Manila polls: Old blood, new word war

MANILA’S CHOICES When lack of experience is no longer an election issue: Estrada, Lim and Bagatsing FILE PHOTOS

With more than a month still to go before the start of the campaign period for the local elections, shots are already being fired in the three-cornered fight for the mayoralty in Manila.

Taking a swipe at both of his rivals, Rep. Amado Bagatsing said he would have to “rescue Manila from ‘ka-Erap-an’ and ‘kadi-Lim-an,’” puns he devised to mean “poverty” under the reelectionist Joseph “Erap” Estrada and the “darkness” of the earlier years under Alfredo Lim.

The remark immediately drew counterattacks: Estrada ticked off his supposed accomplishments since taking over in 2013, while Lim shot back by wondering what Bagatsing had done with his pork barrel funds.

Bagatsing, who recently got an endorsement from presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte who is running on anticriminality platform, said the city “has become so dirty,” its streets and slums deteriorating into a “stomping ground for  snatchers, rapists, thrill-killers and holdup men.”

“We will help those who want to be helped, but we will be tough and merciless to those who can no longer be reformed,” the 68-year-old congressman said Tuesday as he unveiled new medical equipment at a clinic operated by his foundation Kabaka in Pandacan. The House member is on his third consecutive term representing Manila’s 5th district, which covers Malate, Ermita, Paco, Port Area, and Intramuros.

Reached for comment, Estrada, a former President who will turn 79 this April, agreed that “Manila really was poor when I took over.”

“But now we have paid off all our debt. We are recovering from bankruptcy. This is backed by documents and not hearsay,” he said. “I have been able to increase the budget of barangays, purchase hospital equipment and start the improvement of public parks and playgrounds. I’ve reduced the rental fees of vendors, provided over 200 wheelchairs to the elderly and persons with disability, initiated medical missions, increased the allowances of the police and teachers.”

“Is that what you would call ‘kahirapan?’” the incumbent mayor said.

As to the crime situation, Estrada on Wednesday said the Manila Police District under his watch had arrested over 3,000 people for drug use or peddling.

Meanwhile, Lim, who served as Manila mayor from 1992 to 1998 and from 2007 to 2013, had this to say about Bagatsing: “In the nine years that he sat as congressman, what has he done for Manila? What did he do with his P70-million-a-year pork barrel fund? Where did the money go?”

He said Bagatsing’s play on words was just “a slogan, political talk.”

“He’s trying to court Manileños. Of course, he’s going to promise anything, even the sky,” said Lim. “If he’s going to criticize me, it should be based on specific facts, not abstract.”

Compared to the  two other candidates, the 86-year-old Lim has been relatively quiet so far in terms of mounting public events aimed at courting voters.