WHAT ANGELES City is, Mabalacat City is not.
So rued netizens of the latter who have come to bitterly bash their local officials at each post of anything perceived to be good about the former.
There is the cultural renaissance made most manifest in Plaza Angel – that cobblestoned square centered around the Holy Rosary parish church, Museo ning Angeles, and Pamintuan Mansion – inevitably compared to nothing of its least likeness in Mabalacat City. The old municipio and the parish church? Never mind.
Not that the “next Makati north of Manila” though is bereft of anything cultural to revive and celebrate. Like its Caragan Festival, which, sadly, is generally sneered at as more moneymaking for the denizens of city hall than merrymaking for the local folk.
So unkind, so unjust a bashing, especially to its indefatigeable braintrust Jun Magbalot, who, unarguably, upped the event to standards capable of winning national recognition, as indeed it has – through its dancers – in the annual Aliwan Festival that gathers in competition all festivals throughout the country, read: Cebu’s Sinulog, Kalibo’s Ati- Atihan, Iloilo’s Dinagyang, Bacolod’s Masskara, among others.
Angeles City’s decrepit Philippine National Railroad station at the Crossing – birthplace of sisig a la Aling Lucing, recently hailed in The New York Times as “the greatest pork dish on earth” – has been repurposed into a People’s Park, complete with kiddie playground, chess tables and benches, replanted trees and vegetable plots and trellises.
So what about Mabalacat’s own equally old and as dilapidated PNR station? The landmark of “Jopilan Street” – so called for “Buddy, how many (sachets of shabu)” in Kapampangan – the city’s drug tiangge. So say Mabalacat’s netizens.
So Angeles City successfully removed the tangled “spaghetti wires” of power providers, telcos and cable TV channels from its heritage district and commercial-cum-entertainment area that is Balibago, clearing, if not prettifying, the vistas therein.
Sa Angeles nawala na ang mga linya, pero may kuryente. Sa Mabalacat, puro linya, pero walang kuryente. So Mabalacat City tweeters can only twit their local officials for the perpetual power outages they suffer, notwithstanding all kinds of lines and cables girdling, and uglifying, their communities.
So both cities suffer some surge in crime – homicides, robbery, drugs. So was posted Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan surveying the scene of encounter littered by the bloodied bodies of two robbers, and in the caption added the names of the arrested duo of police officers in cahoots with the thieves.
So where’s Mabalacat City Mayor Marino Morales, his constituents ask at every upload of a photo of a crime victim, at every post of a crime happening everywhere in his city. A sense of desperation permeating Mabalacat City, finding expression in the net, thus:
“Mayor EdPam, kaybat yu pu Angeles, malyaring ika yu na pu ing maging mayor mi Mabalacat pamu (after Angeles, can you be our mayor in Mabalacat)?” Some whimsical pleading there that generated not a few “Likes” nevertheless.
And the prospects for 2016 are far from promising.
“People’s choice for the 2016 election in Mabalacat are as follows:
1. Evil
2. More evil.
3. Lesser evil.
4. Followers of Evil.
5. Followers of More Evil.
6. Followers of lesser evil.
Classification of Voters in Mabalacat.
1. Stupid Voters
2. Non- Stupid Voters
3. Non – Voters because of Stupid Candidates
4. Non – Voters because it’s HOPELESS
So posted one Jexel Castro of Barangay Duquit, immediately generating a score of comments – and still growing – that uniformly agreed with her proposition.
With the two names bandied about as the protagonists in 2016, there is a general sense of dread, of hopelessness and desperation gripping the Mabalacat City constituency. That is, if we go by their posts and tweets. Caught as they say they are between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Some despondency there fast growing into irreversible malignancy.
