"I have run out of cards. I have to get a new deck para makadiskarte ko (so that I can play again). As of now, wala ko (I don't have any)," he said, in his typically enigmatic replies to pressing concerns.
In his two decades of governing the city, we have known how the mayor has always insisted that the NPA are not terrorists, just people fighting for their principles and rights.
But the events this year right in the city are happening closer downtown and involving people who should have been spared, and the mayor says, he's leaving it to the military and the police.
Could this be a tacit order for war? We can never second-guess the mayor, he will have to state this straight out in the future.
One thing is sure, the NPA has indeed been inching close, starting with the mistaken assassination of businessman Vicente S. Ferrazzini, and now the abduction of retired M/Sgt. Jose Manero whose brothers have sworn to break through all the rebels' defenses, including their kin, just to get back their brother. And through sheer coincidence, militant leader Celso Pojas was killed just a day after the Maneros came up with such vow.
The rebels have admitted committing a mistake when they snuffed out the life of Ferrazzini. Now another man lies dead, this time on the militant's side. And the mayor says he has run out of cards.
Indeed, there is a changing of equations here and we can only hope that the equations will not involve more deaths.
