I eat death threats for breakfast.
—Míriam Defensor Santiago—
One scene from The Godfather which leaves an indelible mark in the viewers’ minds is the brutal assassination of Sonny Corleone at the toll booth.
I saw this horrible scene only once many years ago, but I still couldn’t forget it. I’m sure that many fans of that now classic film will agree with me that it is the most memorable slaughter clip from the movie.
And it was the only scene which came to mind when Mr. Eugenio Ynión, Jr. —CEO of shady Ynión General Holdings and frequent absentee barrio captain of San Antonio in San Pedro Tunasán City, La Laguna Province— issued me a death threat last April 30. He sent it via private message to a decoy Facebook account during a filthy word war which he instigated (I admit to starting arguments most of the time in online forums, but I don’t start fights). Here’s his first threat, and it’s rather creepy:
It may mean nothing harmful at first reading. But check out the second one below. It’s rather cryptic, but becoming all the more ominous when connected to the first threat above:
Kapitan Ynión mentioning “The Godfather” is an obvious reference to that classic film’s infamous and memorable toll booth assassination scene (see video above). Do the math, friends. 🙂
Never mind that this millionaire has fag issues (attention: LGBT community). What matters the most is why he threatened to harm me. My sin? I took sides in our young city‘s political landscape. I defended his twisted and malicious tirades against our mayor, Lourdes Catáquiz. But I did it respectfully, and he knows this. And so I instantly became his number one critic on his Facebook account (whose settings used to be public for everybody to see his wall posts that are filled with lies, lies, and more lies).
True colors
For most part of our summer word war on Facebook, Kapitan Ynión has been accusing me as city hall’s PR man because he knew that I am cognizant of a lot of issues concerning him (my exposé about the LIES he’s been spreading about our city’s fire brigade really blew his top, much to my amusement) While I do not deny my ties with and loyalty towards Mayor Catáquiz —for Pete’s sake, she and her husband (former Mayor Calixto Catáquiz) stood as our wedding sponsors!— I vehemently contest being tagged as such. I’d rather declare that I’m a PR guy for the whole of San Pedro which he calumnied.
Before we go to how he defamed San Pedro, let me explain first how I made Kapitan Ynión fidgety and livid the whole summer. I first criticized him over a libelous video he posted on his Facebook account wherein he accused city hall of expropriating his land. At first, our exchanges were polite. But bit by bit, he was getting annoyed when he couldn’t get me to side with him. The polite exchanges turned sour. And when he could no longer beat me to the punch, he resorted to childish remarks and ad hominems, surprising me and many others of his behavior. We never thought he’d go down that low, especially since he boasts of being the youngest shipping magnate in the country. And he’s a politician, for crying out loud.
In the end, he deleted his libelous accusations, but not without blocking me (fortunately, some friends of mine who were observing our exchanges were able to make screenshots of his hilarious video and unprofessional remarks towards me). After the confrontation, I began receiving messages from various residents of San Antonio, some of whom I haven’t even met before, congratulating me for standing up to Kapitan Ynión. It seems to me that many people there do not like him. So how did he win last year’s elections? Your guess is as good as mine (and it’s interesting to note that he won by only 885 votes against his rival, Jamie Ambayec, a native San Pedrense).
Anyway, I thought that his blocking me on Facebook would have ended the squabble. But something about his posts bothered me. That is why I thought it best to “troll” him all the more by “hiring” the services of a decoy Facebook account by the name of Fil Acayan. This decoy account added Kapitan Ynión as a friend, signed all his posts as “Pepe Alas”, and the word war was on again. Since then, Kapitan Ynión never had a single day without me inside his head.
Included in that deleted Ynión video, by the way, was an unbecoming comment of his that was meant to taunt the Catáquiz administration but which also became a big insult to the city as a whole. Says Ynión: “the only thing that San Pedro could be proud of is its dumpsite”. Thus the need for me to hire Fil Acayan, the decoy Facebook account. Because I had to avenge our city’s name that was calumnied.
I had to be that PR guy for San Pedro Tunasán and not for the Catáquiz administration.
Kapitan Jun Ynión insulted the whole city of San Pedro
The only thing that San Pedro could be proud of is its dumpsite? Truly, these are the words of a hateful outsider (Ynión’s from Bacólod), an uncouth Filipino skilfully pretending to be a gentleman who has zero knowledge of San Pedro’s beauty and worth and heritage, words of a desperate man who is hell-bent of doing anything he can to achieve his ambition of becoming mayor at all costs, including the pretense of loving a place he is really unfamiliar with, detached even.
The only thing our city could be proud of is its dumpsite? Really? Me and my family have been living in Tagalog San Pedro far longer than this Visayan fellow, but we haven’t even seen nor have been hearing much about this dumpsite, which means its overall impact to our city is next to nil. Now, this fellow currently lives in La Marea, just a stone’s throw away from posh KC Filipinas Golf Resort Club, Inc. Has he even heard of the place? KC Filipinas is not something to be proud of? How about San Pedro’s time-honored tradition that is the sampaguita trade? The prevalence of the national flower gave San Pedro the honorable distinction of being the country’s sampaguita capital. Heck, we even earned a Guinness World Record back in 2009 for having created a 2.1-kilometer sampaguita lei! Hasn’t he heard of this incredible feat? Or maybe his mind was somewhere else? So, our city’s affinity to the national flower is not something to be proud of? We have historical and miraculous churches such as San Pedro Apóstol (home of the iconic Cross of Tunasán), the Shrine of Santo Sepulcro (home of the miraculous image of Lolo Uweng), and Santo Rosario (the first church in the entire Docese of San Pablo to have been consecrated); we’re not to be proud of? And do I even have to mention how this garbage remark of his has insulted the memory of former Vice President Salvador H. Laurel? Because it seems to me that Kapitan Ynión’s beloved dumpsite weighs more than the heritage that is the Salvador H. Laurel Museum and Library found in Holiday Hills.
And how about the awfully friendly people of San Pedro? Shouldn’t we be proud of them, too? So to follow Kapitan Jun Ynión’s crazed rhetoric, the city’s dumpsite is far more worthy than the people of San Pedro?
Why Ynión hates Catáquiz
The real reason why Kapitan Ynión is bitter over this dumpsite issue is because when he befriended former mayor Calixto Catáquiz (a much-loved living legend in our place, if I may add) a few years ago, he asked for favors if he could manage San Pedro’s dumpsite located in Barrio San Antonio, a favor that is not that easy to grant as there are laws and procedures to follow in order to do that. Much later, Kapitan Ynión requested if he could manage San Pedro’s water distribution facilities.
When both weren’t given to him, bitterness engulfed his mind. And so he started plotting the downfall of the Catáquiz administration. As a matter of fact, he has been plotting this as early as 2008! Check this out:
One problem with Millionaire Ynión is that he’s the type who doesn’t think before he clicks. He’s too talkative (and we San Pedrenses are thankful for it). Other than that, what kind of a CEO and “public servant”stays on Facebook from the wee hours of the morning to the ungodly hours of nightfall? Does this guy even work? Wow.
What was that quote again from David Duchovny? Oh, yeah. I remember now: “In this age of media and Internet access, we are much more talkative than ever before”. 😀
Whack job bros?
My golly. The only people I know who receive death threats are politicians, political activists, controversial celebrities, and the like. So just imagine my amusement when a mere Facebook troll such as myself received one from a self-proclaimed public servant who, in apparent fashion, uses his Facebook account primarily to discredit his political rival in as many twisted ways possible. I have to give him credit, though, because Kapitan Ynión’s lies are so believable that even some natives of San Pedro are starting to believe him.
If I may digress for a while. For the past two years, there have been persisting rumors that Kapitan Ynión was behind the assassination of Barrio San Antonio’s former chairman, the much-loved and very popular Art Hatulan (may he rest in peace). I’m not the type who pays much attention to rumors. But after this incident with this mafioso político, I no longer doubt that rumor myself.
And hey, let’s not forget Kap Ynión’s dear brother Rommel who joined the online fracas to rescue him from my online beating. Before the death threats even happened, he once challenged me to a fisticuff in defense of his brother. Now, this Rommel character wishes to outdo his bro by swearing to kill each and every member of my family.
As if one death threat is not enough. What an idiot and a coward.
Such lovely brothers these two are, always looking out for each other. But to Rommel’s credit, I understand his anger. Because the decoy account attacking his “saintly bro” was really mean. But to Kapitan Eugenio “Jun” Ynión’s fans: ever wondered what made that now legendary Fil Acayan account angrily lose his mind and blurt out invectives against your idol? Here’s why — and this is something which Kap Jun didn’t want you to see:
So there’s your public servant. His true colors exposed. Cagalang galang, ¿’di po ba?
And to those who do not know who this funny man Rommel Ynión is, please visit Adobo Ilonggo for more information. But for starters, Rommel ran for mayor in Iloílo City last year but lost in shameful fashion against fan favorite Jed Patrick Mabílog. Even before the elections began, Rommel was arrested due to tax evasion. And according to the grapevine, he’s currently somewhere in Metro Manila (hiding from eventual imprisonment?) and has become a delinquent unit owner of an expensive small office – home office condominium near Asian Hospital and Medical Center (where he is reportedly treated for manic depression). The poor guy reportedly owes the condominium around ₱400,000!
If this is true (and I don’t doubt that it is not), then shame on millionaire Kapitan Ynión. We see how his brother Rommel loves him dearly by unabashedly announcing to the public that the latter will kill each and every member of my family, yet the former couldn’t seem to pay for his bro’s measly debts. What kind of brotherly circus is this? 😀
Doing the right thing
Nick Joaquín once wrote that “some people can rise very high only because they have fallen very low”. Such is the sad, sad case with the Ynión brothers, whose source of wealth is highly questionable.
Because of the danger posed by the Ynión brothers against me and my family, pleas from relatives and friends for me to stop criticizing them have been pouring out for the past month, that is why I have not been active in socia media recently. But I cannot remain silent for long. Because “silence in the face of evil is evil itself; God will not hold us guiltless”, says German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And so I’m back.
Sadly, though, we’re not in San Pedro anymore; concerned officials have already pulled us out from our home for the sake of our safety. Nevertheless, even if we are no longer there, San Pedro will forever be a part of us. It is where our four kids grew up. It is where we have built friendships. It is where we have taken root for the past decade. It is there where I have fully recognized the significance of Filipino township identity which contributes to the general Filipino national identity. My love for the whole province of La Laguna sprang from San Pedro. So wherever we go, we will always tell everyone, with our heads held up high, that we are San Pedrenses, that we come from the blessed City of San Pedro Tunasán.
For practical reasons, confronting Jun Ynión and his brother on his FB account, making him lose his mind every single day, may be deemed stupid because I did not even think of my family’s security with my brash actions. But on hindsight, who will stand up against these devils?
So, a hearty congratulations are in the offing for Kap Eugenio and his equally psychotic brother Rommel for their cowardly death threats to me and my family. They may have succeeded in (inadvertently) driving us out of San Pedro…
…but they have practically destroyed themselves in the process. 🙂
So just in case me and my family don’t get to join you all the way to the 22nd century, you know who to blame.
*F*I*L*I*P*I*N*O*e*S*C*R*I*B*B*L*E*S*
Special thanks to Superintendent Fernando Ortega, San Pedro City Police officer-in-charge, for personally assisting me in filing a blotter report against the evil-minded Ynión brothers of Bacólod.
FILIPINO eSCRIBBLES 