'Kap' Ray Rico’s shocking defeat

“A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.”
--Arnold H. Glasow

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- The reason why I am writing about the shocking defeat of my friend, Punong Barangay Ray “Toto Ray” Gadong Rico of PHHC Block 22, Mandurriao, Iloilo City in the recent Philippine barangay elections, is because I feel what he feels.
It’s because he’s not supposed to lose, in the first place.
With his satisfying and impressive record in making his village great, Kap Ray is a big loss.
He is not a tamad (lazy) or a pabaya (negligent) leader who deserves the boot.
Kap Ray’s heart has always been for the barangay; he has always been a proud servant to residents of a peaceful village known for their civic and religious involvement, educational attainment and high level of professionalism.
I know that Kap Ray and his younger brother, Boyet, also my dear friend and a former punong barangay (village chief) himself who once served as Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog’s executive adviser for community affairs, are not on speaking terms.
But I didn’t know that Kap Boyet reportedly “did not campaign” for Kap Ray.

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Did Kap Boyet campaign for Kap Ray’s tormentor, newly elected Kap Biboy Dolar?
I am not a resident of Brgy. PHHC Block 22, Mandurriao, thus I have no business to begrudge newly elected Kap Biboy Dolar’s win.
I heard he is also a gentleman and a good leader like Kap Ray. If only that barangay can elect two chiefs.
While I feel a deep sense of empathy for Kap Ray, I respect Kap Boyet’s choice and decision.
Also well-loved in their barangay and one of the most trusted advisers of Rep. Jerry P. Treñas, Kap Boyet may have his own reason for “not supporting” Kap Ray.
Kap Ray has been arguably one of the most diligent and productive village chiefs in Iloilo City; he is, in fact, a potential ex-officio member of the city council representing the Liga ng mga Barangay (with due respect to Councilor Kap Reyland Hervias).
Since day one of his ascension as punong barangay, Kap Ray has literally placed Brgy. PHHC Block 22 on the map with his incredible projects that include road widening, beautification and sports programs, community library, among other head-turning infrastructure projects.

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Kap Ray’s unwavering love for the youth is manifested by the consistent mushrooming of reading materials, toys, appliances and other useful items in their day care center, parroting the famous adage of his late father, the great Ilonggo leader, Atty. Kiddy Rico: “Buas damlang sang pamatan-on, aton talupangdon” (We must recognize and prioritize what is good and essential for the future of the young generation).
Under his leadership, Brgy. PHHC Block 22 became known as among those with most active and relentless Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Council (BADAC).
Kap Ray gave priority to sports program and development “because that is the easiest way to save the youths from illegal drugs,” he once sighed.
I would like to share to Kap Ray one of the most popular quotes from Winston Churchill about success and failure: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
For sure, Kap Ray’s recent election debacle did not snatch away the enthusiasm and spirit to serve, which he has been cultivating deep in his heart. After one failure, Kap Ray will surely bounce back.

Stop the shame vs ‘narco’ village execs

“Slander is worse than cannibalism.” --John Chrysostom

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- Now that they have been elected or reelected, the so-called “narco” village officials in the Philippines should be spared from further insult and humiliation from authorities, especially from the Police Regional Office-6 (PRO-6) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
Having secured a fresh mandate means they have the full trust and confidence from their constituents; the shame season is over.
PDEA and other law enforcement agencies should now leave them alone and give them a space while they perform their duties and obligations to their constituents.
Authorities may continue to monitor the activities of barangay officials they suspect of engaging in illegal drugs directly (actual trafficking) or indirectly (like protection racket), but they can’t stop or interrupt them now from enforcing their jobs as punong barangay or council members.
They can now fight back under the mantle of being “honorable” public officials, especially if their accusers can’t present a corpus delicti other than slanderous allegations.

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PDEA’s golden moments against them were before the May 14, 2018 elections--years or months away, not weeks.
Those moments have melted away like the iceberg.
Walang forever.
The atmosphere before and after the elections is totally different.
If PDEA and other law enforcement agencies didn’t want these “narco” village officials elected and reelected, they should have doggedly pursued the cases against them and/or file appropriate charges in proper forum to disqualify them.
After the elections, it’s now water under the bridge.
As duly elected officials, they are back or now holding titles as “persons in authority” and may not just be easily harassed by any civilian or police authority.
These “narco” village officials may look like devils to our police authorities, but for their constituents they are heroes and “role models”; and they now possess awesome power and authority under the forceful local government code.

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When a person is from Iloilo he is called an “Ilonggo” and he speaks “Hiligaynon”, the dialect of Ilonggos.
Some people from other regions, especially from Metro Manila, were always confused and would misuse the word Hiligaynon, the dialect, and the word Ilonggo, the person or resident of Iloilo and other Ilonggo-speaking cities and provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao.
Even the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) got confused when it nearly included the ballot boxes from Iloilo City in the ballot boxes from Iloilo Province, which were part of those covered by the electoral protest of Bongbong Marcos against Vice President Leni Robredo.
In Marcos’ electoral protest, only the ballot boxes from Iloilo Province were under protest, not the ballot boxes from Iloilo City, which the Robredo camp insisted to be “separate and independent from the province of Iloilo.”

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TREATING EMOTIONAL PAIN. Let us think of physical and emotional pain as two sides of the same coin. "MRI scans reveal that the brain regions that light up when you stub your toe are the same ones activated when you feel socially rejected," says Nathan DeWall, Ph.D., who conducted a study on treating emotional pain…NO HEALTH RISK in full-body scans at the airport. It would take 100 scans over the course of a year for us to receive what's considered a "negligible individual dose," the American College of Radiology reports. In fact, we're exposed to more naturally occurring radiation when flying cross-country, thanks to our proximity to outer space.

PDEA is not blameless

“If you support the war on drugs in its present form, then you're only paying lip-service to the defense of freedom, and you don't really grasp the concept of the sovereign individual human being.”
--Neal Boortz

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA-6) is reportedly not happy that some of those linked in illegal drugs in Western Visayas won either as councilors or punong barangay (village chief) in the May 14, 2018 Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) and barangay elections.
PDEA-6 Regional Director Wardley Getalla, in fact, called the victory of narco-barangay officials as an “insult” to their agency saying they didn’t deserve to be elected in public office.
Getalla is correct that these narco-barangay officials are not supposed to hold an elective position.
They should be in jail, not in the barangay halls funded by the taxpayers.
But PDEA is not blameless.
PDEA and other agencies tasked to neutralize the spread of illegal drugs slept on their job, to say the least.
They had ample time to prevent evil with an ounce; they will now have to deal evil with a pound of cure.
Some of those narco-village rulers would not have participated in the elections if the the agency, tasked to implement or cause the efficient and effective implementation of the national drug control strategy formulated by the Dangerous Drugs Board, did its job.

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If PDEA was able to identify them as narcotics personalities months or years back, it should have filed cases against them before or even without the elections.
PDEA only disclosed their names (not all of the 200 names were really engaged in illegal drugs) on April 30, 2018, or two weeks before the elections.
By that time, most people have already made up their minds.
In fact, PDEA’s so-called “witch hunting” did not scare some people.
It even benefited some of the those on PDEA’s shame list as they ended up as underdogs; some of them managed to use the controversy to gain sympathy and appeal to people’s emotion claiming they were victims of black propaganda and persecution.
Thus many of those on PDEA’s pre-election anti-illegal drugs radar won handily, which is tantamount to a slap on the faces of our authorities, especially the PDEA.
PDEA failed to beat to the draw these newly-elected narc-village officials, who should have been apprehended as well as searched, as provided by law, for being law violators and the proceeds or effects of their crimes be seized.

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SURFING THE WEB ISN'T A WASTE OF TIME, AFTER ALL. According to new research from the University of California, Los Angeles, people who searched the Internet for an hour a day experienced a jump in brain activity. "The act of clicking through links and new information may build neutral connections and gray matter," says study author Gary Small, M.D. "Over time that might help protect against dementia."…GARLIC GOODNESS. Adding garlic to our next meal may protect our health. The more of the pungent herb that we consume, the lower the amount of a carcinogen in our bodies, research shows. Garlic appears to block nitrates, found in foods like processed meats, from turning toxic. Source: Analytical Biochemistry…RISE IN THE NAME OF GOOD HEALTH. Every hour women spend sitting during the day increases the likelihood of metabolic syndrome, which is a series of risk factors including hypertension, high cholesterol and abdominal obesity, reports the British Journal of Sports Medicine…FATS AS ASSETS. Fats in the hips, thighs and butt can be an asset, according to a new review of studies. "Unlike belly fat, which is linked to chronic disease, fat in your lover body appears to absorb excess fatty acids, preventing them from traveling to organs, such as the liver, where they could put you at risk for diabetes," says Konstantinos Manolopoulos, M.D.

Emotional

“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.”
--Buddha

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor Sr. exhorted candidates in the Sangguniang Kabataan and barangay elections on May 14, 2018 to control their emotions.
Even if they want to, most of them can’t control their emotions.
Even if they need to, many of them won’t control their emotions.
Elections are an emotional event; candidates always fear defeat and everyone wants to win.
For the reelectionists, there is no substitute for victory; there’s no room for defeat.
For their challengers, victory is right around the corner; as harbingers of change, they aren’t supposed to give up.
When candidates, especially those vying for position of punong barangay or village chief, are running against a friend, a kumpare/kumare or a relative, emotions are at all time high.
The restlessness and bitter feelings are shared by their relatives, as well.
Emotions are at fever pitch especially during the campaign period when mudslinging and accusations fly thick and fast, and after the election results have been known when egos and pride are totally wrecked.

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Because of the size of a barangay, candidates find it hard to avoid each other physically after the elections’ final reckoning.
Some of the candidates are, in fact, neighbors if not colleagues in a religious organization.
Unlike in the elections for mayor, governor and congressman where the protagonists don’t meet face to face immediately for a long while in time for the wounds of campaign bickering to heal, candidates in a barangay election can sometimes rekindle their fresh political rivalry when they bump each other in coffee shops, barbershops, bakeshops and nearby alleys the morning after the tough and excruciating electoral slugfest.
"An emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioral or expressive response," according to the book, Discovering Psychology.
This probably explains why it’s so impossible not to get emotional if you are involved in the elections as a candidate on Monday, May 14.

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As a journalist, I go with the Tulfo brothers in their feud with politicians like Senators Bam Aquino, Antonio Trillanes IV, Nancy Binay, and Kiko Pangilinan who sought for a senate probe on the scandalous P60-million Department of Tourism (DoT) advertisement to PTV-4 that ended in the block time program of Ben Tulfo, brother of resigned (or dismissed) DoT secretary Wanda Teo.
While it is their duty to call for an investigation, many of them are probably only trying to get even with the embattled Tulfo brothers after they have been criticized in the radio and TV programs of the hard-hitting brothers in the past.
But on the question of propriety or delicadeza, I disagree with the Tulfo brothers and former Sec. Teo that there was no conflict of interest in the doomed deal.
Based on the paper trail of how the P60 million was released (three trances), the transaction reeks not only with fish, it was done in bad faith from the very start no matter how they tried to sugar coat it.
Teo was right to resign, err President Duterte was right to sack her.

Crystal clear political development

“Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing.”
--Bernard Baruch

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- In politics, strange alliances are always inevitable; everything can be possible.
The disclosure of Iloilo City Vice Mayor Jeffrey Ganzon that he would run for vice mayor under 2019 mayoral aspirant, Rep. Jerry Treñas, caught some of their respective supporters by surprise.
Most of those astonished and stunned were critics of both Treñas and Ganzon who probably forgot the most fundamental age-old political adage that politics is a strange bedfellows.
Many of those who could not accept Treñas as a combacking kid but were so enamored with Ganzon since last year as a possible mayoral bet to be handpicked by President Rodrigo R. Duterte, suddenly find themselves in awkward position.
Many of those who loathed Ganzon but continued to fantasize Treñas as a local folk hero suddenly turned tight-lipped and were unable to come to terms especially when they were openly rooting for someone else as Treñas’ vice mayoral candidate.

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With the recent development, the suspicions of many Ilonggos that Mayor Jose “Joe III” Espinosa III will actually swap position with his brother-in-law Treñas, has been bolstered.
They are now inclined to believe that Espinosa III will no longer run for city mayor and will instead train his guns in the congressional contest.
If Joe III is still interested to run for city mayor, they believe the best person who should reveal his runningmate should be Joe III, not Treñas.
Both Treñas and Joe III are carefully playing their political cards with aplomb.
They are aware that if they continue to befuddle their rivals, a doubly whammy victory in the 2019 elections wouldn’t be far-fetched.
If they don’t pretend that they are at loggerheads, their rivals can still do something earthshaking in the next few months to stymie their candidacies and prevent them from scoring another gut-wrenching political shutout.
It’s been a long time since the opposition in Iloilo City has tasted a sweet victory over political demigods in the categories of Treñas and Joe III.

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Now it can be told.
Iloilo City could not be the “most shabulized” in the Philippines.
Of the 207 barangay officials nationwide tagged by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to be involved in illegal drugs, only one punong barangay (village chief) from Iloilo City was included on the scandalous list.
And even if the name of Gemma Caldazo, outgoing chief of Brgy. Kasing-Kasing, Molo, Iloilo City was mentioned, her alleged involvement in illegal drugs wasn’t yet proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Since the PDEA list was disclosed two weeks before the May 14 barangay elections, it’s possible that some of them were only victims of political black propaganda.
In other words, not all of the 207 officials could be guilty.
As somebody who grew up in Iloilo City, I don’t buy it hook, line, and sinker that some officials in Barangay Kasing-Kasing, Molo, where former Vice Mayor Guillermo dela Llana lives, are the most notorious in terms of involvement in illegal drugs.
The PDEA list would have been more credible if it was released not during the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan election season.
The timing was suspect.

Are you mentally OK, kapitan?

“Do you know the difference between neurotics and psychotics? Neurotics build castles in the sky; psychotics move into them.”
― Tanya Thompson

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- Even before the start of the campaign period for the 2018 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections in the Philippines, some candidates were already showing signs of mental disorder or psychopathy.
In the previous elections neuro test wasn’t required when candidates filed their certificates of candidacy (COC), so we can't expect that all winners in the May 14, 2018 elections will be sane and mentally fit.
A legislation must be pushed to empower the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to cancel or declare as null and void the victory of any barangay official--chairman, councilman or SK official--found to be unfit mentally or with serious case of neurosis.
So many cases of insanity or weird behaviors displayed by elected barangay officials have been recorded in the past.
Instead of being an asset to the smallest political unit in the country, barangay aldermen with brain damage have become thorns and liabilities.
In the early 90’s, for instance, a forlorn punong barangay or village chief in Iloilo City missed golden opportunities to serve his constituents and shine as a promising leader because he had to spend much of his time in the psychiatric ward of the Western Visayas Medical Center (WVMC).

GRENADE

In one media gathering held at the RPTA Hall of the old Iloilo provincial capitol sometime in December 1992, a “deranged” village chief suddenly barged inside and threatened to throw a grenade into the crowd.
The late DYRP broadcaster Sol Genson pacified the “lunatic” and convinced him to leave the premises when everyone was adamant to talk to him.
He was boisterous and uncontrollable but eventually listened to Sol, his drinking buddy at Virgo night club.
When the late Pres. Cory Aquino appointed Rosa "Tita" Caram as OIC city mayor in April 1986, another “lunatic” village chief asked Iloilo City’s first woman local chief executive to extend the route of Dinagyang tribes to Port San Pedro "so that people of Guimaras and Negros can watch the event."
Mayor Caram, wife of former Iloilo Assemblyman Fermin “Nene” Caram, dismissed his "crazy" idea right away.
A village chief in Jaro district always brought with him a monkey in the barangay hall because the monkey had supposedly helped “inspire” him when he won in the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” show in Manila.
He accused a barangay councilman of poisoning the monkey, who died under a mysterious circumstance.
The “lunatic” village chief reportedly wanted to bury the animal in Christ The King Cemetery in Ungka, Jaro district and wanted to use the barangay funds.
"I opposed this crazy idea of our kapitan!" shouted the suspect in the monkey's death, who came to our office at Sun Star Iloilo to report the "abuse of authority."

HELP

Former Iloilo Gov. Simplicio “Sim” Grino had to ask help from provincial tourism officer Manny Benedicto to escort a disoriented village chief back from capitol to the lunatic's municipality in Dumangas because he kept on addressing Gov. Grino as "Congressman Monfort" and for loitering inside the governor's office.
"Indi ako si Narsing (the late Iloilo 4th district Rep. Narciso Monfort). Si Sim ako. Gob Sim Grino kapila ka na gid hambalan (I am Gov. Sim Grino and I have already corrected you several times)," an impatient Grino ribbed the village chief.
"Lakat ta kap makadto ta kay Narsing (Come kapitan, we will go to Narsing)," Benedicto convinced the village chief.
It’s the most common dilemma. Because vote-buying has been rampant even in the barangay level, hoodlums and mentally deranged can be elected into office.
If a punong barangay is not a drug addict, he is a drug pusher.
If he is not engaged in selling of illegal drugs, he is engaged in illegal gambling and maintenance of prostitution dens--or in cahoots with operators of these illegal activities.
Or he is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Let’s scrutinize our candidates carefully and vote wisely.