A Position Paper Expressing Disillusionment Over Acts Inimical To the People of Bohol
The May 10, 2010 election is bringing out the worst in people. Over the last few months, we have witnessed the slow but unmistakable disintegration of the Lakas-Kampi as the dominant political party in the Province of Bohol. For the purpose of brevity, we will limit our focus to three major acts inimical to party interest.
It started with the unceremonious rejection of the congressional aspirations of our very own Catigbian Mayor Roberto Salinas for the First District. A faithful member of the Party who has contributed his share for the Lakas victories in the past, Mayor Salinas was left out in the cold to accommodate a non-party member who had been adversarial to the party interest in all previous elections.
This sent alarm signals to majority of the Party members not only because Mayor Salinas is the incumbent League of Municipalities of the Philippines Provincial President but also because there was no prior mention much less a consultation regarding a coalition with the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino whose candidate was summarily adopted by the Party in the First District.
The most widely publicized concern was the shameless manipulation that led to the revocation of the Certificate of Nomination and Acceptance issued to Gov. ERICO B. AUMENTADO for the Second Congressional District. The treachery was evident because the conspirators waited until the last minute for the filing of the certificate of candidacy on December 1, 2009 before they revealed the revocation. No amount of self-righteous assertions by the Party could justify the act of embarrassing the no. 1 Party member in the Province of Bohol and Regional Lakas Chairman at that.
The National Party leadership, on the basis of political intrigue, chose to issue the CONA to Trinidad Mayor Judith Cajes, wife of Cong. Roberto Cajes, over Gov. Aumentado who was largely responsible for leading Lakas to dominance in Bohol politics for three terms.
Granting for the sake of argument that Gov. Aumentado committed acts that made his loyalty suspicious, the party leadership nevertheless should have conducted a fair and impartial process to find out the truth.
Instead, responsible Party leaders relied mainly on information fed to them based only on supposed intelligence reports without giving Gov. Aumentado the opportunity to defend himself and depriving the party membership the opportunity to take part in the normal process. It is also worth considering that after the incident, Cong. Chatto distributed copies of a radio interview with Party Secretary-General Francis Manglapuz who declared that Cong. Chatto was not informed of the decision to revoke the CONA of Gov. Aumentado.
If what Secretary General Manglapuz said is true, it smacks of dictatorial practices which has no place in a Party sworn to uphold democratic principles of fairness and due process. If he had previous knowledge about it, then Cong. Chatto was lying through his teeth.
While the CONA issued to Gov. Aumentado has been reaffirmed, the damage has been done. It has embarrassed not only Gov. Aumentado as far as his party loyalty is concerned, but also the Party rank and file which had been reduced to a virtual doormat that has no voice or say in Party affairs within its jurisdiction.
We always thought we joined a Party that is sensitive to the sentiments of its foot soldiers if not a strict adherent to the principle of participatory democracy. The swiftness in which an undefeated three-term governor was stripped of his rights sent fear down the line. If it can happen to Gov. Aumentado, it can happen to any of us.
It also makes us lament the fact that it seems that we can no longer tell the difference between otherwise honorable Party leaders who lead and live by the examples of honor and dignity and those who will stop at nothing to get what they want even if in doing so they throw all civility and decency to the dogs.
We watched these two events with sadness and frustration. Sadness because these could have been avoided if only the Party had been more sensitive and objective in going through the normal process of consultation before making decisions. Frustration because until this time, there has been no effort either to repair the damage that has been done or comfort the rank and file that these will not happen again in the future.
In fact, instead of mending fences, Cong. Chatto, his wife, Cong. Cajes, Mayor Cajes and Board Member Concepcion Lim, his vice-gubernatorial candidate, gather town officials and leaders to meetings where they bad-mouth Gov. Aumentado. They are actually dividing the Party right down the middle and pitting Lakas against Lakas.
The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the move of Cong. Roberto Cajes to field candidates against loyal Party members such as those in the towns of Talibon, Getafe and Dagohoy. This is the ultimate insult to Lakas members in these towns who had done their share for the Party in the previous elections.
In the case of Getafe, Dagohoy and Buenavista, Lakas delivered 12-0 votes in the 2007 elections, something that even the towns of Balilihan and Trinidad failed to do. It must be pointed out that Balilihan is the bailiwick of Cong. Chatto, proof of this was the uncontested candidacies of his mother for mayor and his cousin for vice mayor while the mayor of Trinidad is the wife of Cong. Cajes who wants to replace him.
This leads us to the inevitable question: is this what we get for being loyal to the Party all these years?
There is no justification for the act of Cong. Cajes to support candidates from other parties to challenge Lakas candidates in the Second District. It becomes even more scandalous if we consider that Mayor Cajes is now running as an independent since the CONA issued to her was revoked in favor of Gov. Aumentado. To support non-Lakas candidates against Lakas mayors just because the latter refuse to support Mayor Judith Cajes who is an independent congressional candidate is the height of absurdity.
In certain instances, the new Party leadership bastardized the party by fielding rival Lakas candidates which led to instances when there were two “official†Lakas candidates for the same position. With rivals within the Party, who needs enemies?
We were hoping that the national Lakas leadership will arbitrate the issue and resolve it in favor of Lakas party mates. We now realize that hope is pointless.
Even after the revocation of the CONA to Mayor Cajes, Gov. Aumentado continues to be the odd man out. Whenever they visit the Second District, the Lakas faction led by Cong. Chatto and Board Member Concepcion Lim endorse Mayor Cajes as the candidate for Congress.
Being Lakas officials, they are able to call for meetings with Party members in the Municipal and Barangay levels even without informing incumbent Lakas officials who happen to be identified with the rival faction. This is confusing to Lakas leaders and constituents because their worst attacks are made against Gov. Aumentado who was the face of Lakas for more than a decade.
During such meetings, they distribute cellular phones and kits to barangay captains, barangay health workers and other front liners leaving rival local officials helpless to do anything even when they endorse independent candidates for Congress, Mayor and other positions.
During one of the visits of former Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, the original Lakas mayors were virtually reduced to being observers as Cong. Chatto, Cong. Cajes and the handful Lakas members identified with their faction lorded it over.
This is too much.
Up to this point, our loyalty to the Party has been unquestioned. We were part of the Lakas machinery that gave a solid majority to Her Excellency Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2004. As pointed out earlier, many of us including the Municipal Chapters in Getafe, Dagohoy, Buenavista and Danao, all in the Second District, delivered 12-0 wins for the Lakas Senatorial ticket in the 2007 elections.
Our leader, Gov. Aumentado, was the leader of the League of Provinces of the Philippines and Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines that vigorously supported Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when she was threatened by constitutional crises.
In spite of these and many other proofs of our loyalty, the Party continues to treat us with contempt. We are not consulted with Party decisions that affect our Province and our Municipalities and there are no signs they will do so in the future.
On the other hand, it is sheer hypocrisy to doubt the loyalty of Gov. Aumentado on the basis of his friendship with Sen. Manuel Villar. It is not enough to doubt his loyalty and sincerity to the Party.
For instance, in the case of the town of Balilihan, the bailiwick of Cong. Chatto, Gov. Aumentado lost to his opponent in the 2004 elections to ex-Gov. Rene Relampagos, the same candidate now summarily adopted for the First Congressional District at the instance of Cong Chatto.
The question of loyalty to the Party was not raised then and after the results of the 2007 elections when Balilihan failed to deliver a 12-0 sweep even though both the mayor and the vice mayor, the mother and cousin respectively of Cong. Chatto, were uncontested in that election. No such question was also raised in Trinidad.
As if to rub salt on injury, we now have become second-class citizens in our own Party. Our candidate in the First District is from another party, who was arbitrarily chosen to the exclusion of our own party mate.
In the Second District, at least three (3) Lakas town party candidates are being seriously challenged by candidates from other parties who are supported by the outgoing Lakas congressman.
Cong. Cajes is supporting his wife who is running as an independent candidate for Congress - against our very own Lakas candidate in the person of Gov. Aumentado. Again, to stress the obvious, the Party’s new provincial leadership is endorsing the independent candidate to the exclusion of our own party mate.
In the Third District, many Lakas candidates for mayor are also facing serious challenge from candidates from other parties who are enjoying the support of Lakas provincial officials.
We can not fathom the reason for this virtual slap on our face by the new Party leadership in both the national and provincial levels.
Perhaps the Party leadership in these levels consider us as non-entities so they no longer care to consult, much less listen to us when deciding on matters that affect our respective jurisdictions and our very political survival.
It might interest them to know that among our ranks are two (2) former provincial presidents as well as the incumbent president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines. Two out of the three uncontested mayors in the coming 2010 elections are also with us in this crusade that include town mayors who have proven in past elections that they cannot only deliver votes but also lead their respective local governments.
The young and dynamic mayors who represent the Party’s next generation are also solidly behind us in this most serious challenge to ever confront the Bohol Provincial Chapter since the party’s inception.
In this regard, we have arrived at a common consensus to come up with this Position Paper to express our collective sentiments on the shabby treatment that we have received from both the national and provincial leadership of the Party.
We can no longer stomach the hypocrisy and treachery that are being employed against us even after all the years of unquestioned loyalty and faithfulness to the Party.
We are also disturbed that there has been no effort undertaken by the national leadership and the new provincial leadership under Cong. Chatto to seek out the growing number of disgruntled Party members to listen to their sentiments, address their concerns if not solve their problems.
We share in the humiliation inflicted on the Party in the aftermath of that infamous CONA incident where much was made about the “unity†mass when all along the betrayal of the Party’s titular head had already been consummated.
We are now convinced that this is not the kind of leadership that we can endorse to our people in the grassroots level. We have lost confidence in the leadership not only in plugging the holes within the Party but more importantly in leading the Province in the next three years.
We declare our collective sentiment to condemn the hypocrisy and treachery employed by the new provincial leadership in running the affairs of the Party.
Even as we are scandalized by the elaborate script to strip Gov. Aumentado of his CONA, the cover-up attempt intended to confuse and mislead our people, we are comforted by the thought that this is God’s way of exposing the kind of leaders that are courting the votes of our constituents.
While Gov. Aumentado may have been the sacrificial lamb who was nearly sacrificed for political ends, he has become an instrument in opening the eyes of our people to the real character of those behind the scheme to strip him of the Party’s CONA.
We denounce the moves against loyal Party members as far as their individual candidacies are concerned not only to ensure their political survival but more importantly because these machinations and moves are alien to the principles that we embrace.
We believe that it has come to a point where the enemy is no longer out there on the other side but right within our ranks. It is the hypocrisy and treachery that has brought us to this point of no return.
We are not going to take this sitting down. We assert our right to be treated with dignity and respect among our peers especially within our own Party.
We are aware that we have a responsibility not only to our Party but more so to our people to struggle with them to achieve progress, prosperity and peace without losing the virtues of honesty, sincerity and mutual respect.
We believe that in the light of the intervening events, we can no longer expect to achieve these goals under the present Party leadership.
We therefore declare our common and united stand expressing loss of confidence in the present Party provincial leadership led by Cong. Edgar M. Chatto and the national party leadership led by Gov. Rene Miguel Dominguez.
Let the dice fly high.
(Sgd.)Mayor Robert L. Salinas (Sgd.)Mayor Exuperio C. Lloren
Incumbent LMP President Immediate Past LMP President
Municipality of Catigbian Municipality of Jagna
(Sgd.)Board Member Josephine Soccoro C. Jumamoy (Sgd.)Mayor Louis Thomas Gonzaga
Past LMP President LMP Executive Vice President
Second Congressional District Municipality of Danao
(Sgd.)Mayor Theresa M. Camacho (Sgd.)Mayor Telesforo L. Balagosa
Municipality of Getafe Municipality of Lila
(Sgd.)Mayor Jono Jumamoy (Sgd.) Mayor Elsa G. Tirol
Municipality of Inabanga Municipality of Buenavista
(Sgd.)Mayor Juanario A. Item (Sgd.)Mayor Germinio C. Relampagos
Municipality of Talibon Municipality of Dagohoy
(Sgd.)Councilor Senen C. Lloren
PCL Vice President
Municipality of Jagna
i-apil ang mga BACLA day bella heheheh...BACLA Boholanos against Chatto Leadeship Alliance...Mao ning mga Grand alliance against ni CC Chatto Cajes Dynasty... Sugpuon ang dynasty nga corrupt...
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