Political falling out: ‘Oca had exodus coming’

By HERBIE GOMEZ
Editor in chief

Conclusion

REP. Rufus Rodriguez’s Sept. 13 declaration of his intention to run for mayor resulted in the sudden exodus of political supporters from Mayor Oscar Moreno’s camp. The so-called “political exodus” was an outburst––an unrestrained expression of resentment that the mayor’s men had held back since 2013.

Many of the complaints against Moreno have nothing to do with governance but on the way he treated his political allies and supporters.

Councilors Teodulfo Lao Jr. and Enrico Salcedo, two of the city officials who went to see Rodriguez the same day the congressman announced his mayoral bid, said Moreno has a way of making his political allies and supporters feel unimportant.

There were remarks and pronouncements by the mayor that even his own allies in the Padayon Pilipino-dominated city council resented, according to Councilor Salcedo.

“One was when he openly said that the city council has become irrelevant. He forgot that he has allies in the city council. What did he think of us?” asked Salcedo rhetorically.

A mayor’s job requires a balancing act as he deals with different people and groups with different agenda. Since Moreno assumed as the city’s leader, he has been flooded with proposals and requests––big and small, reasonable and unreasonable, legitimate and illegitimate.

There were unreasonable suggestions like removing perceived supporters of ex-mayor Vicente Emano in the name of political retribution and even due to personal feuds.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a city hall department head said one of the first proposals Moreno turned down as mayor in 2013 came from a group that was actively involved in his successful campaign to win an election against ex-mayor Vicente Emano.

Even before he could warm his seat, the group presented Moreno with a proposed multimillion-peso campaign, and “he politely said ‘no’” because he saw it to be redundant, the city hall executive said.

Almost overnight, the perceived leader of that group became a Moreno critic. By the end of August 2013, a member closely associated with that same group started implying that IPM Construction and Development Corp., the firm awarded by city hall with a contract to collect and dispose the city’s garbage, is owned by Moreno’s daughter Imee who, incidentally, has the initials “IPM” or “Imee Pasion Moreno.” It turned out however that the firm is owned by a woman with the same initials, Isabelita Paredes Mercado.

But there were other requests and proposals from Moreno’s supporters that were neither unreasonable nor illegitimate but which the mayor did not accommodate.

Salcedo recalled a time when he and other members of the city council minority brought to Moreno requests for financial assistance coming from their supporters.

He quoted Moreno as throwing to them a rhetorical question: “Agay, agay, ipagkawat ko ninyo?”

Salcedo said he and the other councilors felt slighted.

Another source put it this way: “Gamay na favor ra man tawun ang gipangayo, pangawat na diay na karun?”

Salcedo also recounted a meeting when Moreno raised his voice at councilors who asked him to grant the request of vendors to sell in certain streets during the fiesta period last year. He said Moreno was annoyed, and told them at the top of his voice not to tell him what to do.

“But he allowed the vendors just the same. That was days later, after he scolded us,” he said.

Similar stories about how Moreno offends his allies with his remarks have been going the rounds since he was Misamis Oriental’s governor. In March 2005, for instance, a town mayor stepped out of the office of the then governor Moreno speechless and confused, unable to figure out what just happened.

“I was dumbfounded,” the politician said. “At the capitol lobby, I called up my wife, and asked her to make sense of what he (Moreno) just told me.”

The former mayor, who now works with cooperatives, requested that this paper withhold his name for fear of being put in a bad light but consented on allowing his town to be named.

Months earlier, Libertad town won in a capitol-sponsored mural painting competition, and was promised a P1-million prize. It also won other prizes, and Moreno pledged to release more funds for various projects in Libertad.

All in all, the ex-mayor said, Libertad was promised some P3 million by the capitol.

He said he went to see Moreno, then his political ally, to ask him for the prizes and pledges so the town government could start its planned projects.

“We talked inside his office. He (Moreno) explained to me that the capitol would download the funds directly to the barangays. Hearing this, I asked him if it was possible for him to download at least P450 thousand to the town government because we needed money to pay for a feasibility study on the town’s water system,” the ex-mayor said.

He said Moreno’s sarcastic response left him unable to say anything. He said the then governor told him straight: “Are you really in need of money? Because if you are (in need), I will give you.”

The former mayor said he left the capitol flabbergasted and insulted, and he never spoke to Moreno again.

There and then, Moreno lost a political ally.

“That was the last time I went to see him. I don’t know with other people but to me, that was a big insult,” he said.

A city hall official who requested anonymity said Moreno has acknowledged the “flaw” in his character, and he has repeatedly said in many radio interviews that “I am not a saint…”

Compared to the biggest names in local politics today who started their political careers young, Moreno is a Johnny-come-lately who left his mark in the corporate world. His first attempt to win an election was in 1995 when he challenged the reelection bid of the then Rep. Homobono Cezar in Misamis Oriental’s 1st District. He lost to Cezar but succeeded in his second attempt.

Before his election as a Misamis Oriental congressman, he was a corporate lawyer for major financial institutions, and he subsequently rose to become associate director of Ayala Corp.’s Strategic Planning Group, and vice president and chief legal counsel of BPI Capital Corp.. His corporate style of governance, his training, and orientation have been seen as incompatible with traditional Filipino politics.

“I am commending the mayor for all his good projects, and I am supporting him in his thrust of building more schools and upgrading our health facilities. But there are things in being mayor other than improving education and health,” said Salcedo. “Management is not just about education and health.”

Salcedo said there were people who volunteered to help city hall but were not given the chance. For instance, he said, he proposed to decentralize the garbage collections and allow barangays to take an active role in solving the problem on waste disposal but Moreno allegedly did not listen.

One of the mayor’s consultants said the problem was that Moreno only listened to advice coming from the so-called “Big 3,” referring to city treasurer Glenn Banez, city accountant Beda Joy Elot, and city budget officer Percy Salazar.

The source said Moreno allowed an “invisible wall” to be built between the “Big 3” and the mayor’s five allies in the city council.

The group would have luncheon meetings on Mondays supposedly for executive-legislative strategies but “walay pulos… kay imbis mag-hisgut ug political concerns ug paghimo ug mga strategies para mapasulong nila ang legislative agenda, wala may pulos kay dili man sila (councilors) gapamenawun… Ang gakahitabo… murag gakaon-kaon lang ug istorya lang sa latest chika.”

He said the “wall” was evident even in the seating arrangement––the “Big 3” would be seated beside each other at one side, and councilors Salcedo, Lao, Roger Abaday, Zaldy Ocon, and Ma. Lourdes Darimbang would occupy the seats at the other side.

According to the source, Banez, Elot, and Salazar became the “political strategists,” and “sila ra ga-operate.” The councilors, he said, were “sidelined.”

One of the sources said Moreno was overconfident and told them he won in the 2013 elections without the help of barangay chairpersons.

Some businessmen, who had requests that were turned down by city hall, also grumbled. One narrated how Moreno allegedly told him, “I did not ask for your help in 2013.”

Said Councilor Lao: “We wanted to become his (Moreno’s) partners but we were treated like we were insignificant.”

There was a time, councilors said, when Moreno went to the extent of telling them that they could leave his group because, supposedly, they were “not needed.”

One of the city hall consultants said all the councilors and other Moreno allies wanted was for them to be trusted and given roles in his administration.

He put it this way: “His people wanted him to be their ‘barkada’ but he kept his distance.”

The jest since Moreno’s days in the capitol is that the only way to the mayor’s heart is through basketball, and only those who could play it––and keep up with him––can become a member of his inner circle. In a way, there is some truth to this, according to a city hall executive in a separate interview, citing those who became close to mayor because they played basketball together.

One of Salcedo’s friends butted in while he was being interviewed, and cracked a joke: “Eric, that explains why you are an ‘excess baggage’ to him––you are overweight, and you cannot play basketball!” The councilor laughed.

Salcedo cited an incident when he and other Moreno allies attended the birthday party of former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr. in Manila. He said Moreno arrived and cold-shouldered them.

“We were in Manila, and we expected him to, at least, invite us to have coffee with him after the party because we were his allies and supporters. But he excused himself. He said he had something important to do. He left us,” Salcedo said.

Salcedo said he decided to sever his ties with the Moreno administration because of bigger issues that he planned to discuss in public soon.

But he and the other sources said the way mayor treated them––the “petty sins” that heaped up since 2013––factored in the Sept. 13 “political exodus” from the Moreno to the Rodriguez camps.

Until Sept. 13, one of the sources said, the only reason why they held back was because there was no other group standing in the way of ex-mayor Emano and his political party. Because of that, he said, they were willing to turn a blind eye to the way they were being treated and disrespected.

“I am still a dye in the wool anti-Dongkoy (Emano),” he said. “Dili man ko pepetsugin… I don’t feel like I was treated well and got the respect I deserve.”

But when Rep. Rodriguez, a seasoned  and public relations savvy politician, announced early this month that he would run for mayor next year, they immediately saw an alternative. And it wasn’t difficult for Rodriguez to make them jump ship as an expression of all the resentment they have long been keeping down. All that Rodriguez did was smile at them––and make them feel important and needed.