What if the Marcos-Baronda ‘tandem’ isn’t Fools’ Day joke?

By Alex P. Vidal

“I guess rumors are more exciting than the truth.”— Venus Williams

THEY’RE saying the rumored Marie Louise “Liza” Araneta Marcos-Julienne “Jamjam” Baronda tandem for Iloilo City lone district representative and city mayor is only an April Fools’ Day canard when it recently circulated in the social media and the grapevine.

Since it’s an annual custom that occurs on April 1^st and consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes, April Fools’ Day or All Fools’ Day jokesters often expose their actions by shouting “April Fools!” at the recipient.

Thus, many Ilonggos immediately treated the alleged Marcos-Baronda team up for the 2025 election with a grain of salt.

Others might say, “It’s only photo ops why take it seriously?” “It can’t be true because the first lady hasn’t shown any interest to dabble into politics”; “A photo doesn’t speak everything about the facts and the truth”; etcetera.

But wait a minute. If it’s only All Fools’ Day joke why didn’t the camps of both First Lady Liza Marcos and Rep. Jamjam Baronda belie the “joke” when an undated photo showing they were together smiling fabulously in an unknown event recently circulated in the social media?

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The answer is obvious: if a joke or half truth will “benefit” Liza and Jamjam for whatever purpose it may serve them best, it shouldn’t be torpedoed and must even be allowed to spread in the political rumor mill.

Misinformation, suspense-filled stories, mystification and perplexity, or even plain and simple whopper are part and parcel of politics.

But what if everything is not a joke? What if the scuttlebutt about Marcos and Baronda is merely the tip of the iceberg or “appetizer” of the portent of things to come?

In politics, nothing is certain until the eleventh hour switching of alliances and party-hooping; and until the last vote has been cast.

This could send the blood pressure of some City Hall wisecracks excited of the prospect of a “sure” Treñas-Treñas (Mayor Geronimo “Jerry” and Mrs Maria Lourdes Raisa Chu) dominance in the next election skyrocketing. Only if the rumor is true.

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Over the years I have rejected invitations from friends to relocate or live in New Jersey, where the cost of living is lower and the tax structure is less complicated compared to its northeastern neighboring state of New York.

My friend from Iloilo City, Gigi Gumban, informed me after the pandemic she has relocated from the Big Apple to Jersey City for security reasons.

“It’s no longer safe (in the Upper West Manhattan) because of homeless people (who have been sheltered there by the City Hall),” Gigi told me.

While Gigi’s concern was her safety, the reason offered by a Bacolod “stowaway” (I hate to use the more offensive term that connotes undocumented alien) lady was economic.

“Barato ang mga aparment (in Jersey City). Malapad pa sang space. Daku gid ang savings ko sa rent,” the Bacolod stowaway lady reported.

(The apartments in Jersey City are cheaper and spacious. I was able to save a lot for my rent.)

But that is not the main point of my subject matter in this article. It’s the tunnels that separate New York from New Jersey.

Lincoln Tunnel, for instance, doesn’t only give me cold creeps but also goosebumps.

When I first crossed this famous tunnel eight years ago, I had eerie feeling; I was like entering a hole with no assurance to see the light at the end.

The phobia I felt was similar when I was “trapped” for about 12 minutes in a stranded 7 train from Queens to Manhattan in Fall of 2017.

If the train was delayed for another five to 10 minutes, I could pass out; I felt like being locked inside a calaboose with my jailer throwing away the key in the Hudson River.

The feeling revisited me again when I traveled in a bus before the Holy Week. The vehicle had to spend some 20 minutes doing detours in the dizzying Weehawken roads to avoid traffic before finally reaching the tunnel’s mouth.

It normally takes some five minutes for a rider before emerging from the tunnel.

The 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) Lincoln Tunnel, opened to traffic for the first time in 1937, connects Weehawken, New Jersey to Midtown Manhattan.

If we didn’t take the ferry boat or train, we passed through this tunnel, much heralded as the next great engineering triumph, from New York City to New Jersey City vice versa.

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The tunnel is 95 feet underwater at its deepest point, and cost about $1.5 billion to build, reportedly adjusting for inflation.

It reportedly sees upwards of 120,000 cars passing through every day on the average, making it one of the busiest roadways in the United States.

Its separate bus lane sees about 1,700 buses every morning, primarily bringing its 62,000 commuters to the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Manhattan’s 42nd Street.

This was the second tunnel funded by the New Deal’s Public Work’s Administration in 1934, fresh off the success of the northern Holland Tunnel, the first mechanically ventilated underwater automobile tunnel to be built under the Hudson River.

A second tube was built shortly after the Lincoln Tunnel’s first, with a third requested due to increasing traffic built in the late 1950s.

The three tunnels service hundreds of thousands of cars and buses coming in and out of New York City to this day.

I found it more relaxing to take the train traveling from New York to New Jersey vice versa.

Corrie Ten Boo has warned: “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”

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