Date Posted:18:54:05 07/23/09 Thu Author:rene Subject: alternative candidate: mayor sonia lorenzo
In Nueva Ecija where a spate of political killings have always marked the coming of the elections, people might be left with no other choice than to choose between an Umali-Umali or a Joson-Joson team-up for the Gubernatorial and Vice-Gubernatorial race. It seems that these two political families are intent on making the provincial capitol their own family business and aim to perpetuate further their respective political dynasties. This is the reason why civil society groups together with some Church organizations in the province are now seriously thinking of creating a third force similar to what happened in Pampanga where despite not having enough resources, priest turned Governor Eddie Panlilio ran and won against then incumbent Gov. Mark Lapid and then incumbent Board Member Lilia Pineda. Both Pineda and Lapid are also very close allies of President Arroyo. One name that has always come up in these conversations of fielding an alternative candidate for Governor is current San Isidro, Nueva Ecija Mayor Sonia Lorenzo, who is also one of the founding members of the good governance movement, Kaya Natin. Mayor Lorenzo is known have transformed San Isidro from a sleepy 4th class municipality to a thriving 2nd class municipality in less than 5 years! She is also known to have very strong bridging leadership skills as evidenced by her ability to bring in different prestigious private organizations such as Gawad Kalinga, the Ateneo Center for Educational Development and the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) to help in delivering programs in her municipality. Just last month, Mayor Lorenzo was given the unique honor of delivering a lecture on effective governance practices at the prestigious Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. It remains to be seen though whether Mayor Lorenzo will actually consider to run for higher office and whether these groups will still have enough time to organize and put up a strong challenge against these two political giants in Nueva Ecija.
