WHAT’S IN Mexico – not the land of my Zapata forebears but in Pampanga– that breeds comics out of its politics?
In 1995, Lacoste-capped, -shirted, -belted, -trousered, -socked and -shoed Ferdinand Meneses was declared re-elected mayor, only to be unseated through an election protest not by his closest rival, Dan Manalastas, but by the almost-poor third placer, Ernesto Punsalan.
If that was not incredulously amusing enough, Punsalan was later ordered to vacate the mayorship as a result of the counter-protest of the croc-branded.
Defying both Comelec and court order, pugnacious Punsalan barricaded himself inside the mayor’s office. The stand-off ended with a brigade of policemen axing their way to Punsalan’s desk.
But only after Mayor Tigas spitefully roared at the regional commander, Chief Supt. Roberto Calinisan: “No can do! Never say die!” Instantly turning comedic what could have been tragic.
(For the uninitiated in Punsalan’s own take of the King’s language, that was his translation of the Tagalog’s “Hindi niyo puwedeng gawin yan.
Magkakamatayan tayo.”) Needless to say, the cops doubled up in laughter.
In 1998, Punsalan won the elections hands down. But the comedy show at the town hall took to an even funnier level.
After his vice mayor, Albert de la Cruz, started ambitioning for his post and sniped at his perceived inanities, Punsalan – in one Monday flag-raising rites – read a letter addressed to the parish priest asking him to expunge his name from the list of De la Cruz’s wedding sponsors, and handed a symbolic candle to an aide to return it to his prodigal godson.
Then, there was Punsalan’s phone interruption of a De La Cruz interview over dwRW, dismissing all allegations of anomalies levelled against him thus: “That’s very politics!”
Punsalan has bowed out of Mexico politics – only temporarily, hopefully. But not the comedy. Of the over-acting variety, this time.
Just last week, Vice Mayor Roy D. Manalastas was reported to have issued several memoranda as “acting mayor,” with M.O. No. 1, Series of 2011 ordering municipal department heads to obey and follow his directives regarding the operation of the office.
In another, Manalastas asked the local government’s depository bank, Development Bank of the Philippines, to disregard all checks issued by Mayor Teddy Tumang, asserting that the latter had been suspended for three months without pay by the Office of the Ombudsman over an administrative case filed sometime in 2006.
There indeed was a news story that said Tumang was ordered suspended by the Ombudsman.
But it has remained unserved, the suspension order that is, pursuant to the so-called Aguinaldo Doctrine whereby re-elected public officials are normally cleared of any liabilities from administrative charges filed against them during their previous term.
Taking after the late Cagayan Gov. Rodolfo Aguinaldo, the doctrine spawned from Aguinaldo vs Santos, where the Supreme Court made clear the rule that a public official cannot be removed for administrative misconduct committed during a prior term, since his re-election to office operates as a condoning of the official’s previous misconduct, thereby cutting off the right to remove him.
In effect, the vote of the electorate exculpates the errant official from administrative liabilities.
In the Mexico instance, the administrative case against Tumang was in 2006, in his first term yet. Tumang was re-elected in 2007 and 2010 which effectively rendered the case against him as moot and academic.
So who installed Manalastas as Mexico’s “acting mayor”?
The process, as we know it from our days as special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior and Local Governments, is that the vice mayor can assume the post of mayor in an acting capacity only after the DILG issues an official order of installation, doing so only after the incumbent mayor has been officially relieved of his official functions through expulsion or suspension.
In the absence of any reported DILG order to that effect, Manalastas then installed himself as acting mayor – an overacting one at that – the way Napoleon installed himself as emperor of France.
Pity Manalastas though, for unlike Napoleon who had all the realm, even the Pope, under his thumb, Manalastas had Tumang, the rightful sitter at the Mexico mayoral seat, to contend with.
Now, over-acting “mayor” Manalastas is reduced to a usurper, himself facing an administrative case for attempting to be what he is not sans any authority from the concerned government agencies.
Laughing out loud now at Manalastas is the whole of Mexico. The loudest guffaws coming from Tumang. Great comedy there.
