UNDEFEATED

UNDEFEATED

By JULIO CINCO NIGADO

Cheated, yes, but never defeated.  That’s what people say of Mandaluyong City’s popular challenger, Danny de Guzman, who vows to finally stop 27 years of Abalos abuse and decay. The Potemkin city is crawling with dregs, badly damaged, and dirty.  Remember Jun Torres, the Acropolis and ZTE deals and the corrupt Comelec, among others.

THE mayor’s office was busy with its usual daily routine, but the lawyer Benhur Abalos was nowhere in sight.  It’s hard to get an interview with the moonchild mayor, what with his web of cordon sanitaire that lines the offices and tables leading to his empty inner sanctum.  So I shifted gears and spoke to the next man in line first.

            The following is an involved account based on conversations with and interviews granted by mayoral candidate Danny de Guzman, his running mate Dr. Gerry Pe and Abalos’s spokesperson and longtime “overall adviser,” Jimmy Isidro, a self-confessed pastor of the Full Gospel Church of Eddie Villanueva.  The mayor rarely grants an interview, if ever, I was told.

            Further research was also done on the campaign, a number of voters and other residents and Mandaluyong City in general.

            After 27 years, the right man of common touch has finally come to challenge the overstaying rulers of Mandaluyong City.  To echo EDSA, circa 1986: “Tama na, sobra na, palitan na!” people chant.

            Something indeed must be awfully wrong when even many of Abalos’s relatives are rooting, albeit quietly, for De Guzman.  The Del Rosarios, the Santoses, the Torreses and many others in the city who requested not to be identified are all avid supporters of the so-called champion of the poor and the abandoned middle.

Man of the hour

            The man of the hour, 55-year-old Danny de Guzman, another moonchild and an erstwhile janitor, construction worker and hospital administrator married to Dr. Amalia de Guzman nee Esperanzate, is tasked to rev up the economy of the city and put an end to the thieving government of the calloused, corrupt and cheaters.  As they say in the Comelec, “Like father, like son.”  And they believe their day of reckoning has come.

            In fact, today’s political contest in Mandaluyong has reached certain mythical proportions that hark back to the Bible, the Greeks and other epics.  Theirs is a virtual cosmic battle of two moonchildren, both having been born under the zodiac sign of Cancer.

            Danilo de Guzman first ran for councilor as an independent candidate in 1995, and won.  But the surprise winner had alleged that he was summarily cheated and that they swindled him out of his initial victory, no thanks to the Abalos administration.  That was his first taste of cruel defeat, he said, at the hands of the city’s ruling cheats.

            De Guzman ran again for the city council in 1998 and the following elections, and served as number one councilor for three consecutive terms until 2007.  That same year he fought for vice mayor, and was blatantly cheated once more.  People say he won the ballots but lost in the counting, due to the fast manipulation of the city’s powers-that-be.  Thus, the plundering lightning had struck again! But people knew about the real score – and how they talk!  They swear Danny de Guzman has never been defeated in any election in Mandaluyong; he was cheated, they declare.

            Needless to say, a sore loser was made to occupy the vice mayor’s seat; but the “fall guy” didn’t last as much as he and his sneaky sponsors wanted him to stay.  Consequently, De Guzman went into “hibernation,” had a deep communion with God about his fate, and scarcely appeared in public for months – nay, even years – after that.

            But the crooks’ cunning came home to roost.

Like the Phoenix

            With the first automated elections in 2010, and with the old Abalos already an undesirable at the Comelec, De Guzman rose again from the ashes like the Phoenix, and claimed the vice mayor’s seat hands down.  But his sorry situation did not end with his electoral triumph at the polls.  Someone sick could never found sleep.

            Sometime in 2011, De Guzman’s sob story continued when the budget for the vice-mayor’s (dilapidated) office was withheld, or so he related, by the city government for obvious reasons.  Among others, it was widely observed that “the underdog from the slums” – De Guzman says he does not own the lot where his old and only house stands – was becoming too popular with the toiling masses.  And the tarpaulin mayor didn’t like and couldn’t believe what he was hearing and seeing around him.

            No one could be more popular than the “best friend ng bayan,” (Benhur’s tagline) he swore.  Mirror, mirror on the wall...?

            Abalos decided posthaste: the growing “De Guzman fever” must be arrested, so he reportedly cut the vice mayor’s treasury lifeline.  Since then, only the salaries for De Guzman’s office staff and other workers were being paid. Some, it is said, even worked on an allowance basis, until now.

            People are asking: So where does De Guzman get the money that he seems fond of giving to his needing friends and constituents?  The answer comes from vested contributions and discreet donations from unknown but identifiable sources of various sorts.  Say an ancient Aquino, for one.  Another is De Guzman team’s campaign manager, former vice mayor and twice opponent of Benhur’s, Bibot Domingo.

Vote-buying spree

            Apparently, even as early as then, some campaign funds were already on a roll – just like the mayor’s regular and weekly “vote-buying spree” in his office and elsewhere – for the coming big fight, which is now.  Of course, nobody expects De Guzman to match the kind of war chest that the billionaire Abalos and his cohorts have at their disposal in this protracted election campaign.  Talk about a billion debts for the city of Mandaluyong to desperately win someone’s seat.

            But the groundswell of support for the oppressed but charismatic challenger is overwhelming, and it comes mostly from the so-called “silent majority” and the active “vocal few.”  With few posters – and fewer “car barkers” on the road – De Guzman and his team’s primary mode of campaigning is a throw back to the good old days of “word of mouth,” mostly in hushed talk or silent speak; even as the entire city blares with the incumbents’ terrible noise and is covered with gobs of posters and tarpaulins by the reigning Tarpaulin Team of Abalos.

‘Silent Giant’

            Such is the unleveled playing field, the lopsided campaign scene in this river city of 27 barangays that many people have called De Guzman “the Silent Giant.”  And he hardly sleeps on the campaign trail – whether on the house-to-house sorties or the more grueling late-night caucuses and meetings anywhere in the city of floods, fools and frauds.

            The collective cry of the city’s dirt poor goes: “Si De Guzman ay nasa puso at damdamin, wala sa poster at tarpaulin.”

            Many people are aware that in the ongoing hectic campaign the re-electionist mayor is sometimes accompanied by his father, the former Comelec chair currently on bail, especially in the more intimate house-to-house courting for votes. At other times, they say, the older Abalos even organizes his own separate “feeding programs” to help enhance his son’s last-term candidacy and his granddaughter’s (Benhur’s daughter Charisse) first-term run for the city council (District 1).

            Like in many parts of the country, it’s practically a “family affair” in Mandaluyong – for the prolonged aggrandizement of the same family, if allowed to stay in power.

            On the other hand, De Guzman’s oldest son Dan Carl, daughter Danica Mae and youngest son Dan Mark oftentimes go with their father to help him in the campaign, frequently during daytime. Another family member, his eldest sister, Susana de Guzman Constante, who served as barangay Burol (the De Guzmans’ place) chair for 18 years, also walks the campaign path with her brother.

Catch basin

           For years a brief steady rain brings a downpour of floods in many places, particularly the neglected Maysilo Circle and the city hall. Isidro, as Abalos’s mouthpiece, argues that such reality cannot be avoided because the low area of the Maysilo Circle vicinity, including the now-covered “open canal,” and its environs serve as a “catch basin” of the city.

            Is it the reason then that even at this late stage in the game the Abalos administration and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) are still digging the place deep and wide, to install the necessary drainage, and during election time?

            Elsewhere, mountains of garbage litter the city with very offensive and rotten smell.  But more rotten and offensive is the stench of corruption and deceit prevailing at the mayor’s office, and spreading to the city hall and the whole city. Yes, Jimmy, prostitution, in all its guises, proliferates here.

            Old folks say Mandaluyong was damned when the ZTE wheeler-dealer assumed power in 1986.  It was further doomed, they continue, when the wheeling-and-dealing son also rose only to make things worse. Let justice be served to the unsolved crimes of murdered men in Mandaluyong, they protest! By the way, whatever happened to the Justice for Jun Torres Movement?

            A man of many misses in Mandaluyong (pun not intended) is indeed a big mistake.  And see what the city of dead waters has got. Is it another one with the Down syndrome at the mayor’s office or somewhere in Binangonan? Or, is it another photo scandal in the Internet, pray tell?

Mayor is sick

            Around the city talks have it that the outgoing mayor is sick. That’s why, a female relative of the Abalos says, he can’t always go to some of his campaign outings and keep the scheduled political meetings, especially at night.  And more so during late-night gatherings, where the re-electionist mayor and his team are expected to attend.

            It’s the same “old and hereditary illness,” the elderly female relative confides, that some members of the Abalos family had been afflicted with, and died years ago.  The same source also mentioned about Benhur’s older and younger siblings who succumbed to a similar malady, to prove her point.

            Back to the campaign track, it’s disconcerting to see and hear someone else talk onstage, in lieu of the candidate mayor and his team. Why can’t the incumbent speak for himself and answer all those questions being thrown at him by the opposition? Can’t Abalos defend himself – fairly and squarely, and in person – against the charges of De Guzman and company?

            Who’s afraid of Danny de Guzman? And why? At the administration’s caucus on April 7, 2013 along Pantaleon Street in Barangay Barangka Ibaba and another meeting on April 28, 2013 in Tanglaw Street near Barangka Drive, at least two nondescript proxies spoke furiously in behalf of Benhur Abalos.  They were raving mad, ranting about certain issues undoubtedly to ridicule and demolish the absent opponents of their evasive boss and employer.

            With their naked fury and violent passions, one wonders how much is the equivalent of such loud dummies on the loose, operating to spread another strain of pollution virus and inflict people with their sharp and sordid tongues.

            Quite expectedly, both camps accuse each other of lying through their teeth. But an Abalos emcee named Lexter Calabia goes overboard with his risqué story about Dr. Gerry Pe and his purported “ECG medical mission.” But the joke turns off a thinking audience and it falls flat on his face, with only his lustful thoughts and lewd behavior showing.

Evangelist on the prowl

            Also lewd and in bad taste are Jimmy Isidro’s heated arguments that go around in circles, mainly to mock and mislead. A putative pastor, Isidro talks wildly with gay abandon, not unlike an angry, arrogant evangelist on the prowl. But instead of spreading the so-called good word, the pied preacher is promoting hatred and foul language full of fire and brimstone.

            So where’s Benhur Abalos? Many people ask. It’s quite different at wakes, burials, weddings, birthdays or what-have-you when the missing mayor would surely send flowers, cash or cakes to make up for his absence.

            In an election contest, and a strong fight at that, dummies – dumb or otherwise – are unacceptable as substitutes for the real thing. Well, De Guzman and company might as well be having a grand ball by now.

            Should people vote for Isidro, whoever this guy is?  Or does Isidro sit at the mayor’s office instead of the real McCoy? Is Abalos that sick or gravely ill that he can’t speak directly to the public and answer all the questions, by himself?

            In flesh and blood and spirit, what’s really ailing the mayor now that he’s turning 53 (on July 19)? Has it anything to do with the unreported “bloody” Polymedic incident in August 2012?  Or are someone’s sins visiting the host to haunt him of sly and unsolved deeds and misdeeds?  The people of Mandaluyong are asking, and it seems no answer is forthcoming.

 City in crisis

            At any rate, in a sin city loaded with billions of debts, in crisis or any other situation, the big losers are really the people who always pay for their leaders’ debts, even when they have already gone.  (Incidentally, an unabashed Isidro adamantly denies that Abalos – or Gonzales, for that matter – had incurred a billion debts at anytime in their respective mayoralty.  This starkly contradicts a provision in the city’s current (2013) budget resolution where an item about “amortization and interest on loans” to the amount of more than 220 million pesos is clearly indicated.)

            So, how does one explain such huge annual percentage payments as reflected in the city’s yearly budget list?  And how much bounty have Abalos and Gonzales got after leaving the burden to the people and the city?  One billion, two billions, several condo units, whole condo floors, eight to ten (combined) WacWac prime properties, a full-condo building at the “Acropolis” etcetera?

            When elected, De Guzman’s vision is one of renewal; and his mission is rehabilitation and revitalization of the damaged and dirty city.  With the help of the people and the Divine, the man promises to spend his life in public service, hopefully in its true sense.

            As he pledged everyone in his campaign pitch, De Guzman wants to be the best mayor of Mandaluyong City and not of the whole or anywhere else in the country.  And he doesn’t need any awards or plaques to prove it or show to the world.  He said he only needs three years in office to keep his word.  If he doesn’t deliver, then people would know what to do with him the next time around.

 ‘Master Plan’

            Towards this end, De Guzman, his running mate for vice mayor, Dr. Gerry Pe, and the candidate councilors in Team Maiba Naman have devised a city-wide “master plan” to finally control and stop the floods that previous false policies brought about.  To be sure, there are at least four engineers of varied degrees in De Guzman’s team of candidates to spearhead and oversee the groundbreaking project.

            Also included in the plan are sanitation and the proper disposal of garbage and other wastes, including sewage.  The Abalos administration’s much-touted performance stinks – in words and in actions – and the stench of rotting garbage and other wastes permeates many parts of the city, especially where there are markets. Kalentong, Gabby’s, Barangka, Pinatubo, Sierra Madre, San Joaquin, San Jose, Martinez, Aglipay, Hulo, Pag-asa, Daang Bakal, Nueve de Febrero ad infinitum.

            In a nutshell, De Guzman’s party’s platform is summarized in the acronym HELPS, to solve the old nagging problems of the “Tiger City” of flesh, filth and foul, courtesy of 27 years of Abalos abuse and neglect.

            H is to provide adequate Health facilities, products and services available and affordable to all Mandalenos. Health also presupposes clean and sanitary surroundings all over the city and proper disposal of garbage and other wastes, including sewage.

Education for all

            E is for good and accessible Education to all.  This includes college as De Guzman’s team envisions a free Pamantasang Lungsod ng Mandaluyong (after Manila’s model) in the future. E is also for Environmental protection – to minimize pollution, preserve plants/ trees, waterways and other landmarks both natural and otherwise. E is for expert Engineering too – to control and avoid floods and improve/maintain streets/sidewalks conditions. Sports and youth projects are also included here.

            L is for enough Livelihood and economic growth of people and the city/community – to provide opportunities, training and other means to make a living in a decent and dignified way.

            P is for Peace and order – to reduce and eventually solve/avoid crimes so people can live in a free and safe community.  P is also for Protection for all persons and other living beings/things and properties, both private and public. This also includes management of traffic and streets as well as parks and other open spaces, if there are any.

            S stands for Social justice and Security for everyone anywhere in the city. To be safe in their homes, schools, streets and places of work day and night. S is also for Saving government funds and properties by avoiding unnecessary projects, promoting good maintenance, and minimizing wastage of any kind in all levels of government agencies and activities.

Tall order

            Team Maiba Naman, says the group’s standard-bearer, shall adhere to the principles of truth, honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability in all their official acts and transactions – answerable to God, to the people and to themselves.  This is a tall order that reeks with motherhood statements, but De Guzman and his working team have spoken.  They promise to devote themselves to a productive public life, as good politicians should.

            Now it’s the people’s chance and turn to vote, and perchance change their lives and living.