LINGAYEN–Amateur and conspirators.

This was how provincial Board Member Ranjit Ramos Shahani described the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) and his own local partymates in the Liberal Party (LP) for their failure to invite Gov. Amado Espino Jr. to an official event in Bani last Tuesday where President Benigno Aquino III’s marked his first official visit to the province.

“It’s the height of amateurism, a serious breach of Presidential protocol,” Shahani said in a privilege speech delivered before the regular session of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) on Friday.

Shahani described the act of his party mates as a “conspiracy of the unwilling, too much political circus for self-aggrandizement.”

He pointed out that even if Espino is not their partymate in the LP, “the mere fact that he is the father of the province, he deserved to be accorded the right protocol and respect.”

In response to Shahani’s speech, the SP members passed a resolution authored by Senior Board Member Alfonso Bince Jr. expressing the body’, “sense of deep frustration and sadness for failing to witness the first official visit of the President in Pangasinan.”

Shahani, however, abstained in the voting.

Pangasinenses gave Aquino a big margin of votes in the May 2010 presidential elections but LP’s gubernatorial bet former Gov. Victor Agbayani lost.

Apart from Shahani and Mayor Marcelo Navarro of Bani, where the President inaugurated a housing project for typhoon victims, the few other politicians who welcomed the President were Agbayani, Alaminos City Mayor Hernani Braganza, both LP stalwarts and known detractors of the governor.

INSULTED

Meanwhile, Espino lamented the evident break in protocol, saying “We were the ones insulted, yet we are being blamed for the fiasco.”

Navarro claims that he did not invite Espino to the inauguration because Espino gave him the cold shoulder during a wedding several months ago when he attempted to extend a hand of reconciliation following the May elections.

Rep. Jesus Celeste of the first district, which includes Bani town was not also invited to the occasion. He is a known ally of Espino.

Bugallon Mayor Rodrigo Orduna, president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines-Pangasinan chapter, said the mishandling of the event was “intentional, a political maneuver of scheming LP politicians to exclusively get the President’s attention.”

Orduna also slammed Navarro for referring to former governor Agbayani, who was present in the inauguration, as “my governor”. He pointed out that Espino defeated Agbayani by more than 530,000 votes in the last election, an “overwhelming landslide” in all the 44 towns and three cities of Pangasinan, including the town of Bani.

The President, for his part, said “I don’t have any problem with Gov. Espino” as he called on the local officials to unite and “walk the straight and narrow path in the delivery of basic services to the people.”–LM

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