May 5-11, 2011
Pantukan Mayor JC Celso “Tok” Sarenas castigated Compostela Valley 2nd District Congressman Rommel “Bobong” Amatong for not giving any support to the landslide victims in his town’s mining area at Panganason.
“Not even a shadow of him was seen here,” said the mayor in an interview.
He said that national government organizations from Davao City and from as far as Manila and the provincial government have helped those struck by the landslide disaster, but he added the congressman has not even sent at least a representative of him to assist landslide victims.
He said Amatong’s absence of financial or material support to the landslide victims was just a reflection of the congressman’s alleged failure to file any measure in Congress to protect the small scale miners.
The town has become a national spotlight owing to a worst landslide where 14 miners died and 8 others were missing as earth sank down in Panganason mining area last April 22.
With the mayor’s swipe at Amatong, words are abuzz that Sarenas, a last-termer, would be rivaling the second-termer Amatong by 2013 polls.
Sarenas was first rumored to run against Governor Arturo “Chiongkee” Uy.
Uy along with Amatong actively backed up Sarenas mayoralty rival Roberto Yugo, Kingking barangay captain, in the last May polls.
A highly placed source said that Sarenas had once said to him that it would be easier and not more expensive to vie for a congressman in a district than for governor.
Both Sarenas and Amatong have their respective bailiwicks, Pantukan and Nabunturan, which are known to deliver solid votes to a running townmate. Location-wise, Sarenas has an edge to Amatong as he is nearer to the coastal towns of Maco and Mabini.
He could have also a group to ride on in Mawab whose officialdom is currently divided into the camps between Jampayases and Gonzagas.
A Mawab source told the Valley & City Chronicle that Mayor Evalina Jampayas and her husband ex-Mayor Samuel Jampayas have recently “distanced” their free medical outreach service from Amatong’s own free outreach service.
In the same interview, Sarenas also said that it would be certainly “a Sarenas” for mayor by 2013 polls.
He said either it would be his wife Meta or his son Chino.
He said their “good politics” where he has no single Ombudsman case relating graft and corruption until now was handed down by his late mayor father.
At presstime, Cong. Amatong could not be reached for comment. (Rural Urban News/Cha Monforte)
Filed under: Uncategorized, Rommel “Bobong” Amatong
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