By Mortz C. Ortigoza
Whenever there is a lull on my ghost writings for clients abroad, I see to it I visited some politician friends like Mayors and Congressmen and exchange notes with them, read those hard bounds I bought from Book Sale (hikbi, I heard its branch in Robinson-Pangasinan had closed shop), plays with my acoustic guitar while belting folk rocks, and pumping irons in my room while watching war documentaries at YouTube.
A Mayor denied that his Kapitans (village chiefs) were recipients of “dirty” monies from a congressional material that reached to P25,000 whenever each of them visited his abode.
“Sabi noong isang media man hindi lang biente singko mil ang natatangap ng Kapitan umaabot pa daw ng isandaang libo pag malaki ang barangay ni Kap,” I told the Hizzoner.
“Hindi totoo iyan. Nasarapan lang iyong mga Kapitan ko kaya laging namamasyal doon sa kanya pero hindi umabot ng P25,000 ang bigayan kada isa”.
He said in their first, second, and third visits each of them were given P1000, P2000, and P3000, respectively.
“Pinatawag ako ng kalaban, nagtatanong bakit lagi namamasyal iyong mga Kapitan ko sa rival nila, ayon sinabihan ako na e meeting sila para mabigyan ng tag di-dies mil (P10,000) kada isa”.
The amiable seasoned mayor, who was once an alleged bag man of jueteng (illegal number's game), told me he hosted a drinking spree for the Kaps and when he distributed the envelop to each of them all their eyes popped out when they start counting the P1,000 bills inside: Damn, they could not believe the rival of the public figure could be more generous.
“Tuwang tuwa sila hindi nila akalain na ang pagpunta-punta nila sa kabila ay napalitan ng mas malaking halaga. Marakep ya (this is good, he said in Pangasinan)”
“Mag Lalagaring Hapon iyang mga Kapitan ninyo Mayor,” I quipped by comparing them to those voters and media men for sale to the highest bidder.
The Mayor even told me that it is the reality of Philippines’ Politics that a person loyalty’s depend on the gold.
“Tulad ko hindi ako matalino pero talo ko ang matalino nakapagtapos ng aral. Pati iyong mga namamatayan pag pumunta sa opisina ko napapahiyaw sa saya’.
“Bakit naman?”
‘E iyong palibing sa sementeryo namin ang bayad diyan P3,500. Maski nabigyan ko na ng pambili ng kabaong ang namatayan humihirit pa rin na tulungan ko sa pagpapalibing”.
He asked each of the bereaved families “Sige hati tayo. Sa akin ang P3,000 sa inyo ang P500”.
He suspected that his constituents he aided muttered behind his back: Ang bobo naman iyang Mayor natin sa Math. Sabi niya hati – e anlaki iyong nihati niya P500 lang tayo sa gastos”.
‘Masarap pala mamatayan dito sa bayan ninyo Meyor, parang sa Makati at Taguig pati kape libre,” I commented.
***
I remembered a former jueteng maintainer ( a graduate of Mababang Paaralan ng San Andres Bukid (Low School of Saint Andrew’s Field – as many radio commentators in Pangasinan would translate) who outsmarted his Lawyer – Mayor - an alumnus of the University of the Philippines College of Law.
He said the mayor has numerous mistresses and he always needs monies. The maintainer told the mayor that every month he has two hundred thousand pesos as payola.
“But he did not know that the allocation for a mayor in a town with x population is six hundred thousand monthly or twenty thousand pesos a day,” he cited.
There were cases where the mayor would ask for one hundred thousand in the first week of the month, and two successive fifty thousand pesos for the second and third week.
“Tapos doon sa fourth week hihirit uli si mayor ng fifty thousand pesos. But my my men would tell him na ubos na ang allocation niya for that month. Then he’ll beg to advance that amount in the next month’s payola. I allowed him but to the amusement of my men because in reality we still owed the mayor four hundred thousand a month” he narrated to me.
That illegal number game’s became a Mayor, too.
***
When I divulged this story with some politicians they could just empathized with the duped shallow hizzoner.
I told them the mayor was just like Four – Star Army General William Westmoreland an artillery man and the commander of the Vietnam War - the war the well funded and superior armed Yanks lost against farmer-soldiers in the 1960s and early 1970s in a poor country in South East Asia.
"His generals and colonels looked at him poorly because he was shallow, just like many generals in the Philippines," I emphatically told them.
Here’s what author Thomas E. Rick of the book The Generals cited some generals about the Shallow as Marshmallow General Monty – a graduate of the United States Military Academy’s Class of 1936.
“Lt. General Charles Simmons said that General Westmoreland was intellectually very shallow and made no effort to study, read, or learn. He would not just read anything”.
Lt. General Philip Davidson” Westmoreland, told me he considered his lack of formal military education to be an advantaged in Vietnam.
“He attended neither the Army War College nor its Command and General Staff College but – in keeping with the Army’s new emphasis on corporate management – became the first Army officer to attend the Harvard Business School while on active duty, taking thirteen-week course in advanced management in the fall of 1954,” Davidson said.
Many generals did not like Westy because he was an artillery man in World War II now leading against peasant guerrillas in a new kind of war that needs a commander who was primordially an infantry man.
READ MY OTHER BLOG/COLUMN:
Army officer uses men as bait to locate Muslims' snipers
(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)
