Think about it
We remember Jolly Resuello
By Jun Velasco
“I have fought a good fight …” Paul, 2 Timothy 4:3
WE first met Jolly Resuello one summer day in 1969 at a Calasiao residence.
Chubby, ebullient, carefree with a gentle heart, he was with Bebot Lomibao, son of the late former Mayor Juan Lomibao, visiting a common friend, Stanley Ignacio, now US-based. We were only in our early 20’s, but Jolly, who was five years younger, showed signs he was going to be a leader someday in his city.
Later, we would cross path again in public forums, he a would-be politician, then a candidate for barangay captain in Roxas, San Carlos City, and us, as mediaman.
There was a marked change from the bubbly guy we first met to a serious political challenger mouthing words reserved only for great men.
And so we thought this guy was a Don Quixote because — well, we told him this — watch your mouth because you’re up against entrenched politicians — the Sorianos, the Cayabyabs, the Cabuays, the Tulagans, etcetera. He matter-of-factly rebuffed us, “sika met pare, singa agka mambabasay biographies of great men.” We felt offended. We thought he had delusions of grandeur, over ambitious, but we saw a good newspaper copy This guy would some day lead.
He won that barangay captain fight …against all odds.
Later, he shifted the battle arena at the Central Electric Cooperative of Pangasinan (Cenpelco), the largest electric coop in the world, he’d say, where he fought lawyer Wilhelm Soriano, good-looking and articulate son of the late former Congressman Jack Soriano and brother of former Mayor Douglas Soriano.
The guy, who had started his oxygen production business, looked a pushover, and we wondered how he’d clobber Wilhelm or Bebong, who was handsome and ma-PR. But there was a unique element in his public relations strategy. He didn’t use money, which was and still is basically PR’s main menu. He worked on the emotions; he would invade the hearts of the voters.
One day, he was losing one vote en route to the Cenpelco presidency, and there was no way of changing the vote a Soriano-committed member. Know what? Jolly asked his aide to buy two fried chicken and visited the member when he was out of the house. He charmed the wife and her children who salivated at the friend chicken.
That changed the director’s vote; the wife threatened to leave if he did not go for Jolly.
The guy was patient, persevering even, charming, lavish in his affection for people, and we thought it’s that boundless love that shored up his reservoir of goodwill that made people loved him. We thought he read somewhere that when you love much you become a genius, and guardian angels would hover over and guide you.
When he launched his bid for councilor, then vice mayor and later mayor, Jolly had already mastered the art of power. He read Sun Tsu, Power, and other books some of which he’d pick from our shelf. He became our friend through the sheer power of his sense of fraternity. When we’d call him while we were abroad to tell the time of our arrival, he’d be at the airport before touch down time. No friend would do that, except probably former Mayor Al Fernandez, who lined up at the US embassy for us in our first US trip.
Having impressed top officials from the Palace to the Senate and all the congressmen led by Speaker Joe de Venecia whom he had idolized no end, then Mayor Jolly was able to bring to the city strings of development projects that have transformed the city once derided as “rural city” into what it is today. He was responsible for restoring the integrity of the silt-covered rivers that made the city flood-free. Investors, multinationals, businessmen were gueing it to cash in for San Carlos City’s progress. The city has bloomed, but Jolly was not satisfied.
Before he was killed by an assassin, Jolly knew it coming. He told close friends that he had stepped on the shoes of powerful people. On the night he was shot, he called us to attend the coronation and “para may makausap si Rachel, angapoy maong ya man English dia” (Congresswoman Rachel Arenas). We had a class reunion then, but when Ruben Rivera called us to say that he was shot, our first thought was “he predicted this.” And we rushed to the Bernal hospital where we commiserated with his stunned family and saw PNP Director Pol Bataoil addressing the nation on television about the incident.
With his death which was remembered on April 30, our thoughts were on his two sons, Mayor Julier and Vice Mayor Bogs, who are ably carrying on Jolly’s legacy,
Let’s hope and pray that his death would be vindicated. And as several improvements have mushroomed and been unceasingly coming under the present leadership, we know and feel glad that his legacy of leadership has been sustained.
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