Panlilio done with politics; will return to priesthood

SAN FERNANDO CITY, Pampanga– Former Pampanga Governor Eddie Panlilio debunked speculations he was angling for an elective position in 2013, saying there is “No more (electoral) politics for me.”

“I am still waiting for the Church’s action on my request to return to the priesthood,” said Panlilio during a novena mass at the St. Jude parish church in Barangay San Agustin in San Fernando City here.

Panlilio was the guest homilist in the Mass celebrated by Rev. Fr. Raul de los Santos, the parish priest.

In his introduction of the suspended priest-turned governor, De los Santos hailed Panlilio for “answering a higher call” in running for the governorship and winning in 2007, as well as in seeking, but losing, re-election in 2010.

The priesthood remained “manifest” in Panlilio, De los Santos said, even in the field of politics with his innate “sense of self-sacrifice and service to the people.”

Panlilio said that out of politics, he would continue in his various advocacies.

These included the environmental preservation with the Save the Trees Coalition that prevented the wholesale cutting of all trees along MacArthur Highway being pursued by the Department of Public Works and Highways and endorsed by the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the city government of San Fernando.

“Thanks to the STC, we can still enjoy the cool shade of the trees,” Panlilio said.

The campaign for good governance, he said, continues with nationwide talks being undertaken by the Kaya Natin group that included himself, former Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca and now Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo.

It was in the anti-jueteng advocacy that Panlilio was most emphatic in his homily.

“As long as jueteng politics exists, there will be no chance for good governance to take roots,” he said, lamenting that some priests and pastors regularly receive jueteng money.

Panlilio claimed that in the last elections, a Christian pastor intimated to him that a group of pastors were offered “as much as P100,000 individually” with a number of them accepting the bribe.

Delving on the message of the gospel for the day – of love of God above all, and love of neighbor as the greatest of commandments, Panlilio said these were the same attributes that moved the Italian priest Rev. Fr. Fausto “Pops” Tintorio to live with the Manobos in the hinterlands of Cotabato, fight for their rights and die a martyr’s death.

Panlilio made Tintorio’s “self-sacrifice” as a “ray of hope” in these times of scandals hounding the Catholic clergy, specially that in Pampanga, for whom he asked the congregation to pray.

As early as the first quarter of 2011, Panlilio is being bruited about as a possible running mate of City of San Fernando Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez in his supposed run for the governorship.

“A Rodriguez-Panlilio team will give a Pineda-Arroyo tandem a run for their money,” a Panlilio supporter said then. “It would be a morality play all over again, the forces of good against the evils of jueteng and corruption.”

AngGalingPartylist Rep. MikeyMacapagal-Arroyo has made no secret his plans to run for vice governor, a position he held from 2001-2004 in tandem with then Gov. Lito Lapid.

Other possible vice gubernatorial wannabes being talked about are Mexico Mayor Teddy Tumang, Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo and 4th District Rep. Anna York Bondoc-Sagum. -- Bong Lacson