Delos Santos: Parting of ways

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

I AM not surprised if Leonardia and Golez have come to a parting of the ways. Their need for each other has expired. In 2010, Golez, a relatively newcomer to Bacolod, needed Leonardia's political organization to win. Leonardia, on the other hand, needed Golez’s money.

Not that Leonardia does not have money of his own. He had been in office for nine long years already and must have stocked a lot “for the rainy days”. But why spend his own if he can use someone else's?

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

Now, Golez has his own political organization, most of these recruits from Leonardia. His eventual exit from City Hall means a winter these barangay leaders cannot withstand. Hence, their trooping like rats to the Golez camp.

Of course, as Congressman, Leonardia can still dispense favors, but these are dwarfed by what City Hall largesse can provide. They have to flee from the winter that Leonardia's exit from City Hall will cause. Hence, their flocking to Golez came.

And this leaves Thaddy Sayson, Leonardia's anointed heir, holding the empty bag.

***

Golez has a point, of course. Many essential services remain unattended by City Hall. Garbage rot even in major thorough fares. Interior roads rival hacienda roads in their worst state of disrepair. Barangay Health Centers have become grazing grounds for goats. The few medicines available at the City Health Office are limited to paracetamols. Artesian wells, particularly those on the western side of the city, discharge only sea water.

What seems to be Leonardia's priority, to which he devotes most of his waking hours, are the Masskara Festival, the Bacolodiat and those other occasions for revelry and bacchanalian orgies.

And now, he playing host to disaster preparedness?

***

Judging from the results of the last three elections, Leonardia indeed appears impregnable. Backed by an airtight political organization (which incidentally I helped organize for him), manned by an army of casuals he keeps on maintaining notwithstanding its drain on the city's finances, powered by immense financial resources accumulated through the years, plus an electorate bewitched by his fake charm and Mona Liza smile, Leonardia is really a political adversary to be feared.

A closer look however would show that this may not be true anymore in 2013. For one, he will no longer be mayor by that time and will not have the city hall resources as his plaything. Fawning barangay leaders will realize that the faucet of city hall will now be closed. His army of casuals, intermittently unpaid for weeks on end even this early, will scatter like dried winter leaves. Those allies and court jesters will no longer be at his beck and call as their loyalty to him is dependent on the largesse and government favors he can dispense if he were still the mayor. They will most surely seek warmer climes and a better sun. His vaunted political organization, deprived of the mannah he liberally dispenses, will be in danger of disintegrating.

Even his vaunted charm will ultimately rub off. His bigote may have grown white by then (in fact there is an increasing number of them now) and his Mona Liza smile may no longer match his declining years.

Then you have to add the fact that more and more Bacoleños are beginning to be aware of the unmitigated and rampant graft during his watch. And his coterie of thieves have already been unmasked and identified.

So, will Leonardia be as strong as he was in the past three elections?

And will the Bacolod electorate be as gullible as they had been?