Al­though Per­cy Vil­lafana has not yet got the li­brary in his San Juan home­town, he has giv­en the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, a "good rat­ing." He would not rate them as "ex­cel­lent" be­cause of is­sues like the farm­ers' con­tro­ver­sy and the Mary King fi­as­co, Vil­lafana in­di­cat­ed.

Vil­lafana shot to na­tion­al fo­cus when for­mer prime min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning, beat a hasty re­treat when de­clared per­sona non gra­ta at Re­al Street, on a walk­a­bout in March last year. Vil­lafana struck the "Do So" pose-a crossed-arms sym­bol. Now, he says if he had to do it all over again he would. On Tues­day, he re­turned from his adopt­ed home at Win­nipeg, Man­i­to­ba, to his fam­i­ly home at Re­al Street. In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view, Vil­lafana de­scribed the per­for­mance of the PP as "good...not ex­cel­lent." He main­tains he re­mains loy­al to the Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Vil­lafana said: "I would say good. I would not say ex­cel­lent be­cause that would be a lit­tle too much. But de­spite all they had to sur­mount I would say they did well. "For one thing they stuck to the plan in spite of what they ran in­to be­fore from the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion. I give them points for what they have achieved so far." He had top marks for Per­sad-Bisses­sar: "They are go­ing in the right di­rec­tion. The PM is do­ing a hel­lu­va job. She is in charge. She is con­trol­ling-and that is a won­der­ful thing to see. She is not giv­ing me the im­pres­sion she is bi­ased." He not­ed Man­ning had tried to be­lit­tle her with al­le­ga­tions that she was con­struct­ing a $50 mil­lion house. Man­ning has re­cent­ly been de­ter­mined to be in con­tempt of the Par­lia­ment by the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee. He could be sus­pend­ed, re­quired to apol­o­gise or even ex­pelled.

Ku­dos for Warn­er, Gopeesingh

Apart from Per­sad-Bisses­sar's stew­ard­ship he said he was buoyed by the em­pha­sis placed on de­vel­op­ing To­ba­go: "I was just hear­ing about the In­ter­net and the de­vel­op­ment planned for To­ba­go and around the coun­try." Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh al­so came in for ku­dos. "Jack Warn­er has been do­ing a fan­tas­tic job as Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter. In the area of ed­u­ca­tion, things seem to be look­ing up. I know the chil­dren wrote the SEA," said Vil­lafana. As the con­tro­ver­sy raged over the dis­place­ment of farm­ers to build HDC hous­es for the cit­i­zen­ry, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath and Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal locked horns.

Vil­lafana said: "The most re­cent blun­ders were the case of Mooni­lal and Bharath. Each guy wants to know his of­fice is do­ing his job. They for­got the essence of what they are there for." Not minc­ing words, Vil­lafana said: "I would say it is a self­ish at­ti­tude; the farm­ers are on­ly think­ing about them­selves. They are for­get­ting those who need homes and hous­es." Quizzed on the Mary King is­sue, Vil­lafana said: "It's a self­ish at­ti­tude for one to adopt. It en­cour­ages dis­hon­esty. If one is say­ing I am go­ing to hire my rel­a­tives and friends, it is a self­ish at­ti­tude for one to adopt. A move like that en­cour­ages dis­hon­esty."

No San Juan li­brary yet

Dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign Vil­lafana had ex­pressed the need for a li­brary at San Juan. Al­though that has not yet ma­te­ri­alised, he re­mains op­ti­mistic it will be­come avail­able to boost peo­ple's love for read­ing and lit­er­a­cy. Vil­lafana said: "I heard when I came in from a re­li­able source that I am to meet with the per­son who is han­dling it. He said he would like to meet with me this week. They (politi­cians) are so busy they can't meet with every­body at the same day.

Vil­lafana: I would 'Do So' again

Re­spond­ing to whether Vil­lafana would adopt the Do So stance again he said: "I would do it for any­body. Once things are not go­ing right. "He came with a smil­ing face and he is so ar­ro­gant. He comes and smiles when he wants some­thing. You can look at it and tell there is no juice in it...noth­ing at all."

In an era gone by, Vil­lafana re­called, school­child­ren were re­galed with tales about Pa­pa Bois, douens and soucouyants by their grand­moth­ers. Vil­lafana said: "I re­mem­ber my grand­moth­er (Juani­ta Vil­lafana) telling me when you are go­ing to walk in the for­est and just cross your hands, it keeps away evil spir­its and the Dev­il. I told him so. "I told him this sign is meant to keep away peo­ple like you, your Gov­ern­ment and preach­er la­dy (more than like­ly a ref­er­ence to Man­ning's spir­i­tu­al ad­vis­er Ju­liana Pe­na). Vil­lafana added: "I told him so and I meant it. "I was not dis­re­spect­ful. This sign (Do So) means you are not wel­come." An im­me­di­ate neigh­bour de­scribes him as the "San Juan Hill pup­pet." There was a moun­tain of sup­port for Vil­lafana; He con­tin­ues to en­joy celebri­ty sta­tus. Guf­faw­ing loud­ly, Vil­lafana said: "At this stage I can­not tru­ly ac­cept what has hap­pened. I went back home and looked at Face­book. When I saw things that were writ­ten about me...I said I did it and I would do it again."