The stick in the mud

“Insecurity is a loud stick in a quiet river. It pokes at the silt because it cannot handle the reflection staring back from the surface.”

The river was quiet.

Former Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog, granted executive clemency by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in January 2025, had his Ombudsman penalties lifted and his eligibility to run for public office restored.

He has been quiet recently, with not a shadow of campaigning or politicking. He was, by all observable accounts, sitting still — a political figure with a cleared legal slate and no declared ambitions, existing peacefully in the current of Iloilo City’s political landscape.

Then someone threw a stick.

A graphic card — anonymous in origin, surgical in intent — surfaced online, asking the public a loaded question: If elections for Iloilo City congressman were held today, who would you vote for? Jed Patrick Mabilog or Councilor Miguel Trenas?

Not “Which candidate do you prefer?” because there are no candidates. Not “Who has filed?” because nobody has filed. Just a neat, clean, binary provocation dropped into a river that was minding its own business. A stick, disguised as a question, poking at the silt.

And here is where the metaphor earns its keep: Why poke?

The 2028 elections are two years away. Mabilog has made no announcement. The congressional race has no official contenders. There is, at this point, no river to test, no current to measure, and no reason for anyone to be throwing survey-shaped sticks into the water — unless the reflection staring back from the surface is making someone nervous.

Because that is what insecurity does. It does not wait for a fight. It manufactures one. It creates a graphic card that frames an undeclared race as a two-man contest, forces a response from at least one side, and generates political noise where silence would have been perfectly fine. The stick does not poke the silt for answers. It pokes the silt because the quiet was unbearable.

Mabilog, for his part, responded the way a man responds when a stick lands in his river uninvited — with visible restraint and a slightly raised eyebrow. “2026 pa lang… pero daw may nagadalagan na para sa 2028,” he said.

He clarified what did not need clarifying: that there is no legal impediment to his candidacy, that he rejects “survey-driven politics,” and that his priorities remain with senior citizens, persons with disabilities, vendors, and transport drivers burdened by rising fuel costs and real property taxes.

It was a measured, serviceable answer. Perhaps too measured. The kind of answer a politician gives when he knows exactly why the stick was thrown and chooses not to dignify the thrower — while making sure everyone notices he could swim if he wanted to.

But the more interesting question is not what Mabilog said. It is who felt compelled to throw the stick in the first place.

Councilor Miguel Treñas — son of former Mayor Jerry Treñas, brother of incumbent Mayor Raisa Treñas — is the other name on that graphic card. The Treñas surname does not need a social media graphic to establish its presence in Iloilo City politics. It is the furniture in the room. So the card was not designed to introduce Treñas to the public. It was designed to measure Mabilog against him. To test whether the river has changed since the clemency.

Curiosity? No. Rather it’s reconnaissance dressed as a poll. And reconnaissance happens when someone is worried about what they might find.

The truth is, Mabilog’s return to eligibility disrupted a political calculus that had been running comfortably on the assumption that he was permanently out of the picture. His clemency did not just restore his rights — it restored a variable. And variables make people who had already done the math very, very uncomfortable. So out came the stick.

Mabilog is right about one thing: elections are not won through surveys. They are won through clear intent and sustained service. But graphic cards are not about winning elections either. They are about flushing out positions, testing reactions, and manufacturing early narratives. They are the political equivalent of poking someone on the shoulder to see if they flinch.

The river was quiet. The reflection was clear. And somebody out there could not handle it.