Dipolog City—The last time I was here was also in May nine years ago with members of the Walk and Talk Friendship Club led by the late Ben Sun, whose cousin was then the Zamboanga del Norte governor.
I came alone this time. From the airport, I headed straight to the city’s Regional Trial Court, arriving in time to watch Executive Judge Jose Rene Dondoyano sentence a drug pusher to life in jail. The judge graduated from the Gullas Law School and used to work with us.
Ben’s cousin, Roberto “Berto” Uy is no longer the governor. Term-limited in 2022, he instead ran for mayor of neighboring Dapitan City but narrowly lost to a son of archrival Romeo Jalosjos, a former congressman.
He came back to Dipolog in this year’s elections and exacted a measure of revenge, easily beating another member of the Jalosjos clan, the incumbent governor, no less, for mayor.
The Uys were big winners in their long-running battle for political supremacy with the Jalosjoses in this month’s elections. Members of the two clans faced off in three other political contests and an Uy emerged victorious in all of them: the family patriarch’s wife as Dapitan city mayor, a son as governor and another son as congressman.
I am told that this year’s fight between the two most powerful political dynasties in this province was, as in the past, heated and bitter. There seems to be no trace of that, however. They have moved on.
Unlike in Cebu. When it became apparent that incumbent Gwendolyn Garcia was going to lose to Pamela Baricuatro, social media burst like a dam, unleashing a merciless gush of mockery and scorn against the governor and her brother Byron.
It is the first time this happened to us. We may not have been too good at being gracious losers in an election in the past but when we won, we were admirably, or at least pretended to be, magnanimous and considerate. This time, almost two weeks have passed since the election and the deluge of insults and ridicule does not appear to be receding. Garcia’s tormentors are still going into overdrive.
Come on, guys. You’re better than this. Sure, Garcia has not been the meekest, friendliest, humblest and most tolerant public official we have had but she has been decisively beaten, and shouldn’t that be your best revenge?
Baricuatro was not expected to win. I thought so myself. But the underdog ambushed the champion and knocked her out. In boxing, you don’t see the crowd or even just a segment of boxing fans stomp on the loser who is lying on the canvas unable to beat the count.
No, it does not happen. While the winner prances around the ring in celebration, the fans scream in adulation, then troop to the arena exits still giddy with excitement, but none merrily deriding the loser because he was obnoxious and arrogant.
And then, they—the boxer and the fan and the loser and the winner—move on with their lives.
Enough of the trolling. Enough of politics.
I’m here to pay my last respects to a very dear friend with whom I share a passion for the law—and tennis. Retired Court of Appeals Justice Godardo Jacinto was a gift to the judiciary. He should have been in the Supreme Court.
When he was a Regional Trial Court judge in Cebu and we started playing tennis together and became close friends, I told my associates that we were not going to represent a client before his court anymore out of delicadeza. When he learned about it, he told me that it was not a wise decision especially for a small law office like mine.
“Don’t flatter yourself by thinking that I will bend the law or distort the facts in your favor because you are my friend,” he said frankly. “But all things being equal, I will believe that you and your client did not lie to me because I am your friend.”
Godspeed, Justice.