Political family feuds

THEY say politics is addition, but in some cases, it brought division to families.

In Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro, three brothers slugged it out in the recent polls. Incumbent Mayor Aristeo Atienza, who is on his last term, ran for vice mayor, and chose his nephew, Dr. Hubert Dolor, as his running mate.

But Aristeo’s two brothers, Victor and Francisco wanted to succeed him. Failing to get his support, the two decided to make a go for it. The Dolor-Atienza tandem won.

The island town proved to be too small for the big Atienza family. The Atienzas are a family of 12 siblings, with Aristeo as the sixth, Francisco as the eleventh, and Vic as the youngest.

“Matindi ang mga panaginip nilang maging mayor, kaya ayan, mayor sila hanggang sa panahon lang ng kampanya (They have dreams of becoming mayor, and they were, but only for the duration of the campaign),” he says.

Aristeo downplays the rift with his brothers, saying it is common for relatives to squabble for elective positions in a town made up of just a few families. “In politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies,” he says. Still, he is ruling out Sunday lunches with the whole family.

Another island that is proving to be too small for its ruling political family is Camiguin. This exotic island has been governed by Gov. Pedro Romualdo since 1998, while his son, Jurdin Jesus or JJ occupied the province’s lone seat in Congress for the same duration. With their three terms over, father and son decided to switch.

But there was one glitch: another son, Noordin Efigenio “Gogo” Romualdo, the incumbent mayor of the capital, Mambajao, also filed his candidacy for governor. Gogo claims he was promised by his father that the congressional post will be his to run for this elections.

The family feud became so vitriolic that the small island was filled with charges and counter-charges between father and son. The patriarch claimed his son was unfit to run for congress because he was lacking in intellect. Pedro also revealed that “Gogo” left his wife and children to live with a married woman, and that he is using drugs.

The son countered that his father too, has a mistress, and that he knows cases of corruption involving the family patriarch. The Commission on Elections was besieged with appeals from each side to disqualify the other.

With the elections over, Gogo, now out of his family’s good graces, finds himself out of politics, too. His father Pedro won as congressman. His mother, Araceli will replace him as mayor of Mambajao. And his brother, JJ, is the incoming governor.

The elections also saw the Asistio brothers — Macario “Boy” and Luis “Baby” — go head to head for the city’s mayoralty post, unable to duplicate the unity that made them strong in decades past. The two lost, and incumbent Mayor Enrico Echiverri was the runaway winner.

Macario’s partner, Nadia Montenegro (real name Nadine Marie Inez Pla) also lost in her congressional bid for the city’s first district. The only Asistio who made it is Macario Asistio III, who ran for councilor in the second district.