By Mortz C. Ortigoza
Binmaley Mayor Pete Merrera and Vice Mayor Sam Rosario pent-up anger with each other came into boiling point in the former recent 100 Days Report held at the town’s evacuation center.
Affronted by the remarks of the Hizzoner that some of the projects done during Rosario’s stint as nine years’ mayor like the P11 million overpriced mobile clinic and the comparison of gasoline consumption between their term, the Veem walked out from the Ulat ng Bayan attended by town officials and their constituents.
“Nag walked out ako,
sumigaw ako. Sabi ko: “magdemanda ka na lang!” kaysa sasabihin mo pa sa mga
tao. Ano ang gusto niyang e proved doon parang may ginawa ako? Hindi ako mag –
rereact sasabihin niyang may ginawa?” he said in a radio interview.
In my earlier interview with Merrera – who beat Rosario’s
son in the recent mayorship race – he was ambivalent about the sincerity of the
VM when I told him they were palsy walsy as they smilingly embraced each other
in a photo-op taken by this newspaper reporter Arnel Montemayor.
We even put it as a front page photo in our Northern Watch
Newspaper. I thought the cold war between the duo that originated since time
immemorial was already repaired.
If the animosity of the top two politikos of the town could
no longer be patched up, the casualties of these bickering would be Merrera and
the 87,000 residents (2020 Census) of this first class coastal local government
unit who has a present P360 million budget.
Without the support of the Veem and his almost all ally-
lawmakers (called councilors) in the Sangguniang Bayan the programs and
projects of Merrera will go to naught.
Imagine a town contents itself with a reenacted budget
because the Dads and the Veem maneuvered not to pass a new budget with a twenty
percent development fund where tens of millions of pesos of new projects are
sourced out?
Making hostage the budget made me remember in 2021 and in
early 2022 at Dagupan City when majority of the councilors allied with former
Mayor Belen T. Fernandez procrastinated to approve the P1.38 billion budget of
the second class city.
Because of that schism, the infrastructure projects of then
Mayor Brian Lim early this year were prejudiced.
When Fernandez beat reelectionist Lim, the former faces a
hostile Sangguniang Panlungsod (legislature) controlled by the allies of Lim
who are gung-ho for retribution what the present dispensation had done to their
patron.
Schism with the opposition controlled legislative body
haunts Fernandez until her term ends in June 30, 2025. Poetic justice for Lim,
eh?
The casualties in the power play between Merrera and Rosario
and even Fernandez and the Dagupan City’ SP are their constituents who will be
deprived of those projects, like school buildings, that will be stalled.
***
First class town Mayor was a beneficiary of the political
and financial goodwill of Big Time Politico - 1 (BTP-1).
Several months before the filing of candidacy for the May 9,
2022 election, BTP-1 and another BTP-2 from the district where the mayor lives
had allegedly a quid pro quo. The mayor should forego his reelection so the kin
of BTP-2 could run unopposed to get mayorship’s diadem.
The mayor opposed the entreaty of this patron and instead
sought and won his reelection by beating the kin of BTP-2 in a pyrrhic victory
that applied to the two mayoral antagonists – where hundreds of millions of
pesos were spent for a post that gives only, susmariosep, more than a hundred
pesos a month salary.
Several months after the election, BTP-2 and the kin – a
former political nemesis and who lost the mayorship election – had a parley in
his house.
The parley?
Both will support the mayorship candidacy of the former
mistress of the sitting mayor who (the former concubine) continued to be the
beneficiaries of BTP-2’s good will.
The Hizzoner – who has various mistresses – is now allied
with the new governor who used to be his former patron’s BTF-1’s pet peeved.
“Kalaban mo noong mga ilang taon, ngayon magkakampi na
kayo,” I quipped about the unpredictability of alliances among Filipino
politicians when I heard from an informant the changing political landscape of
this burgeoning town.
(Send comments to
totomortz@yahoo.com)
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