UNA without NPC

Our title can be read the other way, NPC without UNA. There is some confusion among people who equate one for the other so that when the Nationalist People's Coalition chose and endorsed Vice Governor Genaro Alvarez for governor, this is the choice of NPC alone and does not necessarily involve the United Negros Alliance.

UNA is an umbrella political organization of politicians of varied colors and stripes and specific only in Occidental Negros. While their individual national parties are either in coalition or in opposition to each other this is not true or the concern of UNA which has evolved its own distinct personality for several years.

In the last election when vested financial interest did not interfere in the affairs of Occidental Negros, UNA stood truly united and fielded candidates as one. This was its strength and a scheme that saved the UNA candidates plenty of money that otherwise they would have spent.

Moreover, UNA has collective funds from where its candidates drew their resources. In a way, UNA is a political monolith that monopolized the political landscape of the province.

Its downside is that it is prone to control by forces outside of UNA through the sheer force of budgeting and thus deprived the province of real political combat and wider choice. Not the UNA fielded nincompoops but it narrowed the choice in some areas.

There is question that some politicians wanted UNA to disintegrate and remove this unholy control. But I will deal with this subject in future columns and when the air is clear as to who is running for what and by whose mandate.

UNA is therefore an artificial marriage of convenience and a clever money-saving scheme. It was one for all and all for one, as the Three Musketeers would intone. The alliance was merely for political interest of all.

Thus we had then Vice Governor and later Governor Isidro Zayco who was a Lakas chieftain working with the NPC under the wings of UNA without being absorbed or subsumed by NPC. We had the Liberals that had nowhere to go until the rise of President Benigno Aquino, the Nacionalistas that came back to life from years of slumber when Sen. Manny Villar ran for the presidency.

This precarious relationship depended on where the winds of political expediency and patronage would come from. For all its show of unity the marriage was uncertain, shaky but the political interests dominated the decision process and it worked.

The NPC, on the other hand is a national political organization which operated similarly with other political parties – convenience and patronage. Thus whichever party is in power those of the past administration jumped into the ruling party.

UNA at least remained intact as the local leadership was given greater amount of autonomy. The national parties respected the UNA. Thus the marriage lasted for years.

Then, for reasons that I shall write about later on, the national officials of NPC junked Governor Marañon for no apparent reason, without informing him or giving him any opportunity to explain or defend himself of whatever the cause for so unceremonious and dictatorial manner.

Not content with a series of moves to isolate Marañon, NPC struck a devastating, humiliating and treacherous blow – it appointed Zayco to replace Marañon.

To cover up for this treacherous act with a patina of legality, NPC inducted Lakas chief Zayco into the NPC and immediately appointed him to replace Marañon, its loyal leader, in favor of an opponent. The intent is to isolate Marañon and undermine his influence over local executives that had pledged to support him.

NPC can thus impose disciplinary action against any mayor or councilor that would not toe the line by supporting Alvarez that NPC had earlier endorsed for governor.

The NPC coup is not lost to people, and now Marañon becomes an underdog, a victim of political treachery and secret maneuvers to serve the NPC's financial interest in Manila.

It is clearer now that Marañon was sacrificed to please the gods because he served the interest of the province by complying with the law rather than narrow and vested interests of people in Manila.

To a certain extent NPC and UNA are victims of greed.

To this day, NPC has not explained why it abruptly and brusquely removed Marañon. I have not met or talked with the governor for over four months but thanks to the information supplied, unwittingly, to our local media and people outside of Negros who are concerned with the developments here and feared for their own skins, we are able to put together the fabrics of the tapestry of treachery.

This happened before. When the moguls of Manila threw out a good man he fell into the arms of his people. Marañon is blessed and UNA poorer thereby.*

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