WITH the deadline for the filing of candidacies nearing, some have asked me if I was running again. Some tell me not to, while others say I should. I would be lying to say I do not want to. I do. But after failing twice to win, it is simply a daunting task to make a third try. The fear of losing, and which I believe is well-grounded, is psychologically challenging.
Throwback to April of 2012, a businessman arranged for me to have dinner at his home with then Governor Oscar Moreno. There, the Governor had told me that he had decided to run for Mayor of Cagayan de Oro. He was to challenge a formidable opponent, the political kingpin of Northern Mindanao Vicente Emano, who was thought of unbeatable, for having been in office for more than two decades. “Dongkoy” as the then Mayor is fondly called, was a charismatic and eloquent personality. He knew how to exact loyalty from his favored ones, dispensing privileges from his own hands.
One does not cross swords with this man. He was simply the complete traditional politico, running an expanding city like a tribal datu would. I had co-owned a music bar years before and one of my regular customers was someone who revealed that he was one of ten persons hired to spend time in places like bars and other places to monitor certain persons for the purpose of gathering “dirt”. I could not say for sure if he was telling the truth but I did wonder how the man could well afford to be a regular client with no visible nor declared source of income.
When I moved to settle in Cagayan de Oro, one of the things I needed to do was to apply for a phone line. I was told that I had to see then provincial Governor Emano personally, who will approve and sign my application. Back then, the province of Misamis Oriental had the franchise and monopoly of phone lines in the city. And despite the fact that the company called MISORTEL had a fully functioning management and personnel, the granting of the service was a political one. I did miss the chance to personally do so. I felt it was insulting and demeaning for a political office to be a dispenser of a basic service. Instead, I drove all the way to the PLDT office in Tagoloan to make long distance calls or to my in-laws for local calls.
Living in CDO in the early 90s was still pleasant and easy. Newspapers arrive mid-morning and had a choice of reading them right before lunch or at a bank, where one can come in slippers and short pants. Everyone closed for lunch and one can get to Bugo from Carmen by car in 10 minutes. One cannot do that now at any time of day or night, even when the highway has been expanded from two to six lanes. One even had the privilege of departing for the airport, which was then at Lumbia when one hears the plane about to land as it passes our home in Carmen. Of course, one’s bags had been checked-in an hour before.
Wherever one goes, one knows almost everyone. Almost all households served the same fare during parties where one has to “beso-beso” everyone as one is related to each another either by blood or marriage. In this town, relationship is everything. It is the solution to all problems, cures all challenges and ensures one’s upward mobility. There are basically five families, interrelated by blood and marriage, and that was how it was in business and politics. With property mostly owned by a few, power and wealth were synonymous by these families. The more association one has with more of these families, the better it would be.
(To be continued)