A PAIR of good news, or call it media attention, has warmed the hearts of Bicolanos during the past few days. For whatever its worth, such exposure points to the political and economic future of the region, particularly in the first district of Camarines Sur.

        In its March 5, 2007 editorial, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a leading national newspaper, invited its readers to “spare a thought” for Sabas “Abang” Mabulo, the small-town mayor who dared to give Dato Aroyo, the presidential son, a run for his money by accepting the draft as the United Opposition’s official congressional candidate. Mayor Mabulo was roundly applauded for finally affording the voters in the first district of Camarines Sur a choice, ending speculations that Dato will run unopposed.

        That saved the day for Camarinenses who until lately have been shamed with an odious title of selling out to an interloper. Until Mabulo came, no single Bicolano stood up to defend the spirit of democracy where people must be given a choice in a political exercise, the outcome of which should not be something to sneeze at when charting the course towards a better future.

        The other good news came out the next day, March 6, when the same broadsheet on its business page reported that a Netherlands company has earmarked between $3.6 million and $9.6 million to drill an exploration well in Ragay Gulf, which incidentally is within the territorial jurisdictions of the 1st district of Camarines Sur and its neighboring province of Quezon.

        The proposed exploration site, according to the report, covers an area of more than a million hectares that according to the Department of Energy ranked second only to the producing northwest Palawan in terms of hydrocarbon prospects.

        The drilling will take place within the present month when a rig becomes available.

        The two events unfolding, while of different breath and form, augur well for a congressional district so poor that its future requires more than its rich natural resources. Nevertheless, the seeming endowments that we shall reap from the bowels of Ragay Gulf should also call for wise guidance and deliberation on the part of local leaders and policy makers, and more importantly, on the part of the people whose congressional representative must perforce speak for their people’s heart and soul, especially on primordial matters like the exploration of natural resources and the economic gains that they will bring vis-à-vis environmental protection and preservation.

        Of course it may be argued that the Andayas have long held the reins of that district with so much resources and influence, including the power of the purse, but nothing much has changed within their incumbency and turf except for a graft-ridden deplorable state of a multi-million highway that shamelessly bears their family’s name.

        Indeed, the stakes are high in the first district of Camarines Sur, given its past failures and the cockeyed “solution” that its incumbent local and provincial power wielders are trying to dish out by offering the presidential son as the “only” choice. With Dato Arroyo as one of them, they hope that more largesse and political bounty will come flowing in, not only to the district but to the province as a whole. What largesse for whom?

        While the battle ahead may be too difficult for the opposition, the people must feel proud and fortunate that the Bicolanos have a man in Sabas Mabulo, the former mayor of small and yet well-managed municipality of San Fernando who offers himself not only as the better choice, but as true defender of participative democracy and the people’s right of suffrage that we Bicolanos must nurture and guard against.