Haciendero to backstreet thug

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March Fianza

The elections are over. While voters are congratulating the winners and thanking their supporters, they are unmindful that the ribbings, provocations and offenses by the opposing candidates are at the same time being washed away by the afternoon rains.

The unavoidable consequence is for every Filipino to accept the outcome of the elections, no matter what. The anticipated result of the elections is a fresh mandate. And as the newly elected officials buckle down to work, those responsible in bringing them to power are expected to support them.

Congratulations to Congressman Ronald M. Cosalan and his LP team in Benguet. Congratulations too to the winners from the different political parties. For congressman-elect Mark Go of Gomobil Team, he is expected to fulfill his campaign promises as he expects backing and collaboration from his supporters.

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Still, the mind cannot escape thinking of stories about failed election heroes, a couple of days before the last campaign hour. It was told that a congressional bet in the mountains bowed down to principle and endorsed another rival candidate for very good reasons.

Ding, the modern day “hero” could have wanted to leave a legacy to the place that he loved, because its trees and forests were being destroyed slowly by forest occupants and massively by an arrogant politician, and personally because he was being junked by his mayoral bet partner.

But things did not work well as initially planned because a close adviser of Ding who appeared like Metztli, the Aztec goddess of the night, came down to prove that money is the root of all evil.

Metztli, according to witnesses, wanted that the rival candidate named Zeq would reimburse the expenses of Ding before backing out to finalize the endorsement, but the rival candidate Zeq simply said that he does not have the money for that.

Metztli did not stop there. Instead she approached Ding’s main opponent, the tree-cutter politician who urged her to ask Ding to continue his candidacy in exchange for a sum of money.

The rest is history. Zeq won, Ding failed to be the election hero, the tree-cutter lost his bid and was very upset. Metztli, according to witnesses, survived the scandal and accumulated millions by dealing Ding to another. Money is truly the root of evil.

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  The elections are really over. By the looks of the counting and the reports by Comelec officials, Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has already won. The winning is exceptional as Duterte is the first incumbent mayor to become President as most past presidents were either senators or cabinet secretaries. He is the first president from Mindanao, maybe the first “leftist” to be President.

Thinking of the least evil among the presidential bets, I voted for Mar Roxas but my vote was short of six million votes. Comelec reports revealed that Mayor Duterte garnered 16 million votes. It overtook the 15.2 million votes of PNoy in 2010, becoming the biggest number of votes ever garnered by a presidential bet, and is six million more than the votes of DILG Sec. Mar Roxas.

But why Duterte? Why did people entrust their votes to a guy whom they will expect to solve their problems for the next six years? One guess is that as mayor, people see him as one who will walk the streets and will put an end to their problems by holding the bull by the horn, so to speak, as compared to Mar Roxas who was always linked to national offices.   

Maybe another reason was because Duterte as mayor directly confronted backstreet criminals, organized-crime bosses and corrupt government officials, injecting fear in their minds, as compared to PNoy, a Haciendero who grew up as the son and grandson of landlords of Hacienda Luisita.

Still, another reason was because the electorate did not want a continuation of PNoy’s “Daang Matuwid”, which also meant that Duterte’s 16 million voters did not want a status quo. They wanted change.