“Man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to,” Mark Twain once said. And nowhere is Twain’s axiom drubbed more than in President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s home turf.Pampanga officials don’t blush as they wage what the Inquirer tagged “a shameful and shameless 3-R campaign.” “Recount, Recall and Requiem” is the template for their drive to oust the province’s 26th governor, Eddie Panlilio. Why?
This priest-turned-reluctant-candidate shattered Malacañang’s carefully-burnished patina of political invincibility. With skimpy funds and “lower-case people power,” he trashed re-electionist Governor Mark Lapid and board member Lilia Pineda. Both preen as the President’s moneyed allies. Pineda denies her husband is Pope of the “Jueteng Vatican,” i.e. Pampanga. “Among Ed” overhauled the province’s leaky tax collections, especially from its quarries. (Mount Pinatubo’s eruption in 1991 threw up 10 billion metric tons of ash and lava.) Within a month, he exceeded the P29.1 million that took Governor Lapid all of 2006 to collect. In the process, he fractured the politician’s sacrosanct rule: “Touch anything but our wallets.” He further drained the wallets of the corrupt elite by sustaining tax quarry reform. Here’s the track record from Provincial Treasury data: Gov. Bren Guiao (1993-1994) P3.82 million. Over the next 12 years, Governors Lito, then Mark, collected P121.02 million. In contrast, Panlilio doubled the Lapids’ collection to P230 million – in three years. In boosting Pampanga’s income, he enabled citizens to glimpse the massive sums from their taxes that leached into private pockets. The bite of reforms, however, tends to match the ferocity of reaction. Chief Justice Hilario Davide learned that when he lead the Supreme Court to rule decisively on the notorious coconut levy. Martial law coconut czar Eduardo Cojuangco unleashed the “Brat Pack” to impeach Davide. Infuriated civic and church groups beat back Cojuangco’s congressional gunslingers, but not before the country teetered on a constitutional crisis’ brink. With a robust P143-million development fund, Panlilio helped nine shoddy district hospitals – including, alas, the Diosdado Macapagal Provincial Hospital. He shared with towns and barangays the Capitol’s P37-million special education fund and quarry revenues. That’s not a felony. Sure. But “few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example,” Mark Twain noted. Worse, candor can turn “annoyance” ballistic. And Panlilio did precisely that by speaking out. In October 2007, the President met Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines officials. Brown envelopes were handed out. Everybody clammed up. But Panlilio asked – aloud: What was the P500,000 stuffed into his envelope for? A furious controversy erupted. Spinmasters ensure it didn’t swirl around “bribery.” They skewered Panlilio for “indiscretion” and “legal ignorance” since he turned the loot over to the Provincial Treasurer. “No one blushed,” noted Cebu Daily News. “Even more telling, no one returned an envelope.” “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” an annoyed King Henry II fumed against Thomas Becket. In 1170, the archbishop of Canterbury bucked the monarch’s abuses. Henry’s men cut Becket down at the altar. The story anchors T.S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral.” Ballistic officials, backed by 15 of Pampanga’s 137 priests, would rid the province of this “meddlesome priest.” They’ve scrambled to grant themselves greater police power over quarries. The provincial board stripped P45 million from Panlilio’s budget. Then there’s the 3-R campaign. The third R is lifted from the ancient prayer, Requiem aeternam dona eiis Domini. (Eternal rest give unto him, O Lord). Panlilio shrugs off the threat. But men have killed for less. He dons a flak jacket in more exposed situations. The other two R’s come from “Recount” and “Recall.” The Supreme Court stopped a recount until it resolves an issue of abuse. Officials are gathering 100,000 signatures – 10 percent of the province’s voting population – to compel a recall election in January 2009. “This petition has partisanship written all over it,” the Inquirer said. “But the brazenness is still breathtaking…. In Filipino, nakakahiya, walang hiya!”
“This is not about a person,” stressed Pampanga Bishop Pablo Virgilio David. “It’s about a whole moral crusade for good governance…. Instead of recall, people should call for reform.” There. That’s the fourth – and still missing – R. A country starved for officials of integrity desperately seeks reforms. Thus, the Magsaysay Awards for Public Service have gone to officials like the late Haydee Yorac or Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca. Anchored in “values that endure even after the sun burns out,” their deeds provide hope to a dispirited people. “The work of a reformer is to destabilize old norms and demonstrate viability of a new way of doing things,” Inquirer’s Randy David cautions. “Panlilio must find common ground, working as much as possible within the culture, rather than against it. If he fails, it would kill hope in reform itself.” Malacañang, meanwhile, meticulously distances itself from the 3-R campaign. But would unblushing Pampanga officials pound “Among Ed” down to their sleaze level if the Palace didn’t wink? Were you born yesterday?” | 
