The Rise of the Serpent: A Tale from the City of Love

By The Sunriser

SATIRE. REACT AT YOUR OWN RISK

In the early days of the new millennium, when cell phones were still the size of bricks and text messages cost five pesos each, the City of Love found itself in an unlikely romance with darkness. The year was early 2002, and the old port city’s waters carried more than just cargo ships and fishing boats—they carried whispers of an emerging shadow economy.

Enter Task Force Riverside, a hastily assembled group of lawmen whose creation was as much a confession as it was a solution. Their primary target? The notorious Winlose Goat, whose name had become synonymous with the city’s underworld. Winlose wasn’t just any criminal—he was an institution, a man whose influence reached from the narrowest eskinitas to the widest boulevards.

The task force’s creation marked the beginning of the end for Winlose’s reign. But nature, as they say, abhors a vacuum, and the underworld is no different. While Winlose’s empire crumbled under the weight of a murder charge that finally stuck (something about a business deal gone wrong in the old downtown), few noticed the slight stirring in the shadows.

Like a serpent shedding its old skin, the network began to transform. In the vacuum left by Winston’s imprisonment, a new figure emerged—they called him the Dragon. Unlike his predecessor’s brash style, the Dragon operated with a different kind of finesse. He was a ghost story told in whispers, a name mentioned in hushed tones in karinderyas and coffee shops.

The irony wasn’t lost on the old-timers: how the City of Love, known for its sweet language and sweeter smiles, had become a staging ground for this shadowy dance. The Dragon’s rise wasn’t just a changing of the guard—it was a transformation of the entire ecosystem. Where Winlose had built his empire on brute force and old-school connections, the Dragon wove a web of influence that was almost invisible to the naked eye.

By the time anyone realized what was happening, the transformation was complete. The Dragon had turned Winlose’s crude network into a sophisticated operation that seemed to exist everywhere and nowhere at once. The old port city, with its Spanish-era churches and American-period buildings, had unwittingly become home to a new kind of empire—one built not on the foundations of force, but on the architecture of influence.

They say that in the City of Love, even the shadows have shadows. And in those early years of the new millennium, those shadows began to dance to a different tune—the silent song of the Dragon, rising from the ashes of an old empire, reshaping the underworld in his own image.

The locals would later joke that while Task Force Riverside was busy draining the swamp, they never noticed the dragon swimming beneath the surface. But by then, of course, it was far too late to do anything but watch and wonder how their beloved city had become home to such dangerous creatures.

The question that haunted many minds, though few dared to speak it aloud, was who had been minding the city’s gates when the serpent first slithered in? The whispers in La Paz market spoke of sleeping sentinels, of watchmen who might have been looking the other way. After all, dragons don’t simply appear—they need space to spread their wings, territory to claim as their own. And in a city where everyone knew everyone, how did no one seem to know exactly who had held the keys to the kingdom during those crucial years?

Some said the answer lay in the old logbooks gathering dust in precinct offices, or in the memories of retired officers who now spent their days playing chess in Plaza Libertad. Others suggested looking at the roster of officials who had cycled through city hall during those transformative years. But like many stories in the City of Love, this one too remained shrouded in convenient silence, leaving future generations to wonder about the true cost of turning a blind eye.

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Got this from a friend who has been quietly promoting Iloilo to investors for over a decade, starting with the dark days:

On the Iloilo-Guimaras Ferry Terminal Complex

Our local media has recently been awash with allegations of impropriety in the consummation of this Public-Private Partnership Project. As an Ilonggo who has been working to promote and bring investments into Iloilo City, it is indeed quite disheartening to see how this has played out.

From an outsider’s perspective, this does not send a good signal to prospective investors considering Iloilo. For context, when we were trying to promote Iloilo as an investment destination back in the 2010s, it was not as easy as it has been in recent years. It was difficult to stand out among the investors flocking to the Philippines during the exuberance following the election of President Noynoy Aquino. Investors, however, would always choose Metro Manila, Calabarzon, Central Luzon and even Cebu as investment priority areas. This was understandable given the risk-reward considerations which favored those areas over Iloilo at that time. Given this context, the Terminal PPP Project was considered a coup and a model project in the early days of the PPP environment.

It took a local, Injap Sia, to take this plunge for he was probably the only one who would bite the bullet and take this risk for his hometown’s sake. This, of course, did not mean that he and Double Dragon were given privileges in contravention of law. Let us remember, the government’s PPP initiatives were in its fledgling days during this time. This unsolicited proposal had to go through a meticulous process to ascertain its feasibility and to determine that the terms under which this project was undertaken were fair and not disadvantageous to the government at that time.

It is indeed government’s right to protect the interests of the people in any transaction that it engages in. More than being a mandate, it is their moral duty to do so. Having said that, it is also more than fair to ask of government to be conscientious over the manner by which they go about exercising this mandate.

At the very least, things should be set in their proper context. As I earlier painted, things were a lot different in terms of the economic and investment climate in Iloilo over a decade ago compared to what it is now. There is no question that had this project been conceived now, the government would probably have more leverage compared to back then.

The confrontational approach that the government has chosen to adopt does not help anyone. A more level-headed approach of engaging in re-negotiating the terms of the engagement with the project proponent and operator would be seen as more appropriate. Not being privy to what went on prior to this deluge of reports, maybe there was an attempt to engage in amiable discussions, we don’t know. Yet, all we have been witness to has been this confrontational approach. And if this is all that we’re seeing and hearing, this is also all that investors are seeing and hearing. It’s like shooting ourselves in the foot.

For a city that has used relative political stability as a selling point for investors, this brouhaha certainly gives lie to that selling point. If we go down the path of attacking heretofore unquestioned and indeed, lauded, actions of previous administrations, this can only serve as a red light for investors.

Again and to emphasize, we do not begrudge the government’s role in protecting the interests of the people. It is their solemn duty to do so. Our ask is that they do this in a level-headed and professional manner which can only serve to elevate us in the eyes of the outside world. We should remember that everything that we do does not just play to the people of Iloilo City but also to the outside world.

I do feel the need to say this – I am not a politician and nobody put me up to this. These are the personal reflections of someone who has worked hard to contribute to putting Iloilo on investors’ maps.