FPJ Partylist Takes P’sinan by Storm

   AT THE EXPENSE OF ABONO, API, OTHER PROV’L PARTIES

 

By Mortz C. Ortigoza, MPA

DAGUPAN CITY – The FPJ Panday Bayanihan has been a nightmare to partylists in Pangasinan that have been left out in cold because it is fronted by the popular Senator Grace Poe as its campaign manager and was catapulted at the Top-7 of the prestigious poll’s outfit Social Weather Station (SWS).

 

With outgoing Senator Poe bringing her celebrated party yesterday with big celluloid screen star like Coco Martin –of the famed Ang Batang Quiapo and Probinsyano television series -- while they snaked in a caravan for all and sundry to see in this city, Basista town, and the 87 villages’ San Carlos City -- the last nail on the coffins of partylists like Abono and Abante Pangasinan-Ilokano (API) loom.

FPJ first nominee is Poe’s son Brian Poe Llamanzares.

While FPJ perched at No. 7 with 2.45% at the SWS on its poll of January 17-20, 2025, Abono and API were at the cellars or outside the Top 57 parties that could win the congressional plums.

It should be 63 partylists as based on the constitutional mandate of 20 percent but popular parties’ 4Ps, Duterte Youth, and ACT-CIS got nine congressmen that make 57 partylists that are expected to win.

Abono and API represented by Congressmen Robert Raymund “Eskimo” Estrella and Michael Morden are at No. 65 (it should be at No. 59) and No. 143, respectively out of the 148 parties that compete to the votes of the Filipinos.

Aside from the  exceptional fame of actor Martin that carries the Probinsyano television series  that relived the saga of Poe’s popular iconic actor father Fernando, the Senator as campaign manager is too big a figure compared to Estrella who is an average solon and Morden that this writer could not determine if he is an average or below average congressman as both gauges were not seen by this writer where he debated intellectually on a bill against fellow members of the august chamber at the Batasang Pambansa Complex in Quezon City or being a  member of a committee chiding and citing with contempt corrupt government officials before the national television like what those famous lawmakers have been doing at the Quadcom.

 

Morden’s Facebook Account before was full of posts of various species of bonsai plants that he specialized. He was a tree connoisseur even when he was a factotum of Abono Party Chair Rosendo So and before he defected to former Pangasinan Governor Amado T. Espino, Jr – the founder of API and this year’s first nominee, this columnist knew it because he frequented the office of So – a big and famous Chinese - Filipino businessman and philantropist in and out of Pangasinan.

Abono’s popularity has been declining after it lost its second nominee in the 2019 election.

In the 2013 and 2016 election it got two congressional seats represented by Estrella and Pacoy Ortega (2013) and Vini Ortega (2016).

In the May 2022 election, API and ABONO got 449, 346 (1.24%) and 287, 460 (0.80%) votes, respectively, where it was allowed by the Commission on Election (Comelec) to have one representative each.

 

Would the May 12, 2025 midterm election be a Coup d’Grace for the two Pangasinan parties because of a very popular figure La Senadora Grace hyped his son -- both descendants of the renowned pistolero Fernando the beloved son of the vote rich San Carlos and the scion too of the mammoth Northern Luzon’s province?

Coup d’Grace, by the way to the unsophisticated, means “a final blow or shot given to kill a wounded person or animal”.

“Delikado si Abono at API pero takot sa inyo si Grace Poe,” this writer jested recently to Pangasinan 3^rd District Cong. Ma. Rachel Arenas when both bumped into each other at the columnist’s mother-in-law birthday at Brgy. Macabito, Calasiao.

“Hindi naman,” the reelectionist solon quipped.

Several months before the filing of the certificate of candidacy (CoC), this op-ed writer had been badgering in his blog and texting the camp of Poe – a friend during her senatorial stumps – to challenge Arenas for the congressional diadem of the most populated district in Pangasinan.

But Poe did not take the bait but instead launched a partylist that became a juggernaut as it became the Top 7 – shoving and jostling with the likes of the very popular two to three nominess each assured 4Ps, Duterte Youth, and ACT-CIS -- among the 148 partylists that aspired to be a part of the 20 percent of the 313 members’ 20th Congress.  

FPJ was too popular that even Dagupan City Mayor Belen Fernandez “betrayed” her partylist Abono as her Facebook Page drummed up the coming of Poe, Martin, and famous rock band Itchyworm, and others for a caravan around the coastal city.

“TANGGOL IN DAGUPAN!! Ipasyal lang po natin sina Sen. Grace Poe, her son Brian Poe-Llamanzares kasama ng Team Unliserbisyo na iikot sa Dagupan! Ramdam natin ang init ng pagtanggap ng mga Dagupeños!” reelectionist Mayor Fernandez said as she joined the caravan.

As what Karl Marx said on his book Das Kapital: "Whither capitalist, whither!” Would it be Whither Abono, API, whither? as politicians in Pangasinan join the band wagon of Grace Poe.