NEWS: Lawyer Jun Lopoz bids to run vs. Maricar for Congress in Comval District 1

oct 19

The political teapot in the District 1 of Compostela Valley is currently astir as pundits and village leaders seem to go gung-ho over the scenario of a lawyer running against the daughter of the outgoing Congressman Manuel “Way Kurat” Zamora whom the administration party has long billed to be unopposed in 2010 polls.

Atty. Jaime “Jun” Lopoz Jr, former Ombudsman graft investigation officer and prosecutor, formally declared at the recent before a group of barangay leaders in Montevista that he is running as “he is  just kursunada (gutsy)” to give Boardmember Maricar Zamora-Apsay “a good fight than give the honored congressman’s position to her with us just sitting down…as mute onlookers staring the father handing the crown jewel to his daughter”.

The congressional bid of Apsay, daughter of outgoing Congressman Manuel “Way Kurat” Zamora, was earlier threatened by Vice Gov. Ramil Gentugay, a Lakas-Kampi-CMD partymate, but the latter backed out citing it would be divisive and would disrupt the unity of political leaders in the province under provincial aggrupation Uswag Comval led by Gov. Arturo “Chiongkee” Uy.

But Atty. Lopoz said: “We need to give meaning to election, which is about giving our people the freedom to elect the representative they want in Congress. Without choices, we deny the right of the people to choose and elect their leaders, and we lose just as we’ll just be content of what a few have chosen to arrogate in power.”

On the heels of the lawyer’s declaration the other week, already a few barangay captains in New Bataan town have reportedly expressed they are open to make their barangays “free zones” and allow barangay people decide for their own in the coming elections.

“We need a change now. Although I have been a loyal supporter of Way Kurat,  I don’t want to put pressure to my barangay people whom to vote for in 2010. Way Kurat has has no longer power after the 2010 election. Maricar and Jun are just the same- they’re both newcomers to the position, Way Kurat and Maricar are two different persons,” said a barangay captain who did not want to be identified.

The Lopoz camp also claimed that some barangay leaders in Monkayo have already launched a “peso-peso para kang Atty. Lopoz” campaign to give the lawyer “support from the masses”. “This is just for a start,” said Romelito Juson, a Lopoz volunteer.

Atty. Jun, the eldest brother of Boardmember Atty. Dexter Lopoz, has been in private lawyering practice for over ten years now following his stint as graft investigation officer and prosecutor of the Office of the Ombudsman for Mindanao for five years.

While he studied law at Ateneo de Davao University Law School as working student, he taught as college professor at Ateneo de Davao University and at Davao Doctors College for ten years.

He passed, first taker, the Bar exams in 1996,  thus subsequently encouraging his younger brothers to also study law, now Atty. Dexter, who topped second placer of 2000 Bar exams and Atty. Rex Lopoz, who passed, first taker, in 2006.

In his college Atty. Jun was a scholar and a popular student leader who was elected for two straight terms as president of the Supreme Student Council of MSU-IIT in Iligan City.

He had also become the Mindanao chairman of the League of Filipino Students (LFS), and had been a labor union organizer and community organizer before he decided to study law at AdDU. (Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News)

Filed under: atty dexter lopoz, atty. jun lopoz, atty. rex lopoz, maricar zamora-apsay , atty dexter lopoz, atty. jun lopoz, atty. rex lopoz, maricar zamora-apsay

NEWS: Comval BM lawyer sends two Comvalenyos to law school as scholars

june 1 ATTY. DEXTER LOPOZ Compostela Valley boardmember and 2000 bar exam topnotcher Dexter Lopoz is sending two of his provincemates to study law as his own scholars beginning this semester. “Comval needs more lawyers now who would serve and work for efficient administration of justice. Eleven years after the birth of our province, we only have one Regional Trial Court, abnormally saddled with over 3,000 cases, more than half of which is handled by only two lawyers of the Public Attorneys Office,” Atty. Lopoz explained the rationale of his own law scholarship. “Moreover, we have only three fiscals serving seven courts in the province and one court in Tagum City, while the Dept. of Agrarian Reform’s Bureau of Legal Assistants has only one lawyer,” he added. He said that lawyers serving these offices are heroically overworked and overstressed. By now, his law scholars Ian Enterina, a resident of far-flung barangay Casoon in Monkayo, and Francisco Maynaban, poblacion Compostela resident, are already enrolled with the newly-established law school in Tagum- the Saint Thomas More College of Law, which commences its operations this semester. As scholars, their matriculation and and tuition fees would be shouldered by the boardmember, with the two having only to pass all their subjects in each semester to maintain their scholarship. Lopoz said that his two scholars are only for the start and he planned to have one to two scholars in each year of law studies as they move on in years. The search of Lopoz law scholars had been going on two months ago and more than a dozen of applications were received from usually fresh college graduates. Lopoz picked Enterina and Maynaban as his start-up law scholars for their good grades in college and high potentials in service orientation and community leadership. The scholar must also be a bonafide resident and registered voter in the first district of Comval. The law scholarship of a boardmember is known ot be first in Mindanao and in the country. Atty. Lopoz placed Top 2 in the 2000 bar examinations and remains yet unsurpassed in his record of placing the highest thus in the bar exams as a law graduate from a law school based in Mindanao. (Cha Monforte/Rural Urban News)

Filed under: atty dexter lopoz, comval boardmember dexter lopoz, comval news, comval officials

The froth in Pinol’s mouth

Blogista

By Cha Monforte

It appears that this North Cotabato Vice Governor Manny Pinol is stoking himself the fire in the continuing insurgency staged by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Trying to be historical twister, it was this Pinol, who was then the governor, who cursed and slammed the people’s power in Manila as nothing but a mob rule in power grab conspiracy against the present President who was then embroiled in a crisis for calling Garci.

It was Pinol who thundered at the Marco Polo Hotel in the city before Mindanao local executives that a federal republic was all needed that time while he wanted Mindanao to separate if Manila’s people power would succeed in throwing out Gloria from her present seat.

Reminiscing those thunderous town-crying rhetorics in the way Pinol, Zubiri and other Mindanao pro-administration politicians have not moved things to advance federalism now, would only unmask Pinol’s rhetorics then as a diversionary propaganda job with a spin of downgrading and belittling people power as past phenomenon and true only in Metro Manila and never for the entire Luzon, much more in Visayas and Mindanao.

But the report was- such gathering of Mindanao leaders strapped in Pinol’s own mob rule of local executives was made and funded by Malacanang to save what the militants dubbed as an illegitimate President.

In Pinol’s recent pique and tirade he blamed the government for MILF’s recouping of its strength after they were supposed to be made a spent force after the government seized the rebels’ main camp in Buliok Complex in Liguasan Marsh in 2003. He said it was a mistake that the government gave the Buliok Complex back to the rebels as a confidence-building measure in the current peace talks. Which explains, he said, why the MILF rebels are again disturbing and creating havoc in his province.

Pinol’s myopic view should be straightened out. It was a only a battle that had wrought on a major MILF camp but it did not end MILF’s war. For since when the Moro war was stamped out of existence especially in Moro predominantly populated areas like Basilan, Sulu, Jolo, Sultan Kudarat, Lanao del Sur. It’s in these areas where belligerency of sorts exists and a Christian like Pinol’s governance could not really fit in its uniquely different frame. It’s in the true-blue Moro ancestral land where Moro insurgency survives and gets its life.

It would seem Pinol dreams for a day when the MILF will be erased from face of Mindanao. It’s easier said than done. Which is why the government is already talking ancestral lands for the Moro people to once and for all stop this war and bring peace in Moroland. It seems that the froth in Pinol’s mouth showing about his regret over a long existing MILF comes out without remembering that his province alone is sitting in soil originally possessed by the Moros if not with the lumads. Statements like that which prods war than builds peace are reckless and irresponsible – unless he is on the way again of mouthing diversionary propaganda job from Malacanang which a peace grouping labeled as actually not wanting permanent peace to reign in the Moroland. The ancestral land issue for the Moro people by the way is just a seductive hoax in the package after all.

BLOGBITS: The P90-million bond flotation in Nabunturan was not calendared during the Comval SP session last Wednesday. Sorry folks, we’ll wait for next week session… Eyebrows were raised when the van ambulance donated by Councilor Raul Caballero last May 20 was not used when the wounded of the July 3 grenade throwing were rushed to Tagum hospital. The papers (OR, CR) are already complete to make it running, only that the deed of donation is being delayed by the SB majority. Even without the deed, what did Dennis Bugas, reportedly the “little administrator” of the mayor who was out in town traipsing in Palawan during the blast and immediate days after, want to convey in not using the donated ambulance to ferry the wounded? Did he mean he gave more importance to politics, of not wanting that the new ambulance which has words at its side emblazoned with “Donated by Councilor Raul Caballero”, than rescuing fast for the lives of the injured and dying? The deed of donation which the SB majority keeps on delaying could not prevent the donated ambulance from running in times of town emergency. Until now the ambulance donated by the councilor for the people is sadly not yet running. (For online edition, visit my blog at: http://cha4t.wordpress.com)

Filed under: MILF, atty dexter lopoz, bond flotation, pinol , nabunturan, MILF, pinol, bond flotation

Arms-twisting backroom deals during Lakas-Kampi merger

Blogista

By Cha Monforte

The merger of Lakas and Kampi starting in Davao Region Wednesday at Apo View Hotel in the city has reported arms-twisting backroom deals which put into smithereens whatever is left for the old Kampi. The talk was that a big-time provincial politician was acting a backroom bully to Kampi winners who attended the last merger convention. He went into arms-twisting of Kampi councilors and boardmembers to abandon whatever loyalty left in their hearts to the losing Kampi chairmen who were opposing tooth-and-nail to the Lakas winners who are now at the helm in power. That would mean them becoming real turncoats to Lakas and making pretenses in the name of Kampi.

The bully was said to be doing his bullying as he prevented Kampi politicians from entering the convention hall before the merger was declared historic by the presidential spokesman. His act was not expected of him for his honored provincial if not regional stature, or perhaps he did it just to be consistent to the maneuverings he made through the years in interregnum in putting himself as a provincial, regional sycophant to whoever becomes President in the country and thus maintains his being a kingmaker and protector of vast business interest.

We still don’t know if the bully did bully the provincial and municipal winners from Kampi-Davao Oriental which won so strong after a neck-cutting electoral skirmish against Lakas.

With his bullying, it would seem now that the merger is a mere merger of Lakas winners and Kampi turncoats as the Kampi and Lakas losers of the last polls are ostensibly left behind by the policy of the equity of the incumbents. Stated otherwise, provincial and municipal losers, who are still bankable in the coming 2010 elections, are prodded now to jumpship to the opposition than wait and waive their winnability to be included in the 2010 official administration slate.

Nevertheless, the Apo View bullying is just fine. It identifies the first turncoats and the turncoats who will later abandon the administration ship when 2010 electoral season becomes feverish. By clearly demarcating the winners and having their loyalties pledged to the Lakas bosses so the bully could crack a real party whip, then the opposition is given a good chance of harvesting formidable and still winnable politicians and community leaders who will make hues and cries over lackluster performance and corruption of incumbents in a time of economic crisis.

BLOGBITS: Lakas and Kampi jerjer! A joke perfunctorily came during the recent Lakas-Kampi merger affair. A throng of politicians did not say amen when someone in the podium said “witness the historic merger of Lakas and Kampi”. In response the throng automatically echoed – the Lakas and Kampi jerjer!…. Uwag Comval! Another joke roams in town. Uswag Comval is the battlecry of Lakas slate that defeated then Gob. Joecab, his daughter Kris and congressional candidate Lito Brillantes. After the polls, during the oathtaking of today’s incumbents, it was made known that Uswag is actually an acronym and it stands for Uy, Sarmiento, Way Kurat, Amatong and Gentugaya. Comes now the report that Roger Sarmiento, who has been absent in Comval politics for over seven years now, is eyeing to reclaim his congressional post from Way Kurat. But Sarmiento will be shunted out by the Lakas-Kampi policy of the equity of incumbents as Vice Gov. Ramil Gentugaya and Way Kurat’s daughter Boardmember Maricar Apsay are also eyeing for the same post. When Sarmiento goes to the opposition, then the winning battlecry is left without S. It’s you who know how to read it…. LBC hari ng padala has been reportedly going to the barangays delivering messages about the congressional bid of Ramil. They’re Ramil couriers. LBC stands here for Lopoz, Barte and Codilla, Comval boardmembers, the Three Mosquiteers in the first district…. The hammer. Cong. Way Kurat was reportedly absent during Wednesday’s Lakas-Kampi merger affair. We don’t know the reason. If RMS makes a comeback, will Way Kurat return the hammer he long borrowed from RMS? The congressman, a Sarmiento creation, was once quoted publicly that like a carpenter who borrows a hammer from his fellow carpenter, he would readily return the hammer anytime the owner asks for it. Gee, it’s not yet asking time for now…. Nabunturan wags against the town’s bond flotation have this to say: if the bond float which is grossly disadvantageous to the government so proceeds, the 9 signatories in the majority of the sanggunian, the vice mayor and mayor might get suspended from a case that is already being readied by the town’s oppositors. Then the joke is: only two councilors would be left standing. One will act as the mayor, the other as vice mayor. (For online edition, visit my blog at: http://cha4t.wordpress.com)

Filed under: atty dexter lopoz, comval, lakas-kampi , barete, codilla, comval, gov. uy, kampi, lakas, lopoz, rms