Tuesday, October 2, 2018

The ‘Iron Lady’ Zulueta I know

“Win or lose, we go shopping after the election.”
--Imelda Marcos

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY
-- The reported “surprise” entry of Dr. Perla S. Zulueta in Iloilo City’s congressional race must have saddened Councilor Joshua Alim and former councilor Julienne “Jam-Jam” Baronda.
Alim and Baronda are aware they will be facing a serious contender with an almost impeccable record and a long experience in public service.
If there are still active Iloilo beat reporters today who have covered Zulueta starting when she won a seat in the Iloilo provincial board in 1988, I am one of them.
In the period between 1989 until 1992, Zulueta was a runaway newsmaker (from an IBC-TV 12 newscaster before she entered politics) as the No. 1 tormentor of then Iloilo Governor Simplicio “Sim” Griño.
Now Councilor Armand Parcon was Bombo Radyo Iloilo’s capitol beat reporter but fellow Bombo Radyo reporter and then law student Alim (he passed the bar in 1991) and another former Bombo Radyo star reporter Francis Hinayhinay would join us from time to time when we interviewed then Board Member Zulueta, who first earned the moniker “The Iron Lady” because of her series of jaw-dropping expose and Philippic speeches in the provincial board.

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A tense moment occurred sometime in 1992 before Zulueta ran and lost to former Assemblyman and Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) Commissioner Arthur “Art” Defensor Sr. for governor in the May 1992 elections.
We, in the Iloilo Capitol Press Corps, had been tipped off that an “indignant” son of Governor Griño was in the capitol premises “planning to disrupt” the provincial board’s regular session to prevent Zulueta from making another scathing privilege speech that would embarrass the governor.
Everyone waited anxiously and our attention was divided--we leered from time to time inside and outside the session hall like we were watching a ping pong match.
The son indeed appeared but a phalanx of capitol henchmen, alerted by the potential chaos, boxed him out peacefully thus preventing a melee as the late virtuoso and watchful former Oton mayor Lazaro “Nene” Zulueta silently stood nearby like Kevin Costner in the Bodyguard film.
Board Member Zulueta managed to sledgehammer anew the Griño administration in her sharp speech unmolested.
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Griño, a religious and good man, lost to Defensor. Zulueta, who wound up second, garnered more votes than the defrocked governor. Fifth district independent bet, the late Azur Salcedo finished last.
When Zulueta became Iloilo city councilor in 1995, she strapped around her waist the opposition holster anew and became the No. 1 source of Mayor Mansueto “Mansing” Malabor’s headache.
In every cookie jar that minions of Malabor had dipped their fingers into, there the firebrand Councilor Zulueta was running the gauntlet and firing the cylinders.
In every anomaly that she had stumbled upon, Zulueta saw to it that there were Dickens to pay for the thieves and the taxpayers would heave a sigh of relief.
In the 1998 elections, Zulueta sided with then fellow city councilor and now Iloilo City Rep. Geronimo “Jerry” Treñas in a foiled attempt to defeat the reelectionist Malabor, the “man of the masa” who rolled past all his moneyed rivals to complete the three terms as city mayor.
Zulueta became Treñas’ ally when the latter reigned as city mayor from 2001 to 2010.

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It was during those years that Zulueta’s political relationship with fellow city councilor and eventually vice mayor Jose “Joe III” Espinosa III was buttressed (although they had been closely working together in the local legislature in the opposition during the Malabor administration). When Joe III became city mayor in October 2017 after Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog’s “forced departure”, he retained the “Iron Lady” (a Mabilog appointee) as one of his advisers.
Zulueta has reportedly accepted Mayor Joe III’s invitation for her to run for congress in May 2019 after former councilor Nielex “Lex” Tupas said “no mas” to politics.
Her entry will place her in a collision course versus Baronda, who is being backed by Treñas; and Alim, who is reportedly being supported by the group of Dr. Pacita Gonzalez.
   

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