminos City Mayor Arthur Celeste for the latter‘s gubernatorial run in the May 2019 election. Others
in photo there were Presidential Adviser
for Northern Luzon and Cagayan Special Economic Zone
(CEZA) Administrator and Secretary Raul Lambino (dubbed
as the King Maker of Pangasinan),
former Pangasinan Governor Victor Agbayani, Binmaley former
councilor Arnulfo “Anong” Alipio, and another ex-loyalist of
the Espinos retired police colonel Paterno Orduna .
Alipio and
Sison (whose family said died of pulmonary disease
and a heart attack) have
been in the news
after they were sued
by the cops as one of the 12 perpetrators of the September
11, 2019 ambushed
of former
governor Espino where ten men armed with powerful assault automatic
rifles fired with military precision the convoy of two vehicles
of the just defeated solon in his Fifth District reelection when he
and his body guard were
traversing Barangay Magtaking,
San Carlos City, Pangasinan. Result of that treachery and
overkill: Espino’s police
escort Staff Sgt. Richard Esguerra and his driver Agapito
Cuizon died.
Raul,
whom I described as the King Gimmicks then, tried all his best to
snare the votes of the district against the young Espino and his
financial juggernaut by doing various corny antics like by climbing a
tree like a chimpanze ang goofing around with a microphone on his
hand.
It
did not sit well with the older Espino who gave his opprobrium that
running for Congress was a serious profession unlike what he saw in
the classless Sison – his former man Friday whom he said could not
even speak and finish a sentence in correct English during his stint as Board
Member in the August Chamber.
‘Umaakyat
siya sa puno ng kahoy na parang unggoy na may dala dala pang
roll-on,” he
said in a press conference he called to rebut the attacks of his
political opponents led by gubernatorial candidate Celeste.
Here’s
the other half of the Short Message Service (SMS) colloquially called
texts by my source who lived in the western part of the mammoth
almost four million populated province of Princess Urduja (did the
warrior lady has a first name? Or her first name was really Princess just like Actress Princess Punzalan the ex-wife of Willie Revillame).
“Ex
Mayor and Congressman Art Celeste is going
back in 2022 (election) for his
most loved position than the mayoralty and the gubernatorial
post -- the congressional
where he spent nine
years as a lawmaker”.
The
vice mayoralty tandem of Boying Celeste, a three-term mayor and three
term solon -- what a feat, will be former Sual three term – mayor
John Rodney Arcinue.
Calugay
defeated John in the May 2019 election by a lead votes of 1,667 among the 22,535 registered voters who went
to the polling precincts.
According
to Halalan Results of ABS-CBN television network, Calugay (PDP-LBN)
outsmarted Arcinue (NP) with 12, 101 and 10, 434, respectively.
John’s
father my coffee mate ex-mayor Roberto “Bing” Arcinue was knocked
out by his former vice mayor and pet peeve hahaha Dioneil Caburao
(PDP-LB) with 12, 788 votes while Kuya Bing settled with 9, 003
votes.
Hinde
umubra iyong sako-sako natin Kuya Bing, mas maraming sako ang kalaban
bumaha hahaha!
Just
like in Dagupan City where thousands of pesos changed hands between
the bag men of the deep pocketed mayoralty bets, who are chains of
malls’ owners, that Sual poll was one of the most expensive
vote-buying marred elections in Pangasinan.
The
Celestes smarted that Sual, second richest town in the Philippines
according to the Commission on Audit, was snatched by their bitter
enemies former Congressman Espino and his son and namesake the
incumbent governor of Pangasinan.
Calugay,
just like Raul Sison, is known as the factotum of the former
governor.
According
to the news article I wrote in November 15, 2019
titled: Sual Gears Up to
become Richest Town in PH, I penned (sus, this
yokel sometimes felt the groove to write on a ball pen and a piece of
scratch paper) a
report released by the COA that the municipality of Sual
maintained its position as the second richest municipality in the
country with assets amounting to P2.037 billion.
Only
Sual - among Pangasinan’s 44 municipalities – made it to COA’s
top ten richest towns, besting such other first class towns as the
capital town of Lingayen, Bayambang, Mangaldan, Malasiqui, Binmaley,
and Calasiao. The tiny coastal town located at the First
Congressional District or Celeste Country earned
more or less P200 million a year from the business taxes
from the Team Sual Corporation (TSC) and the San Miguel
Corporation (SMC) that procured and sold in the market the
electricity generated by the TSC.
And I was not yet talkin' about the local government unit's share from her local taxes and the tens of millions of pesos' Internal Revenue Allotment from the Imperial Manila Government.
Now
you know how sensationalized to write a political article about this
once tiny sleepy town (who
got an absentee mayor with an illustrious surname, agpaypayso Vice
Mayor Alex
Rigonan the best pal of broadcaster Ruel Camba and Ike Palinar?)
where
political titans of Pangasinan clash head on of their proxy wars to
gain or deprive each other families of political territory
either contiguous, compact, or adjacentas
what the statute on congressional apportionment would say in the
Constitution – the subject I taught in college for ten years.
The forthcoming duke
out of Boying and Calugay and the Espinos is seen by
political experts as continuation of
the political maneuvering and hegemony of
the Celestes and the Espinos to control the
District.
It
is seen as, just like the expensive John versus Dong
tiff for the mayoralty's diadem in 2019, as another
Battle Royal where dough will flood to the
hands of the vulnerable
highest bidding voters (pera-pera
lang just like in Dagupan
hahaha)
of the mountainous coastal town.
In
that 2019 poll, the Espinos clawed its presence by taking
over Sual, Mabini, Dasol, and Agno towns
where their loyalists like
Calugay and Mayors Ariel de Guzman, Noel Nacar (who used to support the Celestes in 2016 Election), and Gualberto Sison won against the Celestes
mayoralty candidates.
For
several elections, the nine towns and one city used to be
dominated by Celestes’ mayoralty allies after the family through
former mayor Art (a former resident of the vote - rich Bolinao town)
ousted the Braganzas, another bitter but fading political enemies, in
Alaminos City.
But
in that last year’s election, the younger brother of Celeste,
former Bolinao Mayor Arnold, a U.S repatriate beat by 7, 448
lead votes Espino congressional bet Tim Orbos, the younger sibling of
the former solon of the District.
That
lead votes were part the 195, 020 voters that went to the polling
places in Western Pangasinan.
Here's Media Man Mon Untalan, a kibitzer of the District's politics:" Naglipat na ng gamit sa nabiling house ng mga Celeste (si ex-Congressman Boying) sa may kurbada bago paahon sa zigzag doon sa kalsada ng Sual. Nandoon ang congressional district's office ni Cong. Noli who by the way will run as mayor in Agno na nawala sa kanila. To date patuloy ang clever campaign nila led by Kapitan Tomagoy of Barangay Caoayan, Sual. He is batang Arcinue".
Mon said that the second 1,000-megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant of Korea Electric Power Corporation will try again its bid to build shop at the coastal town.
"That's what made Sual very attractive to politicians," Mon added.
According
to broadcaster Harold Barcelona, after Boying told the village chiefs
of Sual his intention to run for the top executive post there, 12 out
of 19 Kapitans pledged immediately their loyalty to him.
I
have to confirm this yet when I interview the former solon since I
doubted some of the reports of Harold, a Facebook and SMS or Text
illiterate hahaha, whenever he dropped by the house and “wolfed”
some Davao Fruits the missus buy in the Southern Island and sell in
the rambunctious province of Pangasinan.
***
After
I “absconded” from Mindanao after my almost four months being
lock down there due to the phantom pandemic Corona Virus Disease -19,
prolific radio commentators Ruel Camba and Atong Remogat dropped by
at my house in Dagupan City and told me on that middle of July
meeting over a bottle of Johnny Walker and succulent Davao Durian
pulps as finger food that Calugay was roving around the
municipalities of the District and was seen generously giving
financial assistance to the mayors there.
“Because
he intends to run for Congress and his wife will run for mayor versus
Boying Celeste,”
the duo told this Op-Ed Writer who was hungry to know the
nitty-gritty of the political events in the towns of the gargantuan
province after he was enmeshed in
Mindanao politics. Sus, he was even baptized by a Duterte Cabinet
Secretary at his residence at the foot of the majestic, er, tallest
and great Mt. Apo in Kidapawan City as a Muslim Chieftain with a
name: Datu Musuko Pagdimakak*yo hahahaha!
I
forgot to ask the two how much Calugay gave to those Mayors.
***
What
I know the De Venecias led by Fourth District Representative Toff de
Venecia gave lately Seven to Ten Thousand Pesos financial
aids to barangay officials in Manaoag and San Jacinto Towns after Secretary
Lambino was seen, as a whirling dervish, giving fifty mono block
chairs and allegedly Seventy Thousand Pesos to each of the many Kapitans of
the 140 villages’
district.
That’s
a lot of monies son of a gun that could change the loyalty of those
Kupitan, er, Kapitan – for - Sale in the Central Pangasinan’s
District.
These
information came from the trolls or dummy accounts like Dina
Magpitpit, Liann De Vera Bauzon, and countless others who do the
bidding for their patrons and launch their vitriol to those political
leaders I saw with regularity on my news feed in Facebook.
Anyway,
the brouhaha and the tearing of each other’s prestige and honor by
these media friends have been a treat and amusement to the many
hahaha who know them!
READ
MY BLOG/COLUMN:
(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)
