“THE POLITICAL situation in the third district is abnormal. That is because even those who are not from the Liberal Party are supporting my bid back to Congress.”
So assessed City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez of the local political divide finding confluence in him, swept by the tide of good governance which he exemplified in his administration of Pampanga’s capital city. Did I hear anyone cry: “Arguably”?
“Abnormal is the new normal.” So I heard the ever-sharp Ashley Manabat retorting, albeit showing some Freudian slip with his definition now famously associated with that NBC television series with two gay dads and a single mother as main characters.
No abnormality; no new normalcy even, methinks of Oca’s happy situation. It’s as normal as Philippine politics comes. And goes.
Crossing party lines – with the crossers euphemized as political butterflies or derided as political prostitutes – is as normal as it can get hereabouts. In the first place, the party lines have never been clearly defined, and, as a matter of course, intentionally, if not malevolently, blurred.
So it makes perfect sense that the Pinedas, from the bonus pater familias to Nanay Gov and VG Delta – the very object of abomination of the LP, from PNoy to Mar-kori and the suspended Among – support Oca, the LP official candidate for the 3rd congressional district.
Consequent to that Pineda support of Oca is his veritable, if quiet, endorsement by the Kambilan Party, notwithstanding its being considered by the LP as “the enemy.”
“Hindi naman opposition ito but actually galing sa ibang partido who have professed their support for us.” Ha! Ha! Ha! So what can we say? Oca all diplomatese there. Indeed, why rock the boat?
Similarly, it is absolute normality for LP senatorial bet Cynthia Villar to bask in reflected glory off Governor Pineda in her maternal ministrations of her constituency which the repentant nurse-basher regularly joins.
If there is anything out of the normal grid in things political here, it is the dearth of candidates in the LP slate.
The standard normal is for the party in power to draw like bee to the honey politicians of all stripes, in all levels, decimating the ranks of all the other parties. Thus Marcos’ Kilusang Bagong Lipunan buried the LP and the Nacionalista of old for quite a time.
Thus the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino reigning in Cory Aquino’s time, and the Lakas-NUCD ruling in Fidel V. Ramos’ term, and, expanding to Lakas-Kampi-CMD under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The LP – at least in Pampanga – appears more of a rag-tag aggrupation rather than the dominant party of the administration. A roll call now:
For governor: Eddie T. Panlilio; for vice governor: Maie Tiglao-Cayanan.
For 10 board members: Can anyone please say “Here”?
For the House: 1st District: None; 2nd District: Atty. Vivian Dabu; 3rd District: Oca Rodriguez; 4th District: None.
For mayors: Arayat, Bon Alejandrino; Magalang, Beth Gonzales. Can anyone fill with names the rest of the three cities and 17 municipalities?
For vice mayor: Angeles City, Tony Mamac. The rest of the LGUs – nada!
All but seven names in the LP slate for the four congressional districts, the governorship, the vice governorship, the 10 members of the provincial board, the three cities and 19 towns!
This is not only an abnormality. It is verily a political anomaly! A political pariah in Pampanga – that, most definitively, makes the LP.
So, am I surprised? Not the least. For this is the very fulfilment of PNoy’s matuwid na daan.
Straight now from the Good Book, Matthew 7:14: “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
And Isaiah 35:8: And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.”
Amen. Amen.
Infidels though have a purely secular take on this: Goodbye yellow brick road, Elton John, 1973.
“…So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to my plough
Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh, I’ve finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road.”
Yeah, at least the LP losers have those bricks to strike their heads with after the elections.
