Ilonggo turncoats ‘under watch’ in new party

By Alex P. Vidal

“Either move or be moved.”—Ezra Pound

THE surge of turncoats or those who quickly discard their political party for the ruling party once a new administration takes over, has been a normal occurrence or aberration in Philippine politics, especially after the EDSA uprising.

The balimbings (star fruit) are always quick to jump ship for political survival and convenience.

Thus when Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) national president and South Cotabato Governor Reynaldo Sucayan Tamayo Jr. recently announced the first batch of governors, town mayors, councilors, and even barangay captains and kagawads (deputies) that took their oaths to the PFP over the weekend, some of those being watched were the “drifters” from Western Visayas, particularly in the city and province of Iloilo, which are known political landscapes of the opposition and the bulwarks of check and balance.

PFP is the political party of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., chief rival of former Vice President Leni Robredo, who beat the current president in Iloilo in the 2022 presidential election.

Even before the bug of turncoatism has officially bitten the local chief executives who didn’t support Marcos Jr., several of them have already shifted allegiance in principle as early as months after the May 2022 election, when Robredo opted to silently “fade away” and allowed the political apparatuses of the Marcos hegemony to take full command of the national government amid some imperceptible allegations of poll fraud.

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Tamayo boasted that 60 governors and mayors have taken their oaths and more are expected to join them to become the ruling party in the coming years, or until the end of Mr. Marcos Jr.’s term in 2028.

Among them were Davao del Norte Gov. Edwin Jubahib, Zamboanga Sibugay Gov. Anne Hoferga, Batanes Gov. Malou Cayco and Laguna Vice Gov. Karen Agapay; Mahatao, Batanes Mayor Pedro Poncio; Uyugan, Batanes Mayor Jonathan Enrique Nanud Jr.; Sabtang, Batanes Mayor Prescila Babalo; Itbayat, Batanes Mayor Sabas de Sagon; Ivana, Batanes Mayor Celso Batallones; and Basco, Batanes Mayor German Caccam.

The new members reportedly vowed to support Marcos’ economic and food security agenda to enable the administration improve the lives of the people, especially in the countryside.

“We particularly welcome the President’s decision not to relinquish his post as agriculture chief as he knows what to do and has the solutions needed to address problems in that sector,” said Tamayo as quoted in a national paper.

“He also wants to improve the poverty line from 18 percent down to a single digit of nine or even eight percent to ensure food security.”

It’s interesting to know who will stay in the old political party of the current opposition and who will be included in the next batch of Tamayo’s golden list.

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HE WHO DOESN’T ‘LIKE’ SHOULDN’T BE DISLIKED. If a friend, a relative, or a classmate and officemate in our friends list have stopped “liking” our social media posts regularly like they used to do, we shouldn’t go ballistic and think they are already scornful or aloof, and have developed hard feelings toward us; or they are now “jealous” of our success and achievements; or “they have changed a lot”, among other negative, toxic and irrational suspicions and allusions.

In the first place, most of the friends and relatives we suspected of acting indifferently don’t have idea about our outrageous, abnormal, malicious, and bizarre thoughts. The paranoia must stop.

They don’t “like” or have stopped “liking” our posts in the Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etcetera not because of what we wrongly and absurdly think. It’s because some of our posts don’t really appear on their pages or timelines.

Because of the growing number of users, social media platforms may have sort of “sanitized” their internal ecology. Thus if we have 3,000 “friends” on our list, for instance, our posts might be visible only to a little over than 200 to 300 “friends”.

The cascading and simultaneous posts of millions of social media users all over the world may have caused the heavy traffic and, thus, we can no longer see the running posts of those we expect to always read and countenance our posts.

Grown ups should stop whining and getting jittery. Life is good.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)