Ten months after he became governor of Pampanga, “Among” Ed Panlilio was a guest of “Bulong Pulungan” at Sofitel hotel. We were eager to learn what sort of “governance” he ruled by and how the province was faring under him, a nontraditional politician.

Many friends and supporters filled the function room assigned to the forum that day, and in the course of the question-and-answer exchange between the guest and the journalists present, someone asked if Gov. Panlilio, who said all his duties as a priest had been suspended in the meantime, would be interested in running for a higher, national office in 2010.

I remember only that his answer was couched in safely polite terms, and therefore forgettable (which is why it’s not quotable), but somewhere from the back of the room a loud voice boomed, “Ed for president! Para malabanan ang mga demonyo!” That person must have been prescient, to foresee the governor’s plan long before he came out in the open to admit his presidential ambitions, perhaps not to fight Satan but to, ah, do what every presidential candidate promises to do.

Either that barker was prescient, or he was “planted” to sound an early warning signal.

In other words, Gov. Panlilio’s most ardent supporters knew even then, sometime in April, 2008, that he or they, he and they were harboring those ambitions. So much for praying for discernment.

Which makes the race so much more interesting now. A priest, a televangelist, and a preacher with a political party, all of them men of God preaching the word of God, each and all of them ready to preach (and practice?) morality in public life, ready to jump from the pulpit and into the arena of politics.

They are going to give God a problem.

Who will He anoint to be the Chosen One? Dear God, please say there is a God.