Jamjam and Raisa: bedfellows  that avert a political bloodbath

By Alex P. Vidal 

“Turn on to politics, or politics will turn on you.” —Ralph Nader

AFTER October 8, 2024–when it became clear that Iloilo City Rep. Julienne “Jamjam” Baronda and former City Hall Executive Assistant Raisa Maria Lourdes Treñas-Chu wouldn’t clash in the midterm elections on May 12, 2025, hostilities between the two camps should have stopped.

But it didn’t. It wouldn’t. Supporters of both parties continued to release antagonistic forays both in the mainstream and social media as if the ladies are scheduled in the main event to dispute the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) featherweight title.

Mrs. Treñas-Chu’s decision to run for city mayor actually averted what could have been a murky rivalry between her and Baronda, who had been sharpening her knives silently for a one-on-one duel in defense of her congressional post.

It turned out they both ended up signing a “unity” statement, a gripping development that sent confusion and consternation to both their impassioned admirers, but helped defuse whatever tension that threatened to escalate in frightening proportion in the campaign period.

With no real threat of invasion from the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Lombards, and Burgundians, it appears they are both headed to landslide victories respectively in the mayoral and congressional races.

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And if Baronda’s younger sister, Love, will upset Vice Mayor Jeffrey Ganzon, it will be the first time that Iloilo City will have the “Three Marias” occupying the top three elective positions—congresswoman, city mayor, vice mayor.

And they are all below 50s—fresh, idealistic, incorruptible, oozing with charisma and exuberance to serve the Ilonggos (with due respect to Vice Mayor Ganzon and Roland Magahin, Mrs. Treñas-Chu’s lone “rival”).

Even before their much-ballyhooed “unity”, Baronda and Mrs. Treñas-Chu weren’t known to have directly used high-powered hardwares to empty their bullets against each other.

In fact, neither of them carried machine guns; they never fired a single shot aimed toward each other. There was no reason whatsoever to conceal a hatchet.

Both their social media accounts haven’t yielded explosive substances aimed at shattering each other to pieces.

Thus, it wasn’t hard for both ladies to swallow their pride and pretend there was no enmity between the Treñas and Baronda clans and that they were always open for any political collaboration if they could avoid marching to the war zones.

If Ilonggos have seen the Polaris and Voyevoda missiles in the skies, they were unleashed by defenders and flamethrowers of both Baronda and Mrs. Treñas-Chu’s father, Mayor Geronimo “Jerry” Treñas, not by Baronda and Mrs. Treñas-Chu themselves.

The sustained hardline attacks emanate from supporters who have no love lost for the manifesto of “unity” signed between Baronda and Mrs. Treñas-Chu and not from the candidates themselves.

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SAVING OUR PLANET: Don’t dispose. Instead of disposable dishcloths that have to be thrown away and replaced every few weeks, let’s choose cotton cloths. They will stand the test of time and can be washed and reused for many months.

US ELECTION. The U.S. presidential election on November 5 will be decided by the Electoral College. It is not a physical place but a process which includes the selection of electors, meeting of electors who cast votes for the president and vice president, and counting of the electors’ votes by Congress. In other U.S. elections, candidates are elected directly by popular vote. But the president and vice president are not elected directly by citizens. Instead, they are chosen through the Electoral College process. The process of using electors comes from the Constitution. It was a compromise between a popular vote by citizens and a vote in Congress.

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