“With but few exceptions, it is always the underdog who wins through sheer willpower.” –Johnny Weissmuller
With 12 months before the 2019 congressional elections, Iloilo City Mayor Jose ‘Joe III’ Espinosa III and his brother-in-law, Iloilo City lone district Rep. Jerry P. Treñas, are still adamant regarding their complete line-up. Their alleged “quarrel” borders on soap opera.
While others swallowed the “feud” hook, line, and sinker, astute analysts think they are just rerouting the procession, which will eventually end up at the church anyway.
Aside from confirming “I am definitely running in 2019,” Joe III has continued to keep followers and critics in suspended terror as the mayor and the congressman have continued to cultivate an air of unpredictability (Law 17 of the 43 Laws of Power).
Although mayoral aspirant Treñas has revealed his running mate would be incumbent Vice Mayor Jeffrey Ganzon, he hasn’t announced his candidate for congressman, a matter that has raised eyebrows.
Egged on by confused supporters to “stay put” and run for mayor against Treñas, Joe III himself has refused to reveal his political cards for 2019, further deepening the mystery.
The million dollar question for Joe III: Run for mayor or to run for Congress alongside Treñas and Ganzon?
Supporters in Iloilo City and abroad want to know. Impatient and excited Ilonggos are hankering for an honest-to-goodness answer; they want it now and they want it quick.
But, as the saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”
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This situation gives Iloilo City Councilor Joshua Alim, the most senior among incumbent opposition members in the city council, the opportunity to woo Ilonggos and unveil intentions to seek the position to be vacated by Treñas.
Now that Alim has secured the support of businessman and former mayoral candidate Rommel Ynion, and probably the Gonzalez political clan, led by matriarch Dr. Pacita Trinidad Gonzalez, he could be a sentimental favorite if he announces his bid.
While the Joe III-Treñas-Ganzon camp dillydallies, Alim may start barnstorming the city’s180 barangays, where some of the newly-elected officials are fresh and incorruptible.
In terms of political upset, Alim may use the Rafael ‘Paeng’ Lopez-Vito model, a political neophyte in 1992.
Even before former senator Rodolfo ‘Roding’ Ganzon, who was semi-retired at the time, announced his candidacy for congressman in the city’s lone district, Lopez-Vito, a lawyer and a political nobody, was literally painting the town red, announcing to all he was running months before the start of the election season.
Nobody gave the “elite” Lopez-Vito a chance to bring down the mighty Ganzon, but the shocking defeat of one of the country’s much-heralded lawmakers, in the class of Ferdinand Marcos, Jovito Salonga and Ninoy Aquino, to a “wet behind the ears” Lopez-Vito became a hot and serious topic in political science classes for over two decades.
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Alim, 53, is one of a few Iloilo City officials – both past and incumbent – who has been consistent in their crusade against the alleged inefficiency, overcharging, and abuses by the Panay Electric Company (PECO). Even before he became a city councilor, Alim was on the forefront of battling PECO’s “astronomical” distribution and generation fees, along with Atty. Romeo Gerochi, father of Councilor R Leone ‘Boots’ Gerochi, and the late former City Councilor German T. Gonzales.
Although some “ingrate” Ilonggo consumers did not go all out for Alim in his bid for city mayor against Treñas in 2004, the pride of Koronadal, South Cotabato continues to score high in public approval ratings.
Former media colleague Florence Hibionada described Alim as “a very sincere public servant who visits a vigil for the dead even without the elections.”
He has friends and admirers in all sectors, especially the urban poor, the youth, and the senior citizens.
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Alim, my former media colleague and kumpare (we are godfathers to the twins, Raymond and Rainier, sons of Iloilo community affairs chief Nereo Lujan), has carved a niche in public service during his days as a Bombo Radyo Iloilo reporter in the late 80’s until he passed the bar in 1991.
As a newly-minted lawyer, he agreed to face his former Central Philippine University professor, now Judge Nery Duremdes, in a 1992 media labor case, the first controversial case he handled as an associate of the Bedona and Bedona Law Offices, and won.
When I volunteered to enter the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) jail in 1993, as ordered by then-ICPO chief Dionisio Duco, then-Atty. Alim, clad in a barong tagalog, arrived and chided me, “Pre, naga ano ka da sa sulod man? Indi ka da angayan gua da (Buddy, what are you doing inside? You don’t belong there. Get out)!”
If the mayoral contest is crowded, Alim, who has never been tainted as a public servant, may be ripe to shoot for the congressional seat.
Some of his peers in the law profession in Mindanao and other parts of the country may also be waiting for him in Congress./WDJ