MABALACAT, Pampanga – The mayoral clash between father and daughter in this town has literally reached biblical proportions.
As reelectionist Lakas-Kampi-CMD Mayor Marino Morales spread posters quoting the fourth commandment, “Honor thy father and they mother”, his daughter Nacionalista Party bet Marjorie Morales-Sambo, 34, held yesterday a press conference wherein protestant bishops raised issues against the mayor’s alleged violations of the Ten Commandments.
“What about the biblical prescription on parental responsibility? The command not to steal? Not to commit adultery?” asked Bishop Antonio Espiritu who was seated at the presidential table during a conference called here by Marjorie.
Marino’s poster on honoring parents was obviously a jab at her daughter’s candidacy.
Marjorie sent invitations to her press conference via cell phone texts messages at about 4 p.m. Tuesday. Half an hour later, local media got another text messages for a press conference with Marino. Marjorie’s conference was held at 10 a.m. yesterday, while her father’s was at noon in another venue.
Marjorie insisted, however, that her running for mayor was largely dictated her desire to “serve Mabalaquenos” and not to fight her father.
But she vowed that when she becomes mayor, she would not hesitate to prosecute even her own father once evidence of corruption is found against him.
“I will open the books and spare no one from prosecution,” she said.
Marino, however, has insisted that Marjorie’s husband, contractor John Sambo, was the one who had prodded her daughter to challenge him in the mayoral race.
Sambo, who seemed more outspoken than his wife during yesterday’s press conference, denied this.
Marjorie said that her father had initially dissuaded her from running for mayor and instead offered her a slot for the municipal council.
She said she imposed as condition the investigation and removal of two officials of the municipal government who are allegedly notorious for corruption. “He refused and even exonerated them,” she recalled.
Marino is known to have fathered many children by different women. Marjorie is his child by his original wife who is now a member of the board of director of the government-owned Clark Development Corp. at Clark freeport.
Asked to rank her father as mayor in a scale of 10 with one being the highest, Marjorie replied “somewhere between the middle and 10.”
This, even as Marjorie’s husband threatened to expose people allegedly behind the burning of ballots at the municipal hall soon after the elections in 2007.
“I have heard my father-in-law has plans of implicating me as mastermind in the incident. I don’t like to go to jail for a fault I did not commit. If they push me to the wall, I will reveal all,” Mr. Sambo said during the press conference.
Soon after the 2007 polls, still unknown suspects set fire to ballot boxes in the municipal hall. The ballots in the boxes were then expected to be subject to recount amid an electoral protest at the gubernatorial level. Probers later said arson was involved.
But the mayor’s spokesperson Diosdado Pangilinan, after learning about the threat, accused Mr. Sambo of being the mastermind in the fire.
“At that time, Mayor Morales was already proclaimed mayor. Only he (Sambo) has the motive since he was then a leading supporter of Among Ed (Gov. Eddie Panlilio),” he said.
In his press conference, the mayor did not react to Sambo’s threat, saying that the real sentiments of his constituents in 2007 could also be reflected in the May polls.
Morales has remained mayor of this town since 1995, virtually occupying the post for four successive terms by the unusual quirk of technicalities in political protests.
As reelectionist Lakas-Kampi-CMD Mayor Marino Morales spread posters quoting the fourth commandment, “Honor thy father and they mother”, his daughter Nacionalista Party bet Marjorie Morales-Sambo, 34, held yesterday a press conference wherein protestant bishops raised issues against the mayor’s alleged violations of the Ten Commandments.
“What about the biblical prescription on parental responsibility? The command not to steal? Not to commit adultery?” asked Bishop Antonio Espiritu who was seated at the presidential table during a conference called here by Marjorie.
Marino’s poster on honoring parents was obviously a jab at her daughter’s candidacy.
Marjorie sent invitations to her press conference via cell phone texts messages at about 4 p.m. Tuesday. Half an hour later, local media got another text messages for a press conference with Marino. Marjorie’s conference was held at 10 a.m. yesterday, while her father’s was at noon in another venue.
Marjorie insisted, however, that her running for mayor was largely dictated her desire to “serve Mabalaquenos” and not to fight her father.
But she vowed that when she becomes mayor, she would not hesitate to prosecute even her own father once evidence of corruption is found against him.
“I will open the books and spare no one from prosecution,” she said.
Marino, however, has insisted that Marjorie’s husband, contractor John Sambo, was the one who had prodded her daughter to challenge him in the mayoral race.
Sambo, who seemed more outspoken than his wife during yesterday’s press conference, denied this.
Marjorie said that her father had initially dissuaded her from running for mayor and instead offered her a slot for the municipal council.
She said she imposed as condition the investigation and removal of two officials of the municipal government who are allegedly notorious for corruption. “He refused and even exonerated them,” she recalled.
Marino is known to have fathered many children by different women. Marjorie is his child by his original wife who is now a member of the board of director of the government-owned Clark Development Corp. at Clark freeport.
Asked to rank her father as mayor in a scale of 10 with one being the highest, Marjorie replied “somewhere between the middle and 10.”
This, even as Marjorie’s husband threatened to expose people allegedly behind the burning of ballots at the municipal hall soon after the elections in 2007.
“I have heard my father-in-law has plans of implicating me as mastermind in the incident. I don’t like to go to jail for a fault I did not commit. If they push me to the wall, I will reveal all,” Mr. Sambo said during the press conference.
Soon after the 2007 polls, still unknown suspects set fire to ballot boxes in the municipal hall. The ballots in the boxes were then expected to be subject to recount amid an electoral protest at the gubernatorial level. Probers later said arson was involved.
But the mayor’s spokesperson Diosdado Pangilinan, after learning about the threat, accused Mr. Sambo of being the mastermind in the fire.
“At that time, Mayor Morales was already proclaimed mayor. Only he (Sambo) has the motive since he was then a leading supporter of Among Ed (Gov. Eddie Panlilio),” he said.
In his press conference, the mayor did not react to Sambo’s threat, saying that the real sentiments of his constituents in 2007 could also be reflected in the May polls.
Morales has remained mayor of this town since 1995, virtually occupying the post for four successive terms by the unusual quirk of technicalities in political protests.
