OF THE 22 mayors of Pampanga, only Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales of Mabalacat City made it to the exclusive “Duterte List,” the President’s list of officials who he said were either dealers of narcotics or protectors of drug syndicates.

Like some others on the list, the 66-year-old Morales is protesting: “I am innocent and have no involvement with illegal drugs now or in the past. I will cooperate with any investigation or inquiry in order to clear my name and my family.”

Having served as Mabalacat mayor continuously for the past 21 years despite the three-term limit for local officials (for a total of nine years), Morales holds the record as the longest serving mayor in the country.

His police security men have been pulled out and returned to their mother units, so Morales like others on the “D List” is left to his own devices in moving in the shrinking space left to those tagged, rightly or wrongly, as narco officials.

In his Aug. 7 speech at the wake for slain soldiers in the Naval Forces Eastern Mindanao in Davao City, President Duterte said: “I ordered the listing. I ordered the validation. I’m the one reading it, and I am the sole person responsible for this. Now, I am ordering those mentioned here (to) report to your Chief PNP in 24 hours. You are hereby relieved of your … whatever your position there. Umalis kayo diyan, mag-report kayo.

“Lahat ng mga mayors dito na-mention, I’m ordering the PNP Chief, tanggalin iyong police supervision and cancel any and all private arms na nakalisensiya sa kanila. They are all cancelled. Go out naked to the world and show your… kalokohan ninyo. Lahat, military, police, ‘pag ikaw assigned sa security, go back to your mother unit immediately.

“Tapos iyong cancellation of the firearms licenses and permits, sa lahat ng minention dito are ordered cancelled as of tonight.”

In a video taken in his house last Sunday, a “saddened” Morales praised President Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs. Like many other officials tagged as narco suspects, he said:

“I am willing to undergo any investigation to prove my innocence para naman ma-proteksiyonan natin ang integrity of my family, myself, and the people who had trusted me and voted for me for the past years.”

It may be a bit late now, but Morales mentioned his plan to put up a rehabilitation center for drug addicts, including some 900 users and pushers who had surrendered or been rounded up in Mabalacat last July.

• ‘Staying power’ of Morales explained

MORALES has amazed many with his staying power as Mabalacat mayor since 1995, or for 21 years, despite the three-term limit, or nine consecutive years.

Philippine STAR reporter Ding Cervantes says that Morales started last July 1 to serve his seventh term, but that Lyra Lucas who had placed third in the last mayoral election protested. (Provincial board member Chris Garbo was the second placer.)

On Lucas’ petition, the Commission on Elections first division cancelled last Aug. 2 Morales’ Certificate of Candidacy and ordered the Mabalacat City council to “reconvene and annul” his proclamation as elected mayor.

The division ruled that Morales had “committed material misrepresentation” when he affirmed in his COC that he is eligible to run for mayor even if he had served the maximum three consecutive terms before the May elections.

Morales was quoted by Cervantes as saying that the order unseating him was not final and executory, and would be appealed before the Comelec en banc and, if necessary, all the way to the Supreme Court.

With veteran election lawyer Romy Macalintal at his side, this does not look like the mayor’s biggest problem. Rather, it is his inclusion in the “D-List” that might put an end to his political life.

Macalintal said it was not Morales’ fault that he has been mayor for more than 20 years. He pointed to the poll protests that created the situations justifying his staying on from 1995 to the present.

Toward the end of his third and supposedly last term in 2004 (he had served 1995-1998, 1998-2001, and 2001-2004), the Comelec decided belatedly a protest of Anthony Dee, his opponent in 2001, that Dee actually won.

With a few weeks left of what was thought to be his last term, Morales’ defeat gave him a legal reason to run in the 2004 elections since, according to the Comelec itself, the 2001-2004 term was not his but Dee’s.

Having “lost,” Morales ran again in 2004 in what effectively would be his fourth term. He won, starting a new series of three three-year terms.

When he won again in 2004, a supporter of his opponent protested that the mayor was on his fourth term in violation of law. In another belated move, the Comelec ordered Morales on May 9, 2007, to turn over his post to his vice mayor who then sat only from May 9 to June 30.

Morales ran anew in 2010 and won, but his election was again challenged. The dispute reached the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously in 2009 that Morales was not the duly elected mayor for 2004-2007 and that he did not serve his full term for that period.

The SC ruling again entitled Morales, who actually served as mayor during the contested period, to again run on the basis of the supposed gap in his terms.

When Mabalacat became a city in 2014, Morales insisted he was merely on his first term as city (no longer municipal) mayor. He ran and won in the last May elections.