Friday, May 04, 2007 Editorial: That little Camiguin incident
ELECTION-related violence had been blowing up every now and then in the country with the latest being the shooting murder of a mayoralty candidate in Cebu City and the fatal shooting of a reelectionist mayor in San Carlos, Pangasinan but thankfully here in Region 10 the shootings have been minimal and confined to barangay officials.
Perhaps the most high profile incident of violence if it can be called that in Region 10 is the fisticuffs that occurred between a Provincial Board (PB) member and Camiguin Governor Pedro Romualdo and Camiguin Representative Jesus Jardin "JayJay" Romualdo in a provincial Comelec office last week and culminated with the filing of disqualification cases against that province's two top officials.
As graphically recounted by the victim, lawyer and PB candidate Florencio Narida, the two officials ganged up on him and started beating him up for no apparent reason other than the fact that he was aligned with a certain Gogo Romualdo, the congressional candidate and son of the governor who severed his personal and political ties with the latter due to conflicting agenda.
Obviously the governor is seeking to reclaim the congressional seat he endorsed to his son "JayJay" for the past nine years or three terms despite having served as the province's lawmaker for several years.
Now he has to go up against his own son Gogo which makes the province's political rivalry a family business affair.
Compounding the woes of the Romualdos is the entry of Antonino Gallardo in the gubernatorial race as he goes up against the outgoing congressman JayJay who wants to reclaim the seat to be vacated by his father.
And the lawyer happens to be caught in the middle of this little turf war between the Romualdos and the Gallardos, themselves a political force in Camiguin.
Being top dogs in the Camiguin province, it is highly unlikely that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) provincial office has the balls to prosecute the Romualdos and thus disqualify them from running for office so the charges can at best cast a serious stain on the reputation of the two Romualdos.
It has also yet to be determined if this little incident, true or not, would stain the reputations of these two Romualdos enough to discourage Camiguin residents from voting them into office anew.
But this little incident only goes to show how heated local political rivalries can get and how low some people would go to hit back at their perceived rivals.
It would also determine if and when the Camiguin residents have had enough of this kind of politicians and whether they want to vote for change or choose to retain the status quo.
Change may be difficult but such is the price when one opts to look for better governance rather than the same old 'traditional politics" setup where elective government posts are simply a means for families to perpetuate their hold on power.
For their sake, they ought to consider and weigh things down carefully before deciding who among the candidates running for their votes--Romualdos, Gallardos or who else--deserve to be put into office.
