Philippine elections have always been storied. Yes, especially presidential polls, with all those pleasant daydreamers and outright crackpots filing their certificates of candidacy for president. For certain, many of these hopefuls will be declared “nuisance candidates.”
The 2022 elections will not be an exception as shown in yesterday’s first day of filing COCs for the country’s 18,000 elective positions which was described as “peaceful and organized” by spokesperson James Jimenez of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
One of the most colorful of the so-called nuisance candidates was Ragen Elly Velez Lao Pamatong, more popularly known as Ely Pamatong. However, newsmen covering last Friday’s first day of COCs did not see Pamatong anymore. His adopted son announced that Mr. Pamatong, a lawyer who studied in the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City and Silliman University in Dumaguete City, died of heart attack last July 24, 2021, a few days after turning 78 in Arayat, Pampanga, his hometown.
A former delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention, Pamatong had attempted to run for president in 2004 and 2010 but his candidacy was not accepted by the Comelec which declared him a nuisance candidate.
He established his own military organization called United States Allied Freedom Fighters (USAFFE), which he claimed to be a holdover of the original United States Army Forces in the Far East of World War II. It was based in Cagayan de Oro in a compound owned by Edmundo Pamintuan known to Dabawenyos as “Kumander Lahi,” leader of the Back to Christ Discovery Crusade Group.
Pamatong’s USAFFE was allegedly involved in a plot to bomb the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in 2014. The group also allegedly plotted to bomb the SM Mall of Asia, the Chinese Embasssy and the headquarters of D.M. Consunji Inc. which employs hundreds of Chinese, according to Wikipedia.
In January 2019, Pamatong burned the flags of China and Malaysia on behalf of his group as protest actions against the two countries.
He called on his supporters to spread spikes on roads as a protest against corruption in President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration. Spikes were reportedly spread on roads in Metro Manila, Baguio, Bicol, Cagayan, Davao and Laguna.
Earlier, Pamatong filed numerous lawsuits against high profile personalities including then Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales for “alleged disturbance of public order, swindling and teaching immoral doctrines.” He also filed disqualification cases against Lito Lapid and Manny Pacquiao alleging that these candidates for senator did not have enough educational qualification for the position.
In yesterday’s start of COC filing majority of the eight who filed their certificates for President, so far, many are candidates for Comelec declaration as nuisance. Their individual stories will be known as soon as the Comelec rules on the legitimacy of their aspiration. But this early, we know that the passing of Mr. Ely Pamatong, the colorful former Concon delegate from Misamis Oriental, is not the end of the era of nuisance candidates in our checkered democracy.
Pamatong was not a Concon delegate. He was an aide to Ferdinand Marcos and eventually became an insider to the convention – BUT WAS NOT A DELEGATE.