WHATEVER the outcome of the current epic battle between House Speaker Jose C. de Venecia, Jr. and Dagupan City Mayor Benjamin S. Lim, both tightly contesting the fourth district congressional seat in Pangasinan, one thing’s certain – neither will come out of this unscathed.

Already, the fight has taken on a bitter tone and a darker complexion and the fact that both have resorted to legal action to pursue their respective cause indicates this will be one drawn-out battle never before seen in the annals of Pangasinan politics and to be told and retold in the next few decades.

One may emerge victorious, as surely one will prove smarter than the other, but a bitter taste in the mouth will be left if not in the losing camp’s , then in the people’s own collective, wide open mouth.

For once in their long, hard lives, Pangasinenses in the fourth district are being treated to a spectacle of goods and cash going the rounds in houses, barangay halls, in tricycles and jeepneys, in almost every nook and cranny even in the wee hours of the night or the early dawn hours. No election campaign of recent years has ever been waged this assiduously and scandalously among the protagonists, many district constituents are saying.

De Venecia, it might be pointed out, is fighting for dear life and prestige; Lim is battling for vindication of his staunch oppositionist bent that had surfaced in the aftermath of the Hello Garci episode. De Venecia is tapping hitherto ignored resources and campaign styles to catch up with the frenzied pace in the hustings; Lim is leaving no stone unturned in his quest to upset the Establishment , giving the foe every single reason to look and feel concerned all the way to E-Day.

Many political pundits say Lim is now dictating the pace of the fight with De Venecia left harnessing the power of a wider, more oiled publicity machinery to valiantly show supremacy in the surveys and thereby keep the confidence of his mass base. What is reality? What is perception?

In the end, it will be the people judging who is the better man, the more trustworthy public figure, indeed the better showman. In the end, one fades away and the other reaps the glory. It is the way of Power; it is the way of Fame.

In our finite wisdom, we will only know the correctness – or folly – of our choice within the next three years. Whether we will view that with regret or not, one thing remains essentially true: We enjoyed the show while it lasted.