INTERVIEWED RECENTLY by a Manila-based radio station, Governor Mark Lapid acknowledged that he received help from the Pinedas in the 2004 elections. But he said there was no money involved; the help, said the 27-year-old governor, came in the form of the "leaders" of Lilia Pineda, who he said his party had adopted. He had no knowledge regarding any aid the Pinedas may have extended to his father in previous elections, he said, because he was "still studying" at the time.

	POLITICAL CLOUT. Pineda has reportedly bankrolled the campaigns of various national and local officials supposedly in exchange for protecting jueteng.

In truth, few politicians would admit — at least in public — to having received help from Pineda. The governor's own father, the action film star/senator Lito Lapid, has denied it was Pineda who "provided" him a political party when he ran for the Senate in 2004, as many Kapampangans assert. At the very least, the Lapids, like other politicos, were once welcome visitors to Pineda's Concepcion mansion. During the last elections, even barangay captains had made a beeline for the well-guarded Pineda home.

This time around, though, Pineda himself says his doors are closed to the Lapids. In his interview with the PCIJ, he made it clear any reconciliation with the senator and governor was no longer feasible.

"Wala na siyang magagawa (There's nothing more that he can do)," said Pineda, referring to the senator. "Pumunta na siya sa presidente (He better go to the president)."

Which is exactly what Senator Lapid has been trying to do in the last few weeks, for the sake of his son, who is running for reelection. But President Arroyo seems to be too preoccupied with other matters; when she visited Pampanga last week with the administration's senatorial slate, she still failed to endorse the younger Lapid for governor, much to the dismay of both father and son.

When Pineda took to the stage in Lubao two months ago, he listed the reasons why he had gotten upset with the Lapids. The feud, he said, stemmed from the "failure" of the Lapids to raise quarry taxes — an alleged scam that began when Lito Lapid was still the governor. But Pineda also said he had found it arrogant for the Lapids to refuse third-term mayors in the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats' lineup for board members. And, he said, it irked him that the senator snubbed him during a golf game in the United States when it was the senator's own advisers who had proposed that they talk and settle the rift.

He did not include in his bases for severing links with the Lapids their rejection of his son, Lubao Mayor Dennis Pineda, as the governor's running mate. He said his wife's assessment that the governor was not serving the province's poor held more weight in his decision to go against the Lapids.

During his interview with the PCIJ, Pineda declined to say how much he would spend on his wife's campaign. He did say, however, that it would "not be so big" because she seemed to be an "acceptable alternative" to the incumbent.

Lilia Pineda herself will not give figures, saying she hopes to "get the votes on a platform of pro-poor programs than on dangling favors or buying votes." A capitol official says that a gubernatorial campaign would need a minimum of P50 million, but he believes the amount could go "several times higher," considering the intense determination of both camps to win.

BUSINESS AND political leaders in Pampanga have noted that when Pineda announced his wife's gubernatorial bid, he had made it a point to get to his wife's side the entire local leadership of Porac, the Lapids' bailiwick — from the mayor and vice mayor, down to all the councilors and barangay leaders.

But Fidel Arcenas, the governor's campaign manager, is not ready to call Lilia Pineda's bid as the most difficult challenge yet in the political careers of the senator and the governor. He points out that both Lapids had won overwhelmingly in past local elections, their victories essentially changing the province's political landscape, which had previously been dominated by the landed gentry and intellectuals. Besides, he says, the senator is gunning for the Makati mayoralty seat — a move seen by many as having been masterminded by Malacañang to get the city's noisy anti-Arroyo mayor, Jejomar 'Jojo' Binay, out of the way.

The governor, meanwhile, has removed Bong Pineda out of the equation, says Arcenas. He adds, "He's looking at Lilia Pineda as a board member. He is not considering her relationship with her husband. He's looking at it (from) a political point of view. He feels confident that he will face a fair fight with her."

Several observers in Pampanga find such a stance rather naïve. Scoffed one trader, echoing the perceptions of many Mekenis: "If Bong Pineda helped make presidents out of Erap and Gloria, why can he not make a governor out of Lilia?"

Lilia Pineda herself has said that while the plan to run for governor was solely hers, prompted by the clamor of local leaders who want an end to the "poor leadership" of the young governor, her husband is "not one to just watch and let Kapampangans suffer."

This is even as she has also emphasized that she is capable of financing her own campaign, enumerating her businesses that include a stone-crushing plant, a recruitment agency, and selling purified water. The 56-year-old mother of four is no political tyro as well, having sat as a town councilor for five years, before going on to completing three terms as Lubao mayor. She is now in her second term as provincial board member.

Observers say, too, that it was largely through Lilia that Bong Pineda was able to build a reputation for legendary generosity.

For sure, many of what she has spearheaded are seen as "family efforts." This includes relief operations that are organized faster than what the provincial capitol manages to muster. On Christmas Day, the Pineda mansion is opened for gift-giving, with poor people lining up by the thousands to avail themselves of packages of food.

It is Lilia, however, who has acquired the label of being the "mother of perpetual help." At least two parish priests confirm that Lilia had made big contributions to church-building projects after the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. She has also reportedly helped hundreds of people ill with cancer or with psychological problems, as well as provided shelter for many abused women and children. With her maternal instinct seemingly in perennial overdrive, Lilia has been called "nanay (mother)" even by her new political rival, Governor Lapid.