In the May 2013 elections, then city mayor Dan Neri Lim pooled all his resources and summoned all his allies, although some of them were not fit for an intense political combat, to join him in what appeared to be his last ditch crusade to rescue his collapsing political empire. Banking on the political might of Vice-President Jejomar Binay whom Lim had considered as his source of inspiration and funding, the former city mayor who took the reins of City Hall for nine years straight put up his own brand of candidates in the May 2013 elections in a bold attempt to scuttle the fortress of Liberal Party in Bohol under the leadership of Gov. Edgar M. Chatto.

Former Carmen Mayor Che Toribio Delos Reyes was Lim's most prized contender for governor. Sharlene Lim, the ex-mayor's wife, was thrust into the political limelight when her husband goaded her to seek the vice-gubernatorial post despite her glaring inexperience in the political arena. In the city, the former kingmaker succeeded in convincing his brother, Dr. Abe Lim, to return to the Philippines and give up the latter's US citizenship in order to fight then city councilor Baba Yap, Lim's nephew, in the three-cornered mayoral race. The other contender was lawyer Dodong Gonzaga. Elsewhere, ex-mayor Lim managed to install electoral candidates for various posts, foremost of which is the mayoralty post in Balilihan town that saw the intrepid crack of Mark Monton, D. Lim's most trusted lieutenant, into an unfamiliar territory.

Dan Lim, in his storied political career, was Binay's shining symbol of the national opposition's presence in Bohol. But the aftermath of the May 2013 elections proved the symbol had become a lackluster icon of defeat and pessimism. All of Lim's political bets, veterans or neophytes, interesting or uninteresting, did not muster enough votes to persuade Binay that he had gotten the right point-man in Bohol. Come the postponed barangay elections last Monday (Nov. 25). Lim, in his last act of redemption, and unperturbed of an unfavorable public opinion, signed up his wife as a barangay captain candidate in Dao, Tagbilaran, where Lim was believed to be in control, politically speaking. The result was rather dismal. Though Lim reportedly threw away P1,500 for each voter, his wife still suffered a crashing debacle.

In the morning of Nov. 25, before the ballots were counted, ex-mayor Lim, speaking over his revived DYTR radio program, had declared that he would quit politics if his wife would not win. Then his wife did not win. Sharlene Lim became one of the casualties in ex-mayor Lim's city line-up, probably signaling an end to the kingmaker's glory days. If Dan Lim would make his promise true, one of the first signs of the ex-mayor's abandoning politics would be his “signing off” his self-styled radio program. Perhaps for a very time we won't be able to hear Dan Lim sashay over the airlane which had made him collect an extended list of enemies.

Nevertheless, all is not that hopeless for Dan Lim. His heydays in politics may have ended, but the pasture always looks greener outside the perimeter fence of a turbulent political life. Considering that people's remembrances of political sins can only be stored in a virtual floppy disk despite the advent of a rather cloud-based system, Dan Lim in the years to come can still stage a dramatic comeback. This time with sweet revenge. And that possible comeback would keep all of us on tenterhooks for a very long time.