Road travel from the shores of Bataan, Zambales and Baler, Aurora

My road travels in the country are often a commentary about economic development issues.

At this time when the presidential election is only a month away, my mind is also focused on road election posters and politics. As I took the road, Manny Pacquiao emerged victorious as he fought his last match. Does this impressive victory confirm his shoo-as prospective senator?

My road trip across the western to eastern ends of central Luzon. My summer road trip takes me from my home in Quezon City across the whole east-west paths between Bataan and Zambales facing the western Philippine Sea at one end and the province of Aurora facing the Pacific Ocean.

Given my starting point in Metro Manila, this trip required traversing the provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga, Pangasinan and Nueva Ecija along roads that are seldom taken. Today, these are all passable roads, essentially good roads all throughout.

Luzon is a geographically narrow island. The central plains are laced by the Zambales mountains on the western end and by the Sierra Madre mountains on the eastern. The Zambales mountain starts from Bataan and leads to a long coastal road along the plains that ends in western Pangasinan.

To reach Baler in Aurora requires passing through the heart of Pangasinan. The road options I chose passes through San Carlos City. I turned east before crossing to Tarlac province.

The road leads to the town of Rosales. A famous junction of this municipality is the highway crossing that travelers between Manila and Baguio take at the halfway mark. This is the natural food and pitstop for travelers along the familiar MacArthur highway. (This junction is now marked for oblivion as the TIPLEX now bypasses it.)

The eastward road leads to San Jose City, in northern Nueva Ecija province. This last city is also familiar to road travelers who take the Maharlika highway to go to Cagayan Valley. San Jose is the perfect staging point to reach Baler, Aurora province. Baler is located on the eastern central part of Luzon that overlooks the Pacific Ocean.

To reach Baler requires a drive of around two hours and a half that passes through the municipality of Rizal, uphill to Pantabangan, and along the undulating and winding pass road on the Sierra Madre Mountain.

Touristic and development thoughts. If one has a touristic inclination, there is much to enjoy, sights, beaches and thrills along the Bataan-Zambales area – Mt. Samat Shrine (Battle of Bataan), Las Casas Filipinas in Bagac, Subic Bay area, the beaches of Zambales, and the Hundred Islands of Alaminos, Pangasinan.

In Baler, Aurora, the strong surfs of the Pacific are matched with touristic amenities that are now available for a restful visit.

The one with economic development in mind would find that in Limay, Bataan is where most of the country’s gasoline is refined. In Mariveles, too, is where the first Philippine export zone was established.

The route also takes us to the salt beds and fish ponds of Pangasinan, the rice fields of the nation in the central plains. Up the mountain on Pantabangan is the Upper Pampanga Dam that impounds water to irrigate the thousands of hectares of rice lands in Bulacan, Pampanga and Tarlac.

Presidential politics in mind. I traveled with the presidential election campaign already in heat. But you do not see that on the road with only four weeks to go when the elections take place.

What one sees is the intensity of the election poster competition among local candidates. If one were to judge the campaign on the basis of posters, this is only a local, and not a presidential election.

The intense local campaign poster competition is most apparent in the big towns. Intense poster activity is among candidates for provincial posts, for governors, mayors and other local officials and for the district congressional representatives.

There is little poster activity among the presidential candidates. Only in relative terms do we see more Grace Poe and Duterte signs appear than of Binay and Mar Roxas. Lately, though, yellow posters of “Daang Matuwid” and “Mar-Leni” are getting displayed.

This phenomenon could also mean there are shifting changes in election propaganda at the presidential and national level. There could be more focus on other means of propaganda like emphasis on social network media as a consequence of the communications revolution.

Perhaps massive spending is waiting for the last days of the election period. But it could also be that some candidates are hurting. They are either unable to raise enough resources or to unlock their existing ones because of tighter anti-money laundering enforcement.

Be that as it may, many things are influencing the campaign outcome which could affect their fortunes. These events include the NAIA terminal power failure, the continuing drama of the southern Muslim problem, the formal debates involving the candidates.

The periodic political surveys of candidate preference by pollsters SWS and Pulse Asia indicate a tight and unpredictable election outcome, with two or three of the candidates often locked in a “statistical tie.”

At least on the roads I took, the campaign among the national candidates seem to indicate a lack of intensity. That intensity might come as election approaches by the day. That is when the actual ground game of supporting the candidates becomes very critical.

Vice presidential and senatorial candidates. Chiz Escudero has an active poster presence on the roads I took indicating that he is pursuing an individual campaign. His posters are so much more numerous compared to those of Grace Poe, his presidential team-mate, and the other presidential candidates.

Much more modest is the poster campaign presence of Bong Bong Marcos, whose recent polls show a rising candidacy and lead while that of Escudero who was once leader appears languishing. The other vice presidential candidates seldom make an appearance in posters.

If the presidential candidates are hardly present in the local political advertising, the total absence of the senatorial candidates is understandable.

In general, the senatorial candidates, including the reelectionists, depend on the support and indorsement by winnable presidential candidates and by their party and the ground game.

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