By Sunday Post
Greenhorn in every way, he had his first baptism of fire as a member of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan when shepherded approval of his “babyâ€.
Although he was a faithful pupil of one of the province’s most astute politicians in Cong. Edgar Chatto, Board Member Alfonso Damalerio II was tested how to survive in jungle warfare where political predators rule the game.
It really was no picnic when this neophyte dad argued his case before the SP as he sought approval of his pet ordinance banning the commercialization of Bohol’s tarsier.
Knowing that the path to triumph was littered with the carcasses of those who fell behind,, the neophyte alderman was also aware that it was laden with landmines that one false move would reduce him to smithereens.
He was aware of the fact that one sector which was ticking with explosive was the sector that earned their keeps on the display of live tarsiers.
This may explain why Damalerio’s pet measure was not welcomed with open arms by tarsier operators in Loay and Loboc because the new law prohibited them to display the live primate for commercial purposes.
In Loboc, Mayor Leon Calipusan was one bullish executive who made no bones about attempts to ban captive tarsier for commercial viewing. He said, although Loboc can stand on its own built-in amenities like the fabled river boat cruise to survive even the worst of times in tourists’ arrivals, he was against the idea of depriving Loboc visitors a close up view of another famous attraction, the tarsier.
That made the result-oriented Loboc mayor an enemy of Damalerio as the kagawad shepherded the tarsier. The young legislator’s mantra: just do it no matter who gets hurt every step of the way.
In friendship as Damalerio very well know, one has to win some, and then lose some. Lose he did, in the case of tarsier owners particularly in Loboc who had come to realize all throughout the whole gamut of commercial tarsier display that they cannot have “their cake and ate it tooâ€.
Damalerio’s beef in “babying†the tarsier measure was for people to understand that under Bohol’s conservation efforts of the fragile animal, there’s an agency—the Bohol Tarsier Foundation, Inc., handling its existence with care.
This gave rise to the tarsier center in Corella whose operation was dedicated to the proposition that tarsiers were not made for public viewing under captivity. The center has chosen a spot in the wilderness of Canapnapan, Corella, where the small creature with big round eyes will live in its natural habitat and not in some wire cages so as not to deprive them of their natural nocturnal habits.
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