With Abra’s mountains where they cannot grow any means of livelihood, the people of Abra will always be ruled by political clans and they will have to depend on politicians for their means of livelihood
The Commission on Elections had made the province of Abra a test case for the recent Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections.
If the Comelec can succeed in making Abra a peaceful province, Comelec would be able to do the same in provinces where elections had made them traditionally “hot spots” and “flash points.”
We recall that Abra is traditionally, Santa Banana, always tagged as a “hot spot” in recent elections, whether local and national!
There is good reason to make the province a test case by the Comelec.
But the Comelec must remember the reason why people of Abra take elections so seriously and that candidates for local elections are often killed.
The reason is the people of Abra do not have the livelihood that many Filipinos have in other areas.
I know this, having been born there in a small town then called Dolores, ruled by the Barberos, and I spent my youth there until I had the chance to come to Manila for high school until World War II erupted.
The province is basically a mountainous area, that traders from Ilocos controlled the rice trade from Cagayan Valley.
I’d say the rice Ilocanos take as staple in Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur and la Union comes from Cagayan.
The only means of livelihood of Abra in some towns is where they grow virginia tobacco.
Thus, I would say the reason why the people of Abra take their politics so intensely and fiercely – a matter of life and death – is because politics is their main income.
This is why people there have to belong one way or another to politicians who have the money to spread around during election.
We must not forget that Abra used to be a sub-province of Ilocos Sur, until the political strongman Don Quintin Paredes, made it a province.
He was governor, then congressman and then senator.
After him the ruling political clans were the Valeras and Bersamins.
Their rivalry was so intense that a Bersamin, if I’m not mistaken, a brother of now Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin who was Chief Justice, was killed in the parking lot of the Mount Carmel Church in New Manila.
(Editor’s Note: The slain politician was Rep. Luis Bersamin Jr., who was shot in the head after standing as one of the principal sponsors at his niece’s wedding at the Mount Carmel Church in New Manila on Dec. 16, 2006.
(Former Abra governor Vicente Isidro Valera was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty by a Quezon City court of masterminding the assassination of Bersamin outside the church.
(A Quezon City judge convicted Valera and two others of two counts of murder and one count of frustrated murder and ordered them transferred to the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City. Valera’s co-accused are Rufino Panday and Sgt. Leo Bello.)
After the Valera-Bersamin rule came their successors. still carrying on their old grudges.
It was always like that because the politicians of the province carry a lot of influence.
As an Abreno, I can rightly say elections in Abra will always be a flash point and no amount of police or military surveillance can stop the killings and stop it from becoming a flash point, not with the people of Abra making themselves subservient to political clans.
With Abra’s mountains where they cannot grow any means of livelihood, the people of Abra will always be ruled by political clans and they will have to depend on politicians for their means of livelihood.
Santa Banana, that’s how it is in Abra, elections or no elections.
Crisologo, Singson feud
It was not only in Abra where political clans had to kill their rivals.
I also recall the fight between the Crisologos and the Singsons – both blood relatives – over control of Ilocos Sur politics.
The Crisologo clan was then controlled by the late Floro “Floring” Crisologo, while the Singson clan had Luis “Chavit” Singson, making Ilocos Sur notorious for political feud.
The political feud between the two clans were unlike those in Abra, a mountainous province.
In Ilocos Sur, it was a fight for control over virginia tobacco, the lifeblood of Ilocanos in Ilocos Sur.
Whoever was in power, as it is now, controls the tobacco industry.
During the well-known feud between Floring and Chavit, there was even the burning of one village in Bantay town.
The Singsons, sadly enough, are still in control of the tobacco industry.
With the passing of Crisologo, Chavit now controls the province.
Chavit is the patriarch of the ruling clan with his son as governor and with Chavit now as mayor of Narvacan. Chavit is now the chairman of the League of Mayors nationwide.
Violence at BARMM
Another flash point during the recent BSKE polls was the City of Cotabato.
For those unaware of the history of the area, the Muslims were always under the control of political clans.
Having stayed in Cotabato City when, with my late buddy Rudy Tupas, we were editors of the Oblate newspaper The Mindanao Cross, a weekly newspaper (now a daily), the City of Cotabato was then controlled by the Sinsuats, with Blah Sinsuat as congressman, Duma Sinsuat as governor, Mando Sinsuat as mayor of the city and Mama Sinsuat, the Cabinet secretary of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr, the whole Cotabato province then was under the control of the Sinsuats, with Odin Sinsuat as their patriarch.
Well, that’s how it is in Moroland.
The whole of Moroland is a tribal society.
Thus, the political violence at the Bangsamoro of Muslim Mindanao is nothing new.
The Muslims call it “rido,” the continuing war between Muslim clans.
Recall the Ampatuan massacre of 58 journalists some years ago was a continuing feud between two Muslim clans.
Santa Banana, Cotabato City now is a far cry from the peaceful Cotabato City I knew in the early 50s.
I still recall those days when I would stroll around the town plaza in the evenings.
In fact, that’s where I met the woman who would become my wife.
The city was 90 percent controlled by old-timers, mostly immigrants from Luzon and the Visayas who made their fortunes in Cotabato.
Now, the city is 90 percent controlled by Muslims, most of them awash with money, buying the residences of old-timers who had returned to Luzon and the Visayas.
Gone are the days of kidnappings for ransom.
These are the products of BARMM which made Cotabato City the headquarters of the BARMM.
That’s why it is not unexpected that there were killings and other forms of violence.
It may be a joke when they say that Muslims would rather sleep with their guns than with their wives, but truth is there are loose firearms in the the hands of private armies in the BARMM.
Past governments had tried to control loose firearms at BARMM to no avail.
Well, that’s how it is with the BARMM, especially during elections where the Comelec had to send police to control the killings and acts of violence.