NPC expels P’sinan town mayor, mom

URBIZTONDO, Pangasinan, Philippines – This town’s new mayor and his mother, who lost in the 2013 mayoral race here, have been expelled as members of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC).

In a letter, former Pangasinan fifth district congressman Mark Cojuangco, NPC provincial chairman, informed Faustino Dy Jr. and Gigi Aggabao, the party’s chairman and president, respectively, about the expulsion of Mayor Martin Raul Sison, 25, and his mother Marilyn.

Cojuangco, son of business tycoon Danding Cojuangco who founded the NPC, told the party leadership about the June 7 gun-slay of Urbiztondo Mayor Ernesto Balolong Jr. that some quarters suspect was politically motivated.

Although Balolong belonged to the Liberal Party, he got Cojuangco though to be a godfather in the wedding of his son, councilor Volter Balolong.

The wedding was to coincide with the elder Balolong’s silver wedding anniversary celebration, but a day before the twin events, he was gunned down. Sison, who was the vice mayor, succeeded Balolong.

Although Volter’s wedding pushed through on June 8, Cojuangco said it was the “saddest wedding I had ever attended.”

Cojuangco said he has become personally attached to the Balolong family.

He said he finds the political situation in Urbiztondo to have become politically untenable for him as the NPC provincial chairman and for the party in Pangasinan as a whole.

Sison’s father, second district board member Raul Sison, had resigned along with four other board members from the NPC effective last June 1.

Cojuangco said Sison and his mother “can only reflect the sentiments” of his father who is “demonstrably contemptuous of the party and my person.”