FROM THE BARREL OF MY PEN
By Gonzalo “Jun” Policarpio

A NAME IS A NAME, ISN’T IT?


To the best of my knowledge and that of Google search engine, there is only one person in the Philippines with the name of GONZALO POLICARPIO who was born in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija. He is my father. In fact, there are two more Filipinos with the same name, myself, as the Jr. and my son, as Gonzalo Policarpio III. both born in the same city and province.

My wife loves to watch some Filipino soap operas on the Filipino channel in our Verizon Fios cable. One time she took exception to one episode in “May Bukas Pa”(There’s still Tomorrow), a socio-politico-religious drama, by getting my attention to a mention of the name of GONZALVO POLICARPIO as one of the leading characters.

This character was a victim of violence when his parents were murdered by landgrabbers. He portrays that of a vindictive and conniving politician whose main obsession is power and money to enable him to pursue his vendetta. He also fathered a boy called Santino, the story’s main character, with a low-level woman in the barrio. Santino received spiritual gifts of healing and other powers when Jesus appeared to him.

I wonder how the writers of this story came up with the name Gonzalvo Policarpio. I have not heard of any Filipino family named a son Gonzalvo because it is the Portuguese version of the Spanish Gonzalo.

Though I would not ask the writers of the story to use a disclaimer about the use of my name, I hope this article serves the purpose. But I would still be interested on how they came up with the name Gonzalvo Policarpio.

Anyhow, here’s a reprint of an article about me that appeared in the local papers in Queens, New York:



Policarpio ran Ackerman seat race fairly


Thursday, August 20, 2009 9:15 AM EDT
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I recently had the opportunity to speak with Gonzalo “Jun” Policarpio, who was one of my opponents in the 2008 election for U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman’s (D-Bayside) seat. Policarpio mentioned he felt hurt that the last article many voters saw involved the accusations from our election petitions dispute.

It is only fair voters should also know Policarpio ran the remainder of the race in an honorable manner. For instance, although tearing down opponent’s signs plagued many of last year’s races, Policarpio did not engage in such tactics. More importantly, while other opponents often refused to debate, Policarpio always stood willing to debate anywhere at anytime and kept his debate statements focused on important policy issues.

Thinking about this now is particularly timely. The local 2009 races are currently embroiled in petition disputes. Hopefully, we will get past this point and the remainder of the 2009 races will be honorably run, with full and fair candidate debates on the policy issues facing our community.

Elizabeth Berney

Former Candidate

U.S. House of Representatives

Bayside