Turncoatism

Ben Contreras

HE used to be with the PDP-Laban but his principles just couldn’t tolerate the prostitution of the party’s basic principles. Thus, it deemed it to leave the party for good.

Dentist Bob Ocio is a member who recently resigned from the party. Why? Let’s hear him out.

“Turncoatism, then and now. The case in point is the PDP-Laban itself. It falls into the trap of turncoatism in 1986 ostensibly to support Cory Aquino but recruited Marcos loyalists into the fold.

“Cojuangco later unseated Pimentel in the national level while Dongkoy (Emano) wiped out the Pimentel leadership in CDO and Misor politics.

“Then, too, Koko and Alvarez today initiated a wild and massive recruitment of membership from the LP ostensibly to support PRRD, but will end up to even wipe out what’s left of the rebuilt PDP-Laban during the 2016 election campaign. Recycling is good for plastic, but can you make organic fertilizer out of plastic and rubber bands? No, the recycled politicians, now and then, will never fertilize the organic principles which are basic in our political party system. It will only flood the nation and the city with synthetic waste. Or, how do you justify plastics built on corruption, mining and quarrying cartel, suspected drug protectors named by Duterte himself from LP leadership recruited into PDP Laban in CDO and Misor politics?

“The only remedy is to challenge this old rotten system. It is a cancer built on the egos of politicians who thought that change can happen in a click of a finger.”

Perhaps, history would repeat itself. The Pimentels, according to this former PDP-Laban member, are so obsessed with preventing Dongkoy from making a comeback in the city that the former would rather commit the same mistake again. They are haunted so much by their humiliating defeat in the hands of Dongkoy that they will do everything to cripple him by recruiting the LPs into its fold no matter who they are, even the allegedly corrupt or suspected drug protectors.

Such display of wayward principles is raising so many eyebrows.

Anyone who has a lofty ambition for greater calling should endeavor to project oneself as a principled person to gain respect. Are the Pimentels doing that or simply showing their true colors?

***

Now that Edwin Dael is out and Armen Cuenca is in, we thought it would be a different story. Armen’s elder brother broke the news to me and said I will ask him to call you, feeling confident that his younger brother wouldn’t be another Edwin Dael.

I was able to connect all right, setting a date for a chat with him. But days before the date, he asked for postponement because he was leaving for Manila. After that, he never entertained my calls and text messages. Well, the message is clear. Either he didn’t want or somebody asked him not to talk with us.

Whatever, we don’t begrudge him. After all, like his predecessor, he, too, has to be obedient. But he could have gotten a lot of information from us. Anyway, there is plenty of time to prove his worth or unworthiness. We’re giving him the benefit of the doubt.

When things get rough, it’s always the small ones that get the brunt.