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Tony Chavez
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SAN JOSE, C. SUR – This municipality has a long way to go before it could keep abreast with the development pace and may never achieve the people’s aspirations for better life unless town officials adopt new and more aggressive and innovative strategies.
It also means it cannot easily shed its image as a virtual satellite community of the more progressive neighboring town of Goa, the acknowledged business and educational center of the so-called Partido towns.
Thus observed Tony Chavez who lost by a heart-breaking five votes to Mayor Gilmar Pacamarra in the May 14, 2007 elections but who is confi dent he will win the on-going electoral protest. All elections protests must be concluded within six months after filing pursuant to a recent mandate of the Supreme Court and Chavez, elder brother of LRTA Deputy Administrator Cesar Chavez, hopes that by first quarter of 2008 he could be installed.
Latest reports said that in the precincts contested by Chavez he is leading in the recount by a substantial number of votes but precincts included in the counter protest of Mayor Pacamarra will still have to undergo the recounting process and that the initial result may still be reversed.
Chavez bewails the fact that most San Jose residents still have to go to Goa for their basic health needs, the San Jose Municipal Hospital administered by the province being unable to cope with the number of patients.
Residents also have to buy basic commodities from Goa, the time consumed and the additional fare money spent exacerbating the misery
of the people, Chavez also pointed out.
The municipal government has not been able to come up with any project that would provide income opportunities and the town’s tourism potentials have been ignored by the town leadership for many years now. The predecessor of the present mayor is his own father, Gil Pacamarra, who served for three terms.
“The municipal leadership here has been a boring spectacle of unimaginative routine office work, each day widening the gap between the town and more progressive towns,” Chavez who was a broadcaster and barangay captain before he launched his mayoralty bid observed.
The municipal government appears to be in quandary even in formulating policies regarding the town transport system.
The San Jose port at sitio Talisay in barangay Dolo remains practically unused because the present municipal leadership has not been able to initiate efforts to convince motorboat owners to use the P80-million facility. As a result, passengers including tourists have to be borne on the shoulders of porters on boarding motorboats at barangay Sabang which remains the port of entry.
Worse, present Mayor Pacamarra on his own decreed that Manila-bound buses should occupy as terminal part of the practically unoccupied San Jose market between Goa town and San Jose, presumably to help pump up business. The market itself located far from the town proper is an ill-planned venture since residents must necessarily have to ride jeepneys and trimobiles to reach the place.
By assigning the San Jose market far from the town proper as terminal, Manila-bound passengers from coastal barangays, the towns of Presentacion, Caramoan and the island province of Catanduanes have still to take the jeepney from barangay Sabang.
Chavez who ran under the Liberal Party, Drilon Wing, claimed that he is a victim of a shrewd political maneuver of Congressman Noli Fuentebella.
Chavez believed that through the solon’s manipulations Senator Franklin Drilon withdrew from him the authority to receive copies of election results at 3:00 o’ clock in the afternoon of the election day denying him the crucial right to review poll results and immediately discern discrepancies and possible anomalies.
As a result, in the PPCRV canvass Chavez said he won by 65 votes. The PPCRV and Comelec tallies were practically the same for vice mayor and councilors but only mysteriously differed in the mayoralty race, Chavez also emphasized.
