Of all the mo­ments that lit up the 2010 Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign, it was San Juan pen­sion­er Per­cy Vil­lafana who grabbed the most head­lines and at­ten­tion, as his ac­tion re­mained firm­ly etched in the pub­lic’s mind.

The then 81-year-old be­came a lo­cal sen­sa­tion in March 2010 when he blocked Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning from en­ter­ing his yard, cross­ing his arms in front of his chest to form an X.

Man­ning, then po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, en­coun­tered the res­i­dent, who was dis­pleased with his gov­er­nance, dur­ing a walk­a­bout in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Man­ning lat­er an­nounced the May 24, 2010, elec­tion date in April. The elec­tion was called two years be­fore it was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due.

Dur­ing the walk­a­bout, Man­ning—known for his charm and af­fa­ble na­ture—was warm­ly re­ceived by res­i­dents. While some voiced con­cerns about so­cial is­sues, oth­ers ea­ger­ly wel­comed him in­to their homes, al­low­ing him to kiss ba­bies and show off their pets.

But the mood shift­ed sharply when Man­ning stepped to­ward Vil­lafana’s gate. The el­der­ly man stood like a sen­try—arms crossed—and re­fused the prime min­is­ter en­try.

Man­ning, try­ing to smooth things over with his trade­mark smile and turn­ing his at­ten­tion to oth­er seem­ing­ly friend­lier oc­cu­pants who seemed more wel­com­ing at Vil­lafana’s house, was met with a star­tling in­ter­rup­tion. Vil­lafana placed his hands on Man­ning’s shoul­ders and shout­ed, “You not wel­come here!”

The ex­change prompt­ed the for­mer prime min­is­ter’s body­guards to in­ter­vene and warn Vil­lafana not to touch Man­ning. The for­mer prime min­is­ter even­tu­al­ly en­tered the premis­es and spoke with the oth­er oc­cu­pants of Vil­lafana’s home.

As the ex­change made head­line news, at­ten­tion quick­ly shift­ed to Vil­lafana, who ex­plained that he was ex­press­ing his un­hap­pi­ness as a form of protest against the way the coun­try was be­ing led by Man­ning. How­ev­er, his ac­tions quick­ly po­larised the coun­try, with some call­ing his be­hav­iour “down­right dis­re­spect­ful.”

In a pub­lished in­ter­view, Vil­lafana said his rel­a­tives and neigh­bours in San Juan were up­set with him, par­tic­u­lar­ly over his grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty among op­po­si­tion cir­cles.

He ex­plained that some neigh­bours had be­gun shout­ing at him, and his re­la­tion­ships with cer­tain rel­a­tives had be­come strained, with some open­ly crit­i­cis­ing him and ex­press­ing their sup­port for the PNM.

Fol­low­ing Vil­lafana’s ac­tions, Man­ning found him­self the sub­ject of pi­cong in Par­lia­ment be­fore it was dis­solved. Af­ter be­ing teased by then Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal about the ‘Do So’ sign, Man­ning dis­missed any sig­nif­i­cance to the is­sue, al­leg­ing that the el­der­ly man was a Cana­di­an cit­i­zen who fre­quent­ly vis­it­ed T&T.

This in turn pro­voked pub­lic dis­con­tent. Some lat­er ac­cused Man­ning of us­ing State re­sources to spy on cit­i­zens.

How­ev­er, while many peo­ple in the coun­try had found a new hero in Vil­lafana, the el­der­ly man stat­ed that af­ter his con­fronta­tion with the then prime min­is­ter, he feared for his life and was scared of the reper­cus­sions.

Vil­lafana’s crossed arms soon be­came a sym­bol used by peo­ple on the cam­paign trail, spark­ing a vi­ral trend dubbed “Do So.” His ges­ture was im­mor­talised on T-shirts, with its in­flu­ence reach­ing the mu­sic scene through ca­lyp­son­ian Ed­win “Crazy” Ay­oung’s songs like Patrick Man­ning Have To Go and She Drop the Per­cy on Me.

As Vil­lafana quick­ly rose to fame, the mo­men­tum con­tin­ued to build through ap­pear­ances on the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress/Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship plat­form.

Vil­lafana moved from sim­ple re­tiree to hero as the UNC/PP pushed the ‘Do the Per­cy’ cam­paign.

Mount­ing one of their plat­forms in Ch­agua­nas, the pen­sion­er told the fren­zied crowd, “I felt that my pres­ence here will give courage and im­pe­tus to peo­ple to go out and vote ... I ask every­one who is here to­day and is el­i­gi­ble to vote on the 24th of this month to vote, vote, vote! Go to the polling sta­tions and vote UNC.” He then raised his hands high in the sign of the “Do So” cross.

He even dis­missed the PNM’s ad­ver­tis­ing cam­paign us­ing the “Do So” sym­bol and con­vert­ing it in­to a hand­shake as a des­per­ate act. “That is the sign of a des­per­ate man, a man grasp­ing at straws,” Vil­lafana de­clared.

Mean­while, a Face­book page ded­i­cat­ed to the cam­paign swift­ly gained over 7,000 fol­low­ers.

In the end, the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship wrest­ed pow­er from the Patrick Man­ning-led PNM, tak­ing home 29 seats to the PNM’s 12 seats.

Al­though the “Do So” page re­mains ac­tive, its last up­date was in 2011, and the fol­low­er count has since dropped to just over 5,000.

As for Vil­lafana, his name re­mains on the up­dat­ed list of vot­ers from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion as of April 2025.