All quiet in ‘wild, wild Nueva Ecija?’

CABANATUAN CITY — It is unusually quiet here this poll season and observers are keeping their fingers crossed there will be no more of the killings that characterized past electoral exercises in this province once called “Wild, wild Nueva Ecija." Except for the killing of a barangay captain in Aliaga town on April 21, which the Philippine National Police reported as fueled “by personal grudge over a land dispute," and the usual verbal mudslinging among rival candidates and their wards, Novo Ecijanos believe the 2010 election season has so far been relatively peaceful given the province’s long and bloody history. Still, Gov. Aurelio Umali has asked again the Commission on Elections to place under its control the whole of Nueva Ecija, which has been classified an election hot spot since 2001 and was under Comelec control in the last two elections. Seventeen of the province’s 32 towns have again been declared hot spots this year. Police say there are 6,700 loose firearms in the province. Also, there is the matter of partisan armed groups (PAGs), three of which, police say, are operating in the province. But gone are the days when politicians engaged in a fight-to-the-finish type of rivalry, shooting it out in broad daylight along the national highway. What is happening now, say local observers and academics, is that politicians may be employing a shift in tactics as the old political families fall from power and new ones emerge. Dr. Flor Amor Monta, a socio-political scientist who heads the Open University System of Central Luzon State University, said: "Political tension at the elite level may have dissipated after the Josons were eased out of power." The heyday of the Josons ended when Umali beat Mariano Cristino Joson for governor in 2007. But people here say it has been replaced with new tensions spreading out at a lower level all over the province. A study by the Ateneo School of Government on election violence in Nueva Ecija pointed out that, "Violence has transformed into a decentralized form as new political forces start to emerge." Monta has a similar view: "Those at the town level could provide the fireworks. A small spark can turn into a conflagration." He adds: "And we have to keep watch on the politicians’ wards who are prone to exhibit the macho mentality, where a minor provocation could lead to something violent." "Violence became dispersed and expanded to include actors other than the politicians directly involved in the electoral race," said the Ateneo study. It also noted that most of the reported killings in the province happened at the barangay level, with barangay officials as casualties. What is considered the last of the high-profile, election-related violent incidents happened three years ago in Jaen town. Mayor Antonio Esquivel’s bodyguard-driver, SPO1 Roberto Ferrer, and candidate for councilor Leonardo Galang died in a fierce firefight between the feuding camps of Esquivel and congressman Rodolfo Antonino. More than 20 others, among them civilians, were wounded in a shootout that news reports called the bloodiest in the 2007 election campaign. Esquivel and Antonino represent the new political actors in Nueva Ecija’s political stage. They operate in the province’s fourth district which includes the traditionally violence-prone town of Jaen. Elsewhere in the province, other players have emerged: the Borjas and Ueras in Pantabangan and Dela Cruzes and Bues in Gabaldon. Joson vs Perez The situation is a far cry from when violence emanated from a single rivalry — that of the late patriarch Eduardo “Tatang" Joson and his former ally-turned-chief rival Honorato Perez —which claimed the lives of kin and other high-ranking politicians over the years. It began in broad daylight one day in 1980 when heavily armed men raided and burned the old Cabanatuan City Hall. Nine died and more than a dozen were wounded, but Perez, then mayor of Cabanatuan, managed to escape the inferno by jumping out of his office toilet window on the second floor of the building. Eleven years later, the patriarch’s son and Cabanatuan City vice mayor Eduardo “Danding" Joson III was killed in an ambush. The principal suspect was Alex Quibuyen whose father Andres, Perez’s secretary, was gunned down by unidentified assailants two weeks earlier. At the time, Perez was serving his third term as mayor. One afternoon in April 1995, Perez, then a gubernatorial candidate, was himself killed in a highway shootout. The suspects were then governor Tomas Joson III and his brother, then Quezon town mayor Mariano Cristino, along with a slew of bodyguards believed to include jail officers, policemen and soldiers. The Joson entourage was supposedly on a campaign sortie but was also on the trail of Quibuyen who lived in the area. The Joson brothers were later charged with double murder and frustrated murder, jailed and served time. Social researcher Shubert Ciencia of the non-government organization Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement said the Joson-Perez rivalry was more than simple political competition. "It can be an offshoot of the need to control the concentration of the province’s voting population," Ciencia said. Thirty percent of the voting population is in the urban center of Cabanatuan, which the Josons have always had difficulty winning. The Josons have been written about in books and news reports as the typical warlord family which dispensed patronage and also served as local kingpins to national leaders. Nueva Ecija has always been a key source of votes for presidential candidates. It is a vote-rich province, next only to Bulacan in Central Luzon, which itself ranks third after Metro Manila and Southern Tagalog as the top voting region. In the 1998 elections, the Josons and Nueva Ecija were said to have been crucial to Joseph Estrada’s victory. When Estrada won, he pardoned the Joson brothers and made another brother, Eduardo Nonato, head of the National Food Authority. Also under Estrada, the Joson brothers’ murder and frustrated murder cases were dismissed by the Pasig Regional Trial Court. Emergence of new actors But that was 12 years ago and things are much different now, said the Ateneo study. The Josons have fallen, there is socioeconomic development in parts of the province, and new actors have emerged. Jaen parish priest Fr. Aldrin Domingo, who also heads the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting in the province is, however, quite apprehensive. He said with the diffusion of power and decentralization of conflict in the Nueva Ecija, more scattered incidents could take place and this can be problematic. He clarified, though, that violent tendencies are limited to politicians and not to the general population who are known to be peace-loving. "Political rivalries can still heat up after the polls, not because of the politicians themselves but possibly their followers, although I hope not," Monta said. Ciencia echoed a related point: "The matching up and needling among the followers, particularly those who are quite testy, can lead to proxy wars at the lower level." Last March 25, the provincial PPCRV organized the “Tipan ng Kapayapaan," a peace covenant intended to help ensure honest, orderly and peaceful elections in a ceremony held at Maria Assumpta Seminary here. Among those who attended the peace gathering were Governor Umali, vice gubernatorial bet Gay Padiernos, congressional aspirants Chzarina Umali, Joseph Gilbert Violago, Rodolfo Antonino and Renato Diaz, and provincial board member Emmanuel Anthony Umali, all of Lakas-Kampi-CMD; and gubernatorial candidate Edward Thomas Joson, vice gubernatorial aspirant Rommel Padilla and congressional bet Josefina Manuel-Joson, all of NPC-Balane, a Joson-organized local party. Bishop Sofronio Bancud was, however, disappointed with the non-participation of several mayoral candidates, especially those involved in 2007 cases of electoral violence. Nevertheless, Monsignor Elmer Mangalinao of the St. Nicholas de Tolentine Church in Cabanatuan City believes the church is making headway in the peace process. He likewise mentioned the plan of local parishes in the province to hold peace processions and vigils on the eve of elections and during election day. The Gapan City local government unit has declared its city hall a “no-firearms zone," after a brother of the outgoing city mayor barged into the local Comelec office and bodily harmed a Comelec official over a voters’ registration issue last October. And in Bongabon town, Mayor Amelia Gamilla urged recently the PPCRV to scrap a planned candidates’ forum because, if not handled well, it could be divisive and even spark violence among candidates and their supporters. —With reports from Ben Domingo Jr. and Ronald Evaristo (VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues.)