By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
There are vote rich areas in the city which the mayoralty candidates must court. These are the market vendors and the public utility drivers.
The drivers are so important as they get to converse with a lot of people in the course of their workdays. From what I hear whenever I ride jeepneys and taxis, they are overwhelmingly supportive of “comebacking” former mayor and congressman Mauricio Domogan.
As we wrote several issues ago, his supporters have come up with their own kind of BBM. For them, it means Bring Back Mauricio.
His advantage among the drivers is he did not have to go through issues like the additional 100 or 200 franchises of taxi units for the city. Rightly or wrongly, the drivers who barely survived the pandemic are blaming Mayor Magalong for that. Nobody among them needs even more competition for passengers along the already trafficky streets of the city.
They also heap the blame to the incumbent mayor for their sufferings caused by granular lockdowns due to the surges of covid-19 cases the past two years. While they understood the need for lockdowns, they could not understand why visitors were allowed to come in when residents of nearby municipalities and even residents of the city were strictly restricted at different times.
As to market vendors, a number of them I had the chance to talk to said they could not withstand the arrogance of city employees who had been dealing with them especially on the processing of papers for the transfer of rights over their stalls to their next of kin or close relatives. Well, the city employees just might need a few lessons on public relations.
Then there were the owners or tenants of buildings along roads right of way which were demolished to give way to road widening projects, particularly those in some sections of Marcos Highway and at Naguilian Road within the city. Some of them were vocal supporters of Mayor Magalong during the last election. While the demolitions might have been cases of dura lex sed lex (the law maybe harsh but it is the law), people generally take it against the official who ordered such.
While Domogan had ordered the demolition of many structures of squatters during his many years of incumbency, he was better in dealing with people. His approach was softer compared to Magalong’s.
As I heard the incumbent mayor often said, “I am not a politician. I just have to follow the law.”
Then there are the barangay officials. These people were used to personally dealing with Domogan when he was mayor. They were welcome to enter his office anytime of the day as long as he was there. He would offer them coffee and talk to them personally to explain his decision. He might not give them what they went to City Hall for but they would feel a lot better as they were treated in a better way.
One barangay official related that if he wanted anything from the present mayor like the signing of a document, he allegedly could not talk to the mayor himself. He would give the papers to the mayor’s staff and would only follow up any development also from the staff.
The differences are quite stark. Let us see how these will play out come the May elections—of course among so many other factors.
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