Come election time, this first term mayor in Pangasinan will reap a landslide votes from his town’s voters.
Why? Everybody can go to his house 24 hours a day seven days a week and confide to him their problems from hospitalization to burial without any qualms.
Patronage politics at its finish, eh?
The mayor said he shoulders half of the P8 thousand burial expenses, and give up to P3 thousand hospital bills to the destitute including those media prostitutes, te heh!.
“You sourced all of these from your town’s social funds?” I posed.
The down-to-earth hizzoner answered me in the negative.
He said his P600 thousand social funds were already depleted since February this year. The money he selflessly spends for his indigent constituents comes from his pocket, the 4 percent SOP (moniker of illegal cut) his district congressman gives him to every project of the solon’s in his municipality, and the P9 thousand a day or P170 thousand a month payola from the illegal gambling jueteng .
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| Former President Fidel V. Ramos |
“All of those monies I get from projects and jueteng, I gave them back to my people who need them badly,” he told me.
He said in case the former mayor of his town made a comeback, he should contend himself with the crumbs of votes as he used to monopolize for himself the financial spoils his office got when he was the mayor. Solomonic (greedy), eh?
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The event was the unveiling of the marker dedicated to former President Fidel V. Ramos, and the launching of the first San Roque reservoir boat at the San Roque Power Corporation in San Manuel, Pangasinan.
It was an event treated by a five-minute speech (as dictated by the event’s program we called "protocol") to each high roller government officials like Japan Ambassador Toshinao Urabe, President and Chief Executive Officer of SRPC; Mr. Froilan A. Tampingco, President, National Power Corporation, Pangasinan; Ryukichi Kawaguchi, President & CEO,SRPC;Governor Amado T. Espino, Jr. , Benguet Governor Nestor. B. Fongwan, and other luminaries.
But the rule did not apply sui generis to the main guest the cigar chomping former President Ramos, known as FVR , who had been given a 15 minute allowance for his peroration.
He wowed the crowd after he gave his signature EDSA Revolution’s jump after he was introduced by SRPC’s vice president for corporate affairs and renowned master of ceremony Tom Valdez.
But FVR's bravado was doused by Governor Fongwan after the latter gnawed not only the 15 minutes allocation for the latter but even those five minute’s allotment given to the other VIP guests. Fongwan’s “kilometric” speech was probably written by scintillating Ilokoslokavia saluyot nonpareil columnist Max Soliven hahaha!
With his Civil Law's prowess, the Igorot Guv's dissected the nuts and bolts of the shares of Real Property Tax and the Special Education Fund from the earning his province Benguet gets from the SRPC that were reduced from 2 % to 1.1%. He assailed how his province and his town Itogon are shortchanged in the distribution of revenues from the SRPC, and other grievances he showboated through his legal prowess.
I heard he ain't even a lawyer but probably an LL.B holder sans the Bar examination.
This irked President Ramos who impatiently and incessantly biting his cigar and eventually stood up and went to the seat of Benguet Vice Governor Crescencio C. Pacalso by telling him in Ilocano like “napudot ditoyon (it's hot here)" and commanded him like what U.S General George Patton did to his Colonels before launching them to Normandy to stop Fongwan’s chatterbox.
Everybody at the back seats laughed when the former president gestured by cutting his (FVR) throat to the amusement of the members of the provincial board of Benguet and other spectators.
FVR then went to have some niceties in Ilocanos with some folks at the back while the unwitting Governor Fongwan continued his sentiments and encomium.
The raucous continued when FVR came to my seat when I asked him when I would give him my news article in relation with my recent interview with him. Instead he extended his right hand and hand locked it by asking me to counter his gripped.
“You already know, Sir, I could not beat you ever since we had hand locked before,” I whispered to him as the crowd no longer looked at Governor Fongwan, who still delivered his legally loaded piece, but to our direction.
“Kahit si Manny Pacquaio surrender dito (Even Manny Pacquiao (world class boxing champion) gave up on this hand locked),” Ramos told me.
FVR then asked his close-in bodyguard to get my folder that included my article with him and my latest Q & A with former speaker Jose de Venecia on the South China Sea (See too in the next issue of this blog my Q & A with Ramos).
Thereafter the Benguet Governor, who probably sensed the demeanor of the former Commander-in-Chief to him, has returned to his seat.
When it was Ramos turn to speak, he said he would only speak in five minutes because Governor Fongwan consumed his 15 minutes allocation (crowd guffawed again). But it did not stop FVR to go 20 minutes impromptu.
He dramatically threw at the gusty San Roque wind all the three sheets of folded papers he took from his front pants’ pocket by telling the crowd he no longer need them because it would consume more time at the expense of the crowd who endured in the noontime scorching sun.
What amazed everybody about the former alumnus of West Point during the entirety of his speech?
He, clad in a long sleeve barong, spoke outside the mammoth sunbrella unmindful of the blistering noontime heat.
This made FVR a cut from the rest.
All the preceding speakers spoke under the comfort of the sunbrella. Despite the scorching sun he continued to crack jokes, reminisced how as the then incumbent president of the land he helped conceive the SRPC, and the significance of the hydro-power plant to the need of the country that reeled in the debilitating power crises then.
The chivalry made FVR a soldier's soldier.
I saw these awe in the eyes of retired and active generals, officers, and enlisted men who were there. This made him an Erwin Rommel and a Charlie Chaplain mixed into one and reincarnated susmariosep like when he treated the hoi-polloi about the great giant tilapias and the shark’s story him and former Speaker de Venecia cultured at the reservoir of SRMP.
"When I was President Joe de Venecia narrated to me how big by gesturing the size of the mature shark to those fingerling of tilapias we threw years ago at the reservoir. You know Joe loved to exaggerate. Sabi ko naman sing laki na iyan ng pating e mas maliit naman iyong giant tilapia".
FVR brought the house down, son of a gun, with that anecdote!
(You can read my selected intriguing but thought-provoking columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com).