By DANNY O. SAGUN

IF YOU haven’t noticed it yet, what the present Urduja House occupant wants, he gets.

But before we get into that, we first congratulate alderman Raul Sison of Urbiztondo for his successful bid on the leadership of the Philippine Councilors’ League Pangasinan chapter. An old hand in the sangguniang bayan of his hometown, he finally got to occupy a higher political post after failing in his vice-mayoral and mayoral bids some years back.

We got a glimpse of the man while we were then actively covering the sanggunian sessions in that town in the 90s. He took the role of a fiscalizer during that time.

Now back to the main dish.

Yes, Gov. Amado “Spines” Espino is fast becoming a kingmaker this side of the country. It’s no secret that he backed up the candidacy of Raul, no matter official pronouncements that he took no sides in the PCL affairs.

We didn’t give Raul a chance to get that position working alone, without somebody as influential as the governor on his side. His political records in his town would bear me on this. He could not go farther than being an alderman.

Spines, it appears, proved to be more powerful and influential a politician than the other kingmakers in the province. Dennis Uy of Pozorrubio had all the backing of bigwigs from eastern Pangasinan.

The fact that he lost by only 41 votes showed that he and his backers worked very hard to contain the tide from Raul’s side. .

The situation this time is different as regards the formation of leagues like the PCL. Former Gov. Victor Agbayani during his time appeared to have distanced himself from the PCL affairs so that there was silence whether he was supporting somebody or not.

This was also true in the Liga ng mga Barangay and the sangguniang kabataan – Victor just let others dictate or influence the outcomes.

This time, it was obvious that the provincial executive – Espino — was the unseen, yet felt, hand in the recent PCL election result. I might be wrong. All the loud whispers and noises point to it though.

Who would have thought Spines would win as congressman in his first attempt six years ago? He launched his bid not in his hometown Bautista of the fifth district but in Bugallon of the second district. But that move was clever. He could not just face Mark Cojuangco in his turf. He had a fighting chance in the second district and so he did campaign successfully beating popular Jonas Castaneda of Lingayen, who was not qualified for re-election as mayor.

Espino’s brother soon became the head of the barangay captains’ league in the province after becoming a congressman. Another brother became the mayor of his hometown. His son, a namesake, is now the town mayor.

He’s getting what he wants as far as politics is concerned – so far. . He wants this province to become great. Will he succeed?
It all depends on many factors.
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We hope that our friends from Bani town who went all the way to the PIA office at the People’s Astrodome last Tuesday to take a crash course on news writing and other journalism aspects will realize their dream of coming out with a decent newsletter very soon.
Mayor Marcelo Navarro, we think, knows his job and he is rare among his peers. Mabuhay kayo.