GMA to lead TU Iloilo sortie today

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will barnstorm Iloilo City today for a last-minute endorsement of the Team Unity before the curtain falls on the 2007 electoral campaign.

The Presidential Management Staff, however, doused speculations that the Chief Executive’s visit here would also lead to the inauguration of the new Iloilo airport.

The rites have reportedly been scrapped and reset for June, according to a ranking PMS official.

It is also coincidental that GMA is visiting Iloilo City where the administration candidate for mayor, re-electionist Jerry Treñas, is virtually assured of a runaway victory. So with the administration’s re-electionist Rep. Raul Gonzalez Jr.

Treñas actually remains the voters’ choice in Iloilo, according to the latest findings of Random Access Consultants (RACI). Using the multi-stage probability sampling method, RACI discovered that Treñas was way ahead of his challenger, former councilor Joshua Alim.

In the city proper (by districts), Alim got only 6.7 percent, while Treñas ran away with 85.6 percent.

The trend is similar in other districts: Molo – Treñas, 77.1 percent; Alim, 8.6 percent; Arevalo – Treñas, 91.7 percent; Alim, 5.0 percent; Mandurriao – Treñas, 80 percent; Alim, 8.3 percent; La Paz – Treñas, 80 percent; Alim, 12 percent; Lapuz – Treñas, 78.3 percent; Alim, 6.7 percent; and Jaro – Treñas, 86.7 percent; Alim, 8 percent.

Not so in the case of Bacolod, although the torrid contest between former Bacolod mayor Joy Valdez of Lakas-Kampi and re-electionist Mayor Evelio Leonardia of the Nationalist People’s Coalition may have sidetracked a vigorous campaign for the Team Unity senatorial slate.

What is evident in Bacolod was the determined effort by individual groups of senatorial aspirants to undertake their own campaign for their bets. The local candidates have been so busy scourging around for votes for their own survival that, as what often happens, the senatorial ticket takes a backseat in campaign sorties. But no doubt that both tickets are campaigning for the Team Unity.

Not so in Iloilo. There, with the lack of a vigorously inspired opposition ticket on the local level, most of the local candidates can truly take time out to boost the chances of their Team Unity senatorial bets. More attention can be devoted to own campaigns.

In Negros Occidental, however, except for the torrid contest in the first district between re-electionist Congressman Tranquilino Carmona and come-backing Jules Ledesma IV with Assunta de Rossi, the Team Unity is more or less assured of a major victory.

The provincial candidates are virtually unopposed and concentrating more on helping their local bets and the senatorial ticket.

Gov. Joseph Marañon suffered only a setback early this week when Talisay City re-electionist Mayor Ernesto Saratan failed to show up in a rally called by Gov. Marañon. The governor had intended to proclaim Saratan as the official NPC-United Negros Alliance candidate for Talisay.

It was not clearly explained by Saratan why he did not appear in the endorsement rally.

But there were speculations that he did not want to meet with re-electionist Rep. Jose Carlos (Kako) Lacson who is also for him and not for the latter’s cousin, Ramon Lacson. It was more a case of tampo among supporters.

Saratan is reportedly backing board member Reynaldo Depasucat against Lacson. He is also being backed by former mayor Emiliano Lizares, father of the late Mayor Antonio Lizares whom he succeeded as mayor of the Bacolod suburban city.

In northern Negros Occidental’s Escalante City, the charges and counter-charges between Ledesma and Mayor Santiago Barcelona reached explosive heights but remained on the vocal level.

Re-electionist Rep. Carmona joined the fray when he told mediamen that he had been receiving threats that would not last beyond election day.

Carmona believes that the threats are politically motivated since he does not have personal enemies.

Promptly, Assunta, Ledesma’s spouse, said her husband is not the kind of a person who would threaten anyone.

Police, on the other hand, also reported to the Commission on Elections that a certain Crisanto Batan, a Barcelona supporter, and his companions disturbed and interrupted the campaign sortie of Ledesma IV in Barangay Binaguiohan in upper Escalante City.

The report furnished provincial Comelec supervisor recommended that a case be filed in court for disturbance of public order if evidence warrants.

On Monday, Batan, accompanied by Barcelona, held a media conference at the provincial capitol in Bacolod where he denied having disrupted the political gathering.

The barangay tanod claimed that he and his companions just wanted to see Assunta de Rossi, the movie star wife of Ledesma.

At the time, Ledesma was accompanied by mayoralty candidate Melencio Yap, who is running against Barcelona’s wife, Alicia.

But the report also dissociated the Barcelona camp from any involvement in the Batan action, pointing out that the scenario of Batan and his companions was their own voluntary act and no other persons motivated or induced him.

Well, to a certain extent, that defuses the situation. But as they say, in the final stretch a lot of "miracles can happen."

And, to a certain extent, word that Don Salvador Benedicto mayoralty bet Nehemias dela Cruz was campaigning for Ledesma against Carmona, the NPC and UNA official bet undercut the latter’s surefire win against the come-backing Ledesma.

Marañon was himself caught by surprise by the talk. He promised to take the matter up with De la Cruz and ask him to support the official coalition bet – Carmona.

Armed band nabbed

The Antique police took custody of seven members of the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade for violating the Commission on Elections’ gun ban last weekend.

The seven were picked up in Laua-an town, 60 kilometers from Antique’s capital town of San Jose. They were Rodrigo Pacheco, Juanito Vicente, Roy Alejo, Rey Agapito, Joel Bolivar, Walter Agbagon, and Domingo Anacleto.

Capt. Lowen Gil Marquez, of the Armed Forces’ 32nd Civil Relations Unit, said the suspects yielded two M-16 rifles, three homemade caliber .38 revolvers, a homemade shotgun, and a locally made Ingram automatic handgun.

The seven are now in the custody of the 79th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army and are undergoing investigation.

Meanwhile, the prospects of a surprise formidable showing by independent bets in Bacolod appeared to have disintegrated with the display of individualism by the candidates.

So far, the only ones who have formed a loose coalition are congressional bet Andy Hagad, independent mayoralty bet Joel Dojillo, and candidates for the city council, councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, former councilor Celia Flor, and Jonas Baldonado.

Dojillo told me yesterday that efforts to pool their resources, including manpower, to help one another simply sundered in the face of insistence by some "independents" to retain their independence free of any shackles.

Thus, independent vice mayoralty bet Lyndon Cana foundered when he could have reinforced his surge to a possible win with the help of other independent bets for the city council.

The problem seems to be that the independents shunned endorsements from groups that could antagonize their supporters among the dominant personalities in the two major tickets – the Performance and Progress line-ups.

"It was a good try. We could have succeeded in registering an impact on Bacolod politics, except that we ended up too independent-minded and lapsed into old-time politics also," said Dojillo.

Actually, if one were to look at it, the end run is the most important in a race. And the coalition of independents ended up stillborn.