BY MARLEN V. RONQUILLO


You can’t blame the bishops for breaking tradition to endorse the presidential candidacy of Ang Kapatiran’s J.C. de los Reyes. He is young and earnest—and he looks like an overly-devoted Catholic lay leader. Dress him with a cleric garb, he would easily fit into the image of a dedicated priest.

But if he were a Spanish priest during the time of Spain’s turmoil, in the bloody war between the Republicans and the right-wing zealots of General Franco, I would say that he belongs to Franco’s devoted followers among the religious. Young maybe, but a poster child for the status quo.

Young and for the status quo? There seems to be nothing more contradictory that these two. Youth presupposes dynamism, a break with tradition, a forward-looking mind-set. But JC de los Reyes, despite his public call that Philippine politics should have an alternative, is really a creature of the status quo.
Why do I say this?

Any young politician who loves his people and cares for their future will not only support a Reproductive Health (RH) bill. He would even propose something that is more ambitious—family planning with everything there except abortion (which we really don’t do).

We belong to the planet’s top ten in child production. Our population growth outpaces important benchmarks: economic growth in real terms, yearly increase in food production, health and education investments.

This year, we will be importing a world-record of 2.4 million metric tons of rice and for this the rest of the world is crucifying us (because our massive rice imports have been jacking up rice cost in the world market). Our fraying and aging infrastructure will suffer more stress. There will be a bigger gap between demand on social overhead and actual state investments to meet the widening gap.

Our fabled natural resources, which we held infinite and always there for us, is mostly gone.

The root of all of these? The burgeoning population—which is being tacitly encouraged by bishops who harbor a fundamentalist view of reproduction. And who take “ Go forth and multiply” literally.

Amid all these, JC de los Reyes is not preaching the gospel of change and change of antediluvian mind-set.

Oh, he sounds like those right-wing nuts in the US—talking about moral values and sexual abstinence while the country is plunging into a deep recession.

Even on things earth-bound or on issues of economics, JC is completely clueless.

A bus operator-friend recently showed me a resolution from the city council of Olongapo City—which effectively bans the bus company from offering an alternative bus route between Olongapo City and Metro Manila via the SCTEX. JC de los Reyes, as a member of the city council, led the city councilors that signed the resolution.

You know the three things that JC de los Reyes and the other members of the city council invoked to ban a bus company from offering an alternative bus service? One was traffic congestion. Another was the route was saturated. The third was the crudest of all—a 1989 “verbal” agreement between then Mayor
Dick Gordon and then LTFRB Chairman Remedios Salazar-Fernando which saw no need for another bus service for the city.

For information of JC de los Reyes, who probably signed the city resolution without reading it, here are the facts:

1. The proposed alternative bus service was filed for approval in 2009, 20 years after that “verbal agreement.” So many things have changed since then, from population density, transport requirement etc.
2. The application for an alternative bus service proposes the use of the SCTEX. It will bypass the traditional route and it is an express service. It will not even affect the traditional operators there—who are probably friends of JC de los Reyes It will not even cause traffic congestion.
3. In 1989, Olongapo City was a mono-economy, dependent on a US military naval base. This was pre-Pinatubo, for God’s sake. Now, it is the 21st century.

The cruel cut in this sad incident is this: JC de los Reyes, who is offering himself as an “alternative” from traditional politics would not even recognize that times have changed radically and dramatically in Olongapo City. And there is a need for an alternative bus service.

And an alternative bus service is a break from tradition, one step for the public good, freedom from the grip of traditional operators.

JC is indeed young. But he stands for the status quo, if not the discredited old ways of doing things.

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