"It's always hard to deal with injuries mentally, but I like to think about it as a new beginning. I can't change what happened, so the focus needs to go toward healing and coming back stronger than before."
--Carli Lloyd
By Alex P. Vidal
NEW YORK CITY -- MANY Ilonggo wisecracks were saying that the eleventh hour endorsement by Senator Frank Drilon of Rep. Geronimo "Jerry" Trenas was what broke the back of the camel for Mayor Jose "Joe III" Espinosa III's dramatic demise in the recent May 13 elections.
Drilon's surprise entry crippled Mayor Joe III, who had no giant political padrino of his own to show off and match Drilon's invincibility.
Former mayor Mansueto "Mansing" Malabor, whose son, reelectionist councilor Mandrie ran under Mayor Joe III's ticket, was too feeble to go all-out to campaign for the Espinosa clan's last great hope.
The major players in the past local elections also were no longer around to add spice to the classic duel: Roding Ganzon, Raul Gonzalez, Sr.
To his last blood, orphaned Mayor Joe III had to rely on his own diminishing political stock and personal charisma in a desperate bid to avert a catastrophic ending to no avail.
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HEALING politics is the antithesis of destructive politics.
While destructive politics seeks to oppose, confuse, divide, destroy, conquer and rule, healing politics seeks to forgive and forget, unite for a common cause, educate, promote, mobilize, restructure, create, inspire, build, and cooperate.
Destructive politics specializes in a plethora of dirty tricks, sinister and below-the-belt onslaught, mudslinging without any regard to subtlety and decorum.
Healing politics, on the other hand, expedites the shutting down of "black holes" and animosity whipped up by a murky and intense political rivalry to pave the way for a new beginning and for both parties to move on to the next level.
We have seen destructive politics in its ugliest face and deadliest form, and the mayhem it has caused on certain politicians and their families in the most recent elections in the Philippines.
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It is the kind of politics waged by voodoo and traditional politicians; sometimes they are those who are already in power but want to cling to power like leeches and will resort to all kinds of dirty tricks to stymie and put away their rivals.
Some of them are those who want to ascend to power with a crystal-clear intent of building a political dynasty and, once already there, shore up and expand the dynasty so that they will never be toppled from the totem pole while transforming the public office as their private fiefdom.
Political power or the search for political power stimulates chaos.
From the chaos rises a dynasty that will perpetuate the divisiveness and bedlam and so on and so forth..
What we would like to happen and see is the dawn of healing politics so that the political units (city, province, congressional districts) ruined by so much political antagonism and hatred can scale up to a higher dimension and wash away the debris of destructive and toxic politics.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)
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