It was first blood drawn against incumbent mayor Rodriguez by Rey Catacutan, current vice president of the Clark International Airport Corp. but raring to repossess the Capas mayorship he previously held for nine years.
Catacutan himself admitted having shared the damning photograph on Facebook which found its way in mainstream media.
Amid the resultant din of denunciation, Rodriguez’s “casket politics” found not-soquiet solace in some quarters, notably ABSCBN’s Umagang Kay Ganda hosts that dismissed the brains behind the upload as “inggit lang kayo dahil naunahan kayo sa ganitong gimmick.”
“E di sa lapida naman ninyo ilagay ang pangalan niyo,” host Tunying Taberna even suggested to Rodriguez’s envious rival. Ha, ha, ha.
Well, what do you know, it is not an epal-itic tombstone that Catacutan’s name got inscribed on. It is on a morgue.
Capas politics getting really morbid now.
Catacutan has been taken to court – Civil Case No. 971-4-12 filed on April 17, 2012 with the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 66 – for allegedly refusing to vacate the morgue at the O’Donnell Resettlement Project which he reportedly converted into his own rest house.
Catacutan holds on to a 2002 letter from the defunct Housing and Urban Development and Coordinating Council-Pinatubo Project Management Office authorizing him to “renovate and utilize” the morgue which was “abandoned, looted and vandalized since 1992 after its construction.”
The Capas government on the other hand grounded its case against Catacutan on a deed of transfer and acceptance over the whole resettlement project awarded by HUDCCPPMO to the LGU.
Contrary to Catacutan’s allegation, the morgue has been deemed part of the 10-bed clinic now owned by Barangay Cristo Rey as evidenced by a certification issued on June 2, 2011 by then National Housing Authority OIC Engr. Rodrigo L. Corral.
Additionally, in a January 30, 2015 judicial affidavit, Rodolfo E. Dino, acting estate supervisor of the NHA, testified “there is no contract of lease executed by NHA in favor of Catacutan” to occupy the morgue.
The legal issues aside, Catacutan stands on shaky political and murky moral grounds in his obstinate occupancy of the morgue as though it were his own titled property.
This, most notably against the backdrop of Rodriguez already allocating funds to rehabilitate the morgue for the “general welfare and benefit” of the residents of the O’Donnell resettlement and the western barangays of Aranguren, Sta. Lucia, Patling, Sta. Juliana, Bueno and Maruglu.
Aye, with thousands of Capas residents standing to benefit from, er, to make use of that morgue, vis-à-vis Catacutan’s purely personal welfare with his rest house remaining there, one need not be an actuarial specialist to do some elemental political arithmetic here.
It ain’t no way to win votes, Catacutan.
Seemingly having backfired too on Catacutan is his Facebook upload of Rodriguez’s casket politics.
Even as the mayor has clarified that the name placement was to prevent unscrupulous funeral parlors from further charging the bereaved family for the casket already paid for by the LGU, Rodriguez reportedly ordered a stop to the program immediately after the media fuss.
Which – both stoppage and fuss – reportedly did not sit well with Capas barangay chairmen now left to themselves to address the funeral needs of indigent constituents.
Already I heard of a petition moving around town for signature of the kapitanes appealing to Rodriguez to immediately restore the free casket program “most beneficial to the most needy at their time of bereavement.”
With Catacutan reaping the blame thus: “E ne macasaup, mecaperwisyu ya pa.
(Direct translation: Already of no help, he further caused hardship)” Not so much a between-the-devil-and-thedeep- blue-sea proposition, Rodriguez’s socalled epal-itic caskets and Catacutan’s flashy rest house in a morgue present a not-so-difficult choice for the people of Capas. It simply boils down to that which benefits them most. No brainer there.
Yeah, that’s no way to get votes, Catacutan.
Come to think of it. Caskets as political capital. Morgue as political liability. The making of necropolitics.
Only in Capas? Arguably.
Indubitably though is Tarlac being the ground zero of necropolitics in the country. Consider:
Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was killed.
Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, his widow became president.
Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino died. BS Aquino III, her son, became president.
God forbid! When the BS dies, Joshua Aquino, his nephew, becoming president.
E di wow!
