Nicart – the pro-farmer practical governor

By CHITO DELA TORRE
July 12, 2010

Until I glued my ears to almost hushed small group conversations at the Capitol in Borongan City, I didn’t know who the people were referring to by the ascriptions “Bungot” and “Aklon” which I had been hearing since past 9 a.m. of June 30 up to the first press conference of the new provincial administration in Eastern Samar neared its start at past 2 p.m..

At first, I thought every mention of Bungot and Aklon referred to someone in a legend which only the Estehanons know, rather only during the past decade that I had missed the sweet and sometimes intoxicating company of my closest friends in that province that lies opposite of America while kissing the vast and wavy Pacific Ocean.  Thus, I remembered my literary writer, Morris Anacta Baquilod, a Boronganon who was our editor-in-chief during our college days at Southwestern University in Cebu City and who resigned ahead of me from the Department of Public Information to help in the crusade for genuine democracy, and other good writers in that province with whom I enjoyed journalism work during the martial law days and until the post-People Power Revolution months when we understood time had come to start writing more about the Waray-Waray region and especially on the need for the national government to give now its attention to the seemingly abandoned island of Samar.  Byron Bugtas, who would later on become station manager of Radyo Ng Bayan DYES, although often serious in his job, kept our groups zestful with his dramatized tales and self-composed songs which we all loved to listen to.

Yes, I did imagine that because the Waray term “bungot” means beard or moustache, it referred to a Judas or Jesus who were depicted as bearded.  As for “Aklon”, I did recall that Waray versions of Robinhood were sometimes called “Aklon”.

Then, after I had talked for a while with my first cousin Cornelio Adel, former vice-mayor of Taft, Eastern Samar’s town that is popular for its “Loop the loop” road (forming almost the figure “8”), I started laughing.  Like having succeeded getting out of a maze, I said “eureka!” – Greek for “I’ve found it!”, corrupted jocosely by Filipino nerds, as it had been with the jejemon jejune talk, into “yari ka!”  I got my jejunal clarification off my jejunum.

In his inaugural address, governor Conrado Nicart Jr. mentioned the term “bungot” twice, and to my mind it was a metaphor for an old, bearded man who always insisted on what is right.  “Kontra ni Bungot it malimbong, malupot, makawat ug hakog” and “Para kan Bungot, immoral an pagsingabot hin gahum, immoral an pagriko tikang han pag-malun-makon han pondo, nga para unta han mas mamadamo nga tawo.”  These both engendered a wild applause from the nearly 1,000 people who witnessed his oath-taking and installation as their new governor.

He was referring to himself, I realized hours later.

The appellation must have been attributed to his being unshaven up to his chin.  His grey beard, though, matched with his partly greyish hair that almost looked shaggy but yet made him look even younger than the senior citizen in the media group of more than 20 (6 from Tacloban City) that covered the inaugural ceremony.

In his brief message that came earlier than did “Bungot’s”, I thought vice-governor Christopher “Sheen” Gonzales blundered twice when instead of saying “governor Nicart”, he mentioned “governor Aklon”!  I was surprised why the audience didn’t boo him.  I said to myself, it was impossible for everyone not to have noticed the wrong mention of the name of the new governor.  This can’t happen, I continued, shaking my head.  The old woman seated before me at the back row of the tent-covered Capitol ground kept staring at me each time I disbelievingly interjected “oww!”  This young and handsome second highest official of the province was expressing his preference for his own governor, I thought.  But no!  My notebook listed Sheen’s gubernatorial candidate was Andres A. Yu, his tandem from the Lakas-Kampi-CMD, whom Nicart walloped miserably with a downgrading win of 6,000 extra votes.  If Andres were the “governor Aklon” enunciated by Sheen, why could Sheen afford to commit that mistake? I asked myself.  He could not have referred to ex-governor Ben Evardone who was simply “Ben”.  So, who was this “governor Aklon”?

At the other end of the oval coco-lumber conference table of the sangguniang panlungsod, Sheen once again enunciated “governor Aklon”.  I smiled.  I already knew he was addressing Nicart and the governor’s other alias is “Aklon”.

And yes, the beard and the Robinhood literary attribution literally distinguished Gov. Nicart, who had served as barangay kapitan, Liga president, and mayor for 16 years and vice-mayor for one term in the town of San Policarpo in Eastern Samar.  I would soon start learning how the heart of this former constabulary-police officer ached and bled for the poor and ignored Samarnons.  In his 5-agenda message, he made as number one priority the improvement of agricultural productivity to at least alleviate poverty by adding some more irrigated rice land hectarage to the province’s a little over 2,000 hectares of existing irrigated lands in order to increase the volume of rice harvests and stop the practice of buying rice at high prices from outside Eastern Samar.  His belief:  “...kadak-an nga problema han kapobrehan in masosolbar kun supesyente and produkto nga pagkaon tikang ha uma.”   He said that even as he is enlisting the full support on this of the Capitol and other provincial government employees, he is also appealing to the sangguniang panlalawigan to help him realize this priority.  This guy is going to the basics to reach his very high goal: frequently talk and walk with the actual farmers right at their farms, “dire ha usa nga aircon nga opisina, nga kinurtinahan”.

His second top priority – infrastructure projects, which he said the people will appreciate after he shall have completed his 3-year term as governor.  “Pipili-on ta an kontraktor nga maaram mag-templa han kadamo han baras ug semento.  Aton panginanohon nga, kun an proyekto kalsada, aton igkakalsada, dire sungkaan ha kalsada, kun irigasyon an proyekto, tumanon nga irigasyon, dire mansion, ngan kun medisina an papaliton, asya ta paliton, dire baybayon.

His third priority – much improved provincial hospital services, which the patient would appreciate by the end of his term as governor.  The patient, he said, “dire na mapalit han talagudti nga higamit, gapas, dagum, plaster ngan bisan la medicol.  He emphasized that he was stringently condemning the insensitivity to poverty or absence of sympathy for the poor.

He said he would also give equal treatment to all the 22 towns and 1 city that make up Eastern Samar.  “Laumi niyo nga papreho la it ak paghatag hin grasya, kun mayda man, waray ko mamayporayon, bisan kun wara ak pagdaog dit ha iyo, kay it politika niyan la it ngin panahon hit karampanya, katapos hit, mamaupay ko la kun magsasarangkay la kita.”

Gov. Nicart’s fifth priority is to launch the start of renewal thru a new brand of leadership.  Yet he has appealed that early for everyone’s cooperation, citing as an analogy the lesson from the flight of geese in “V” formation.  “Kun sugad la daw kita nga mga tawo, mas maintindihan ta, nga kun nagkakaurusa la kunjta hin usa nga direksyon ug tinguha, diin ginbububligan an problem ug mabug-at nga trabaho, mas madagmit hingadtoan an kaupayan.

In concluding his message, the new governor pledged “a government that will be peaceful and drug-free, maybe not in the next three years, maybe in the next three months.”  He also promised to crack down officials who abuse the environment and take advantage and exploit the poor, the weak and the hungry, even in my own little way”.

His had been a down-to-earth but loaded message, one that even the unschooled could easily understand and recall.

He also sounded that way when he answered questions during the press conference, especially when he declared his response to what every well-meaning Estehanon has been complaining about for years, which is to remove all signages that proclaim that a project is named credited to a particular official, because in his own time, he would not also allow his name to be shown for a similar false claim.  For him, every project funded from out of the people’s money is a project of the people, a duty performed by the public servant who is bound to respond to the people’s needs.