MikeLigalig.com

By Boy Guingguing
Publisher
Bohol Sunday Post

The unanimity of the graveyard best described the identical answers of three contenders to the presidency of the Philippine Councilors League, Bohol chapter.

The question posed to each of the protagonist is this: Are you winning in the PCL fight? And the ready answer? They are and it's all over but the counting.

But it can't be that all three pretenders will be declared winners. This is one contest where the ultimate yardstick is may the best man win.

The best here is of course reelectionist Councilor Brigido "Boy' Imboy of Loay. But make no mistake, he can be the best in the three-way race because he is the depending champion. But to his critics who is out to topple him from the PCL perch, he is the beast-one that is ripe for pasture because he has done nothing good to the league of municipal councilors.

Best or beast, he will be pitted against a beauty in Tita Gallentes, a councilor from G-Hernandez, whose phenomenal rise to political stardom surprises her own colleagues at the PCL.

Tita Galendez who?

To the uninitiated, Gallentes was a virtual nobody, until she made herself available to the PCL skirmish. Proving that she is not all pretty face, Gallentes is slowly morphing into a viable candidate to replace Imboy.

A cursory look of her own plan of action as she sought the PCL presidency would reveal that she talks a lot of sense. And she has the brains to steer the PCL from its present state of lethargy. Beauty and brains are her open assets if she will be ranged against the best and the brightest.

But the PCL derby is no beauty contest. Last time we heard, it's all about money. This means that if the voting kagawads are asked to lend their ears to who's talking, for sure they listen intently in sheer gusto to who's speaking in peso signs. Ergo, they are all ears when money talks.

Like the best of the three aspirants, Gallentes is also packed with financial wallop. The toast of the PCL fight when financial muscle is all that matters is clearly Imboy and Gallentes. And at the rate they are running their campaigns , it appears that who has the unlimited resources will come out as winner. For the moment, the two are caught in a strategic stalemate, as money changes hands. Who will emerge as winner will be known when the day of reckoning come and go. The PCL election is set on August 29.

But wait till you know the credentials of the brightest. Although he is of the rabble-rouser type, his only sin probably is that he is always pleading poverty.

A lawyer by profession, Dandan Bantugan is staking his neck to the PCL presidency hoping that not everybody is for sale. A two-time city councilor, he struts around as the better alternative to Boy Imboy considering his competence as a practicing lawyer. Of the two other contenders, though he is the underdog, Bantugan is touted as the brightest given the stellar billing- the beauty and the best. That will complete the equation of BBB.

The wild card that he is hoping to unveil is the support of City Mayor Dan Lim whose propensity for spending money is of Imeldific proportion. Many pundits were of the belief that Bantugan's chances of the PCL presidency went down with Boom Boom Bautista's first round knockout last Sunday. It was surmised that the TKO also the knocked the pockets out of his backer (Lim) and may rub into his own defeat in the PCL polls.

But don't count Bantugan out. A survivor of many brushes with failures in the past, this great alderman may spring a surprise and may pull a come from behind victory.

So there you are! The PCL presidency is in for an exciting match among the beauty, the best and the brightest. It's time to pick your choice.

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