Espino Vs. Cojuangco: Battle Royal Looms After Mark Registered in Lingayen

 

TO GUARD OR NOT TO GUARD THE PACT

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

“Ano balita Mortz?” a high public official - who has a national stature – asked me yesterday afternoon on the phone while I was about to partake my lunch.

I narrated to him my latest column’s Boring Governorship and Cong’l Races that the political groups in Pangasinan of Fifth District Congressman Mon-Mon Guico and former Congressman Mark Cojuangco and those of Pangasinan Governor Amado “Pogi” T. Espino, III and his father and namesake the former governor and ex-Fifth District Representative agreed to a parley to maintain the status quo of the mammoth province.

“This according to my source I named Deep Throat Two,” I quipped.

It means Guico runs in May 2022 for his re-election in the District without seasoned and battle scarred former solon Amado Espino, Jr. challenging him. Pogi re-elect for his last term as governor while Mon-Mon will not oppose him (where spouse Ma-an Guico clashes with the older Espino in the congressional race if the pact did not happen).

CHALLENGER for a scintillating electoral clash. Former nine-year Pangasinan Fifth District Congressman Marcos Juan Bruno "Mark" Oppen Cojuangco (left photo) and incumbent Second District Rep. Jumel Espino. Cojuangco registered last April 19 as voter of Lingayen, Pangasinan – one of the eight towns of the Second District – to challenge Espino’s re-elective bid in the May 9, 2022 election. 

“Ya that’s a good for the two groups,’ the other voice at the end of the line agreed on my quid pro quo's remark.

He agreed too on my thesis – collaborated with statements from unimpeachable sources - that in case Guico runs for the governorship, the huge financial chest that Pogi intends to spend for the provincial wide campaign will not go and threaten the eight towns and one city’s citadel’s of the present Congressman there.

I did not tell him that the no-contest dozing election in the province and the first district could be due to the intercession of the feeler or feelers of the big boss who lived in the Palace by the Pasig River whose daughter Sara is being groomed to be his heir apparent next year, this according to the conjecture of a broadcaster in my birthday.

“How about Mark Cojuangco will he still run against Jumel (Second District Congressman Jumel Espino – the son of former governor Espino and the younger brother of the governor)?” he posed.

Probably, he will not run if he was part of the pact of the no-contest to maintain the electoral tranquility at the expense of the voters – mostly the great unwashed – expecting dough to rain to wet their dry throats especially amid the emaciating pandemic.

I emphasized instead that whoever brainchild Mark C. running in the Second District  the result son of a gun was a chutzpah from the opposition to prevent the Espinos' financial juggernaut to prejudice Mon-Mon’s tiff versus Pogi and Ma-an Guico’s tussle versus Former Cong. Amado, Jr.

He agreed too.

I told him that political kibitzers were puzzled before who the opposition would launch to disrupt the money of the Espinos in the Second District to flood the Fifth District against the Guicos.

Pundits know that former Congressman Victor Agbayani is financially and politically marginalized and the real deal former Congressman and incumbent Lingayen Mayor Pol Bataoil enjoys his being the Hizzoner of the capital town.

“Many kibitzers thought that the Second District will be dull in terms of electoral hoopla because Victor Agbayani became a “has been” and financially weak and the supposed “Real Deal” former nine-year Congressman Leopoldo Bataoil contents himself in sprucing up Lingayen town as hizzoner and instead wants to slugged it out with his boloy (namesake) Leyte Governor Leopoldo Dominico Petilla rather than his godson Jumel - in snaring those foreign and local tourists going to the  MacArthur Landing Memorial Park….”, I wrote on my previous Op-Ed Article.

I thought Mark Cojuangco would register his domicile in the lone opposition small brittle rampart Urbiztondo – one of the eight towns Second District – where the young mayor’s father there former Espinos factotum Raul Sison became a nemesis because he committed infidelity and “treachery’ when he defected to the opposition in the 2019 election.

NEW VOTER. Former Pangasinan Fifth District Representative Mark Cojuangco (extreme left) scribbles the needed information on a government documents for his registration as voter of capital town Lingayen, Pangasinan held last April 19 at the office of the Commission on Election. (Photo was sent to this writer by his blog-reader)

Geez, I scooped that “Political Tryst’ in October 2018 when Raul had a photo op with Espino’s pet peeves Alaminos City Mayor Arthur (who challenged but lost to Pogi Espino’s gubernatorial seat in the May 2019 election), Presidential Adviser in Northern Luzon Raul Lambino, former Pangasinan Governor Victor Agbayani, Binmaley former councilor Anong Alipio and another ex-loyalist of the Espinos retired Police Colonel Paterno Orduna in a hotel in Imperial Manila when my opposition insider sent me that photo (that I immediately posted on my blog in October 1, 2019) of Raul defection from the Ama’ (the Patriarch, the Benefactor, the Whatever hehe) to consummate his long ambition to be a Congressman of the Second District.

Thereafter Raul was bellyaching, smarting, and shouting to the media and the hoi polloi – while monkeying himself awkwardly at a tree top for instance hahaha - that Ama betrayed him by not honoring the palabra de honor to be the heir apparent of outgoing Congressman Pol Bataoil.

Let’s go back to the guy on the other end of the phone line.

“Urbiztondo is a small town (for Cojuangco) and Lingayen is the capital town of Pangasinan,” High Official said.

“But in case the pact of the two groups could be breached Mark Cojuangco can still run as Congressman in the Second District because Urbiz is part of the District in case he registered there,” I said.

“But him registering in Lingayen could be a double edge sword: He can run as solon or he can run as Mayor of Lingayen,” high official cited to me the two political scenarios that could materialize October 1 to 8 this year when the candidates will be scribbling their signatures on the proverbial dotted lines of their Certificate of Candidacy (CoC) in the Commission on Election (Comelec).

“Lingayen too small a situs for him,” of course I told him in the vernacular.

‘But Lingayen is a Capital Town it is still a prestigious post,’ he said.

After I texted my sources whom most of them allowed to be quoted but asked anonymity confirmed what the High Official told me recently.

Source 1: Cojuangco and his party were at the Comelec in Lingayen April 19 where he registered there as voter .

“Nabigla daw silang mga taga Comelec,” he said when Mark C. arrived there.

A source closed to the political family Arcinue told me at dusk yesterday that indeed Mark will run for Congress (against those who said he'll run for the governorship after he inherited billions of pesos from his deceased magnate father) while Former Sual Mayor John Arcinue runs for the mayorship of Lingayen.,

 Source 3, an employee of the local government unit in Lingayen sent me around 1:20 Pm yesterday a message through Facebook: Good Pm. Sir kanina nagpunta dito sa Municipyo si Mark Cojuangco kumuha ng cedula (resident certificate).

At 7 Pm of yesterday another blog reader, a member of an illustrious family in the province, sent me a photo of Cojuangco filing his application at the Comelec in Lingayen. He captioned it: Mark Cojuangco is now a registered voter of Lingayen, Pangasinan.

I told  High Official earlier that in relation to the Constitutional requirement of “xxx a registered voter in the district in which he shall be elected, and a resident thereof for a period of not less than one year immediately preceding the day of the election” (Section 6, Article VI Legislative Department)”, Cojuangco needs affidavits as preponderance of evidences of people like his neighbors and people who go in his domicile, er, house where he regularly stays in Lingayen to show in rem that indeed he resides there.

“Iyong pagiging voter hindi kailangan iyan ng before one year unlike sa residential requirement. The most important thing there is he registered too in the Comelec as voter of Lingayen to qualify to run as Congressman” I told him in Tagalog.

READ MY OTHER BLOG/COLUMN:

Oligarchs Mga Amo' ng Senador sa Pinas?

(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)