The 10-day campaign period for the barangay and Sangguiang Kabataan elections started on Oct. 19. A lot of our brethrens have tossed their hat into the political ring at the tiniest level, our son JP included at Campo Filipino barangay.
Not much expectation though on victories, as in every race, there are winners and there are those who would not make it. What is important though is the desire to serve and to help, which has been ingrained in our veins. Running anew for office should not be for fame, glory or even money.
At the end of the day, it should be “Salus populi suprema lex esto”– The health, welfare, good, salvation, felicity of the people should be the supreme law”.
Serving the barangay is a sheer thankless job as he is the frontliner of government when it comes to the needs and maybe wants of their people. From the poor to the sick, to the demanding rich or pretending to be one, you face all kinds, different strokes for different folks.
At Campo Filipino, JP, the heir apparent “Agila”, will make a run for it against all odds. He has been given a Chinaman’s chance because in one house alone, 361 plus or so have been voting, be in their names or not for the past three elections and nobody seemed to mind. Pundits will say they are the breaks of the political game and will just have to wait and see if the people of Campo Filipino will continue to be governed by the Alibaba genre.
Having lived at 88 Brower Road also known as Sixto Gaerlan Street, he has spent the entirety of his childhood and adulthood at grandma Norma’s and lolo Col. Filoteo’s Christmas house.
He knows by heart the ins and outs of the crevices, creeks, ripraps, and the cobbles and stones of Campo Filipino. He grew up playing shatung with the local kids Lapids, Tandoc, Macagba, Rimando, and Valdez clans. He bought his candies at manang Carol’s store and brought his friends to play, later drink, and do what teens do at lolo’s garage. He had his share of brawls and fisticuffs, but well, that’s part of growing up.
He has been to New York, lived with uncle Estoki and the saintly auntie Zen at Queens. He then transferred to Bronx where he mopped and cleaned toilets at the 4 a.m. shift at Dunkin Donuts, where the brothers are bad as ass and can squeeze your neck at moment’s notice.
He came back after Tan’s birth at the Big Apple, managed the family’s sound system, finished his college degree at University of the Cordilleras, went into mixed martial arts, car sales, worked at City Hall, and worked odds and ends to sustain his growing kids. Experience he has, from the school of hard knocks.
I will not tell you what his platform of government would be as they are motherhood statements that all aspiring wannabes would say to get the vote.
For him, I quote Lincoln: “I do the very best I know how. If the end brings me out right, what is said against me would not make a difference. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels saying ‘I told you so would not make a difference.” If and when he gets there, he can guarantee the tatak Agila mode of service from the heart. As he says, “he takes care of his own”.
So, if you are from Campo Filipino or have friends or family there, ask them please to do right, for a change.
Sigh.
April 29, 2024
