Cong. Eyes Senate Seat?

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Before my black bag -- with my valuables inside -- was left and lost in a cart at the parking lot and later returned to me at the Lost and Found Counter of S&R-Calasiao in the drizzling dusk last Thursday, I bumped into several political and public figures inside the Sol & Robert Price Membership Shopping.

Former bank manager Elmo Nilo and Cecile (the Man, er, Gay Friday on the cultural festivities of former Pangasinan provincial government First Lady Dr. Jamie Agbayani) have animated conversations with me about the members of the Rainbow Coalition (not President Fidel V. Ramos and Speaker Joe de Venecia vaunted Coalition but of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender)) affairs where countless members are making raves and waves in the global, national, and provincial scenes.

Elmo lost his bid for the lawmaking post of the Sanggunian Bayan of the second class Agno town. After the one-year ban after the election as mandated by the statute, his benefactor the newly minted Mayor John Celeste appointed him as Consultant inside the Hizzoner’s Office. Elmo has a high opinion of Mayor John.  

AGNO AND BINMALEY POLITICS

While pushing my cart from the meat section to Row 204 to buy my packs of instant oatmeal for my balik alindog diet – ahem! – I bumped into the political couple Binmaley and Agno Councilors Ariel and Lyn Dela Concha.

We exchanged notes about the politics of the nascent Celeste Administration and how he was bogged to run his town effectively with a reenacted budget based on year 2025 sans the 20% Development Fund from the yearly national tax allotment (NAT) for infras because all of the nine solons (Celeste got one elected councilor from his party after the May 25, 2025) and the vice mayor were all allies of former veteran mayor Gualberto Sison whom Mayor John beat with 2,165 margin votes.  In that election Celeste and Sison got 10,293 and 8,128 votes, respectively.

When I wrote on my blog titled: “Merrera, Mamenta Vs. Alipio (Aning), Dela Concha?” (June 27, 101 Talk Radio) that Lyn and Councilor and lawyer Mike Sison-Gimelo (who is former Mayor Sison’s nephew) will be gunning for the vice mayorship and mayorship, respectively, Mayor Celeste – who loves to comments on my blog and vlog -- told me through Messenger that the Opposition making hostage of his 2026 budget was already moot and academic.

The provincial lawmakers headed by Vice Governor Mark Lambino upon their power to review declared that the total appropriation of almost P235 million “operative” in June 29 this year. Ideally, budget of the local government units in the Philippines should have been passed in the last quarter of the preceding year but schism between Celeste and the opposition dragged it from the last quarter of 2025 to June 2026.

The Hizzoner hoped that Vice Mayor Jonathan Doromal and the four lawmakers will collaborate with him in the future.

“With that we'll have five councilors,” he said.

 Lady Dela Concha - who hailed from Bayambang, Pangasinan - is a force to be reckoned with on the May 8, 2028 electoral derby based on my conversation with her because she’s the “maintainer” of the STL (Psst, we call  it too as “Small Town Lottery”). It means she handles the share of a portion of the gambling revenues to elected politicians and the police chief. With Celeste as her opponent, I do not want to say here the Hizzoner is not a monthly recipient of the gambling money because he is an opponent.

GENEROUS MAYORS

Two big first class town mayors told me several months ago how their share from the gambling proceeds and of the Vice Mayor and the councilors are divided.

Male mayor said because the vice mayor and another councilor are from the opponent party, they are not beneficiaries of the P20, 000 monthly payola. Female mayor told me despite some of the councilors came from the opposition she still gives their P20,000 a month ingresso.

“Mabait ako Mortz lahat binibigyan ko. Ang vice mayor ko P25, 000 a month,” she told me.

The male mayor said that his payola from the STL is P600,000. Just do the math of his take home pay monthly after he distributed the P20,000 each to his nine solons.

But some Councilors in another first class town are smarting with their mayor because “King Solomon daw si Mayor” o sino-solo daw ni Mayor ang payola kaya pumunta sila sa ex-mayor and egged him to run in the May 2028 election.

“Pumunta iyang dalawa sa akin pinapatakbo akong mayor kasi sinosolo ni Mayor ang pera sa sugal,” he told me when we bumped into each other.

The numbers' game betting in Pangasinan is a lucrative business. Those in the gambling business told me collectors of the STL in the gargantuan province accumulates an average of P29 million bets everyday (Repeat: Everyday, sanamagan!) from the gullible mostly marginalized Pangasinense who wanna get rich quick from this game of chance. P1.6 million of the 29 million is given as tax to the Philippine Charity Sweepstake Office whose auspices include the STL. It is a game played like the infamous illegal jueteng where Pangasinan elected politicians amass a lot of wealth until President Rodrigo Duterte regulated it with a strict law for tax collection purposes.

In an August 9, 2018 Inquirer report, it said the actual collection in Pangasinan could run up to P10 million to P15 million daily. That was seven years ago.

Twenty- nine million pesos (P29 million) a day, that’s P830 million a month or P48 million tax for the government!

Before, all these P830 million or its equivalent went to Gambling Lords like Atong Ang, the governor, the mayors, the police provincial commander and his chiefs of police.

BACK TO THE DELA CONCHAS

 When I told Ariel that the camp of Binmaley Mayor Pete Merrera sees him as opponent of incumbent “dancing and gyrating” Vice Mayor Edgar Mamenta for the mayoralty diadem in the 2028 election.

“Sabi nila sa akin, si former mayor Sam (Rosario) di naman seryosong tatakbo dahil di siya gagastos. Ikaw daw talaga ang gusto talagang ipanalo ni Mayor Sam,” I quipped.

I told him however that my spies in the “Sanctum Sanctorum” of the politicians in the 2^nd Congressional District and the province told me that Congressman Mark O. Cojuangco eyes a senate seat because of his advocacy to build nuclear plants in the country.

One of the reasons why foreign investors shun the Philippines because of the prohibited prices of its electricity compare to the other ASEAN countries and China where they run nuclear power plants and other power sources.

“Paano iyan pag tumakbo si Mayor Pete versus Cong. Mark favorite (Bugallon) na mayor William De, labo-labo na kayo nila Councilor Aning, Vice Mayor Edgar, and another Merrera sa mayorship?"

Ariel just smiled on the scenario I threw to him.

Abangan sa Mayo 8, 2028 kung mangyayari itong nakikinita ko sa Agno, Binmaley, at sa eight towns’ 2^nd Congressional District.