JULIENNE “Jam-jam” Baronda is such a sweet woman that she reminds us of our favorite strawberry jam sandwich; or maybe mango jam for brother Louie.
But there’s more to this petite woman than beauty and charm. Like her parents – former city health officer Dr. Urminico Baronda and former councilor Julie Baronda – she has the brain that could catapult her to the top. If she expects to be first lady representative or congresswoman of Iloilo City, it’s partly because she ranks far ahead of two other contenders in all eight periodic surveys done by Random Access Consultants, Inc.
An accountant by profession, she recently earned her master’s degree in public administration in preparation for her next job. She is hopefully stepping into her new shoes without difficulty but with familiarity.
“Life starts at 40,” so a famous maxim goes. Why not for Jam-jam? She is only 40 and looking forward to a new job which she has prepared for. She is definitely no neophyte in legislative work, having been Iloilo City councilor for three terms (2001 to 2010).
To say that she is hitting the ground of Congress running is no exaggeration. She has worked in the Senate as political officer of Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito in the last five years. Her linkage to the senator is timely because she would be in position to look after the senator’s forthcoming projects in the city, especially the P600 -million Heart and Lung Center within the Western Visayas Medical Center (WVMC) and the P300-million Heart, Lung and Kidney Institute at the West Visayas State University Medical Center (WVSUMC).
However, anybody who has seen the discomfort of hapless patients competing for doctors’ attention in the aforesaid public hospitals would agree they don’t deserve poor services. There was a time on Feb. 28, 2017, for instance, when I personally saw my friend Bernard dying but could not be immediately wheeled from an ambulance to the emergency room of WVMC due to non-availability of stretcher. I could imagine the ambulance running full-speed from the town of Leon to Iloilo City, only to stall within arm’s length of the emergency room.
When this writer discussed with Jam-jam the awesome task of building a city-owned hospital to cater to the less fortunate, she broached the possibility of converting the 10-bed La Paz Maternity Hospital into a 50-bed general hospital. She had discussed this matter with the incumbent congressman, Jerry P. Treñas.
Small world, I said to myself, recalling that I was born in that hospital 69 long years ago.
“Life is full of twists and turns,” Jam-jam enthused, recalling the unexpected ones dealt to her in the past two decades.
She recalled that after serving as city councilor for three terms or nine straight years, she hesitantly accepted the invitation of then vice mayor Jed Mabilog, who was running for mayor, to be his vice mayoral running mate in 2010. For while it was true that the then mayor, Jerry Treñas, was Mabilog’s ally running for congressman, he had another candidate for vice mayor, his bilas Jose Espinosa III. She fought Joe hard, anyway, to come up with the resulting 63,319 against 58,659 votes. She lost by a mere 4,660 votes.
The Treñas-Mabilog-Espinosa triumvirate was re-elected in 2016. However, the unexpected departure of Mayor Mabilog to an undisclosed destination pushed Espinosa to the vacated post.
Had Treñas supported Baronda for vice mayor in 2010, Joe would never have run for vice mayor and would never have become mayor by succession in 2017. Jam-jam would have been in his shoes.
And the Treñas-Espinosa rivalry for mayor today would not have shaped up. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
