Barangay chairman’s part in Digong’s presidency

Batas Mauricio

OURS is a friendship that travelled through time, from the moment we met at a roadside restaurant in Davao City during the mid-term elections of 2007, where I ran as a party list representative.

Mario “Mar” Masanguid was then a kagawad of Agdao, Davao City (he has become barangay captain since, a post he holds up to now), but he was already a hard-hitting broadcast journalist who had his own well-loved and popular radio program.

When he saw me at the restaurant eating with some supporters, he approached me, introduced himself, and said I could be interviewed by him in his program for free. I was astounded by this generous offer, of course, but I was to learn later that his generosity is a character trait that compelled his constituents to love him with all their hearts.

That started the friendship which became strong through the years. He got me and my wife, Judge Angelina Mauricio, as godparents in his son Randy’s Oct. 22 wedding. Four or five years earlier, he made sure I stood as a sponsor in the 18th birthday of his daughter, so my wife and our daughter, Luisa, can be present during that important milestone for his family.

But kind-hearted and fearless as he had always been, in his different roles as father, barangay chairman, and broadcast journalist, Mar Masanguid is also a shrewd and brilliant politician who has parlayed his being in media not only for his own political successes,  but for pushing the presidential run of President Duterte.

When it was not yet fashionable to talk about the then Mayor Digong running for president, Mar gathered his fellow barangay chairpersons from Davao City and went the rounds of media offices, print, radio and TV, first in Mindanao, later in the Visayas, and ultimately in Luzon, publicly announcing Digong was the best choice for president in 2016.

I  know this because at a time when no one else was talking yet about the 2016 elections, he and his team came to a radio program I was co-hosting at DzEC Radyo Agila, and asked to be interviewed by me and my partner, DzEC Malacanang reporter Vic Somintac.

We agreed to that interview, giving Mar Masanguid and the barangay chairpersons from Davao City the entire one-hour program. They extolled Mayor Digong, laid out what benefits the country would get if is elected president, like the improved peace and order in the streets, and good economic take-off. The rest, as they say, is history.

Anyway, Mar’s part in the successful Duterte campaign was manifested by the people who came to his son Randy’s wedding (with Jaja Lariosa, daughter of Lope and Ida), held at the St. Paul Parish in Matina, Davao City. It was a who’s who in Mindanao and Philippine politics, making the wedding an affair to remember. Thank God in the name of Jesus. Mabuhay!

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The Duterte government will need the help and cooperation of Christian pastors and preachers if it is to succeed in its moral recovery and values formation program nationwide, Deputy Secretary Peter Tiu Lavinia said during the Southern Mindanao Church Schools Conference of the United Association of Christian Educators of the Philippines (Ascep).

Ascep is the nationwide organization of some 350 or so Christian Born Again Churches which put up and are operating schools offering elementary and secondary education courses in the different parts of the Philippines. The courses are heavily punctuated with spiritual and righteous principles derived from the Bible.

It held its Southern Mindanao Church Schools Conference at the Grand Menseng Hotel in response to recent moves by the Department of Education, even under Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones, to prevent the Church schools from continuing with their operations, and to close them altogether.

Lavinia was one of the guest speakers during the Conference. A Born Again Christian in his spiritual affiliation, Lavinia underscored the fact that among the urgent thrusts of President Duterte since he was installed in power in June was to reform Philippine society through a nationalist cultural renewal, peace building, and moral recovery and values formation, programs.

Zeroing in on moral recover and values formation, Lavinia said that the President is contemplating on returning “good manners and right conduct” as a basic course for all Filipino students. He urged the formation of prayer groups among the citizenry, extolling in the process the power of prayers.

Lavinia disclosed that when he started working in Malacanang, he pushed for the organization of a prayer group among officials and employees of the Office of the President. “Yet I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there is already a prayer group there, which is called the Office of the President Christian Fellowship,” he added.

One of the speakers during the Conference, Davao Councilor Pilar Braga, offered to help Ascep fight the maneuvers of certain officials of the Deped against its members. Braga said she will submit to the City Council a resolution which will endorse to President Duterte the current plight of Church schools.

Braga noted that there is now a need among our people, especially the youth, to delve more into spirituality through the Word of God, the Bible, and constant prayers, since there is a pervading evil everywhere. She disclosed that one of her projects as a councilor of Davao City was a regular Bible study and prayer session among the different villages in the city.

She was helped in this endeavor by Davao City Christian pastors and preachers led by Bishop Balmis Yao. Braga said she is set to pursue this project once more, even if she declared her commitment to help, in whatever way she can, to make Ascep Church schools fulfill their mission to teach spirituality and righteousness among the Filipino youth.

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com