Seeking and finding the truth about Regina O. Reyes

 

 ‘Circumvent’ is a verb that, according to definition, means to avoid, overcome, find a way around something such as a law or rule in a cunning way. It is consistent with concealing, cloaking, confusing, deceiving, eluding, escaping, misleading, scheming, tricking those the circumventor (how else would you call the person who engages in those acts?), wants to victimize.

What if somebody, judging by his or her acts, appears bent on deceiving people and blatantly pull one great trick over an entire populace? How would you feel if you are one of that great exploited mass of a populace?

I ask, because in recent weeks, this modern means of interactions called social media, particularly facebook page discussions among Marinduquenos, has been burning on issues involving a certain local candidate in the forthcoming elections.

The candidate is Regina Ongsiako Reyes, running for Congress representing the Lone District of Marinduque and according to the Certificate of Candidacy filed before the Comelec, she was born on July 3, 1964.

Questions about the year of her birth “1959 not 1964”, the civil status she declared in her COC, “Single”, etc. raised many eyebrows. After all, she was appointed Provincial Administrator of the Provincial Government of Marinduque, a public position, of course,  in January 2011, under the name Regina Victoria O. Reyes-Mandanas. That meant she was legally married to a person with that surname, and that legal documents must have been presented before the authorities concerned to justify the use of that name – and her appointment, right?  And after all, the same name has been displayed in huge letters in tarpaulins, and used in official letters she must sign. Even in the official website of the Provincial Government of Marinduque the Mandanas name is prominent. So what is it again, this time?

Discussions on Facebook pages such as “Marinduqueno Mandin” administered by Pipo Nepomuceno and Lolong Rejano’s “Erguhan Kita Bilisi” tackled issues relating to Reyes. Among them, aside from the civil status issue are, the said questionable COC date of birth, “July 3, 1964” that did not jive at all with the Voter’s List Registry’s, “July 8, 1959”, residency issues, including the period of residency she declared in the COC, “36 years and  2 months”, whether she holds a foreign passport or not, etc.

However, Marinduque is such a small rural province that the lives of politicians and their family members are often included in the people’s usually rice-and-fish menu during lunch or dinner. It’s politics often talked about. It is common knowledge that Reyes has been based in the United States, “nasa Amerika”, you hear now and then, but how long she has lived there, no one might know, exactly. That she worked there as a lawyer is also known as it is even bragged about by her mother when introducing her daughter to local gatherings.

‘Seek and you will find”, says the Bible. There are ways to find out the truth of a mystery and as many ways, to understand the why of it all. As a starter, Google provides almost countless snippets at a glance that could be relevant to what one might wish to find. That could lead you, if you are a serious seeker/searcher, to some curious legal cases filed in the United States against your subject. Then your curiosity is aroused further because of that, and since “walang lihim na hindi nabubunyag”, make a connection...

Isn't it so that when passengers exit or enter the Philippines, they would have to fill-out an embarkation and disembarkation card, respectively? In the old system, information contained therein were encoded by the Bureau of Immigration, a tedious process but at present, hand-written information are already recognizable by computers...

Regina Ongsiako Reyes' embarkation and disembarkation entries as recorded by the Bureau contains surprising information that appears to shed light on issues raised in the social media. It shows after all that she has, indeed, a U.S.A. passport, a U.S.A. passport with number 306278853 under the name Regina Ongsiako Reyes, born July 3, 1959. She appeared to have started using the said passport in 2005. Based on Philippine Bureau of Immigration records therefore, Gina, as she is called, had obtained U.S. citizenship in 2005, and accordingly, a U.S. passport that she immediately used thereafter. Said record also shows that with the said passport, she repeatedly enters the country as a "BB", Balikbayan. Not as a returning Filipino citizen.

But what do these things really imply? In my opinion, some of the rich and powerful just continue to break the law before the very eyes of those they've always perceived as their own serfs and subjects, the latter having very short memories, anyway. It implies that they exercise their right of suffrage in the Philippines, seek elective office here even as they are citizens of a foreign country. They get appointed to a public office here without renouncing their allegiance to their foreign country. They can change their civil status as they please, falsify their age according to their own caprice, get away with the law.

But one may still hope that there is hope in this particular instance. Let's see how the COMELEC, the guardian of elections with exclusive jurisdiction over matters such as this relating to a candidate's qualifications, will live up to its name. Let's hope and pray that the COMELEC will be a decisive instrument of change and truth for the Filipino people in general, and the people of Marinduque in particular.