THE Pangasinan chapter of the Mayors League and the Vice Mayors League of the Philippines have issued separate but similar manifestos expressing their full support behind Governor Amado Espino Jr. in the face of allegations leveled against him by retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz.

In their manifesto, 44 mayors, headed by their president Bugallon Mayor Rodrigo Orduna, and the vice mayors headed by Calasiao Vice Mayor Roy Macanlalay, attest that since Gov. Espino assumed office in office in 2007, he has consistently declared “that his administration is against jueteng.”  (See the separate advertisements of the two leagues in this issue).

Mayors Benjamin Lim of Dagupan City, Nani Braganza Alaminos City and Marcelo Navarro Jr.  of Bani town did not sign the manifesto. Dagupan City Vice Mayor Belen Fernadez, who’s out of the country, also didn’t join her colleagues’ manifesto.

Both leagues also confirmed they are aware that the governor had ordered then Police Provincial Director Percival Barba to stamp out the illegal numbers game, a directive which he reiterated to the new provincial director, Rosueto Ricaforte, when the latter took over.

The signatories lamented that Archbishop Cruz implicated the governor in his latest expose on jueteng even as he personally admitted before the Senate hearing that “his were based on mere haka-haka or conjectures of his informants”.

“We vehemently register our protest and indignation over this malicious lie connecting Gov. Espino to jueteng operations based on still to be verified information supposedly supplied by recruits of Archbishop Cruz’ movement, ” the manifesto reads.

The two groups’ move followed that of the provincial board members of Pangasinan headed by Vice Governor Jose Ferdinand Calimlim Jr. who came out with their own manifesto, which went further declaring the Archbishop, among others, as persona non grata in the province for allegedly  trying to besmirch the governor’s reputation.

The board which failed to meet shortly after issuing the manifesto owing to an out-of-town activity in Baguio, however, failed to follow up on its threat last week to formally declare the well-respected archbishop as person non grata during the board’s regular meeting.

SHAHANI

It was Board Member Ranjit Ramos Shahani of the sixth district who delivered a privilege speech on Friday where he simply rallied his colleagues behind the governor and at the same time slammed Cruz for supposedly making false and unfounded accusations against the provincial chief executive.

However, he made no mention of the manifesto that he and his colleagues signed declaring the archbishop as persona non grata.

In his privilege speech last Friday, Shahani insinuated a possible collusion between the retired archbishop and certain politicians whom he tagged as the “Coalition of the Unwilling”. In contrast, he described those who support Espino as part of the “Coalition of the Willing”.–LM

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