Never in the history of this country have the Filipino people resorted to political head-hunting. This fad among voters goes like this: they first seek to know the official candidates of this crooked-path government, and then mark or swear not to vote for them. They no longer examine their qualifications or bother to read their platform of government. They just cancel them out. Invariably, the stooges have now become the victims of political vengeance caused by their broker’s incompetence. This explains why Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo are experiencing a downward slope in their popularity rating—both have been marked as puppets. Sad to say, only Robredo does not seem to have the IQ to know what is happening to her.
Since the people now know that this pretending-to-be-honest government is on the defensive, it has resorted to the clever strategy of deceiving them by secretly supporting alternative candidates who will carry on the platform of the oligarchy and of big business in the event the anointed puppet will not make it. Still, people are determined to hunt these puppets that outwardly pretend to belong in the opposition. This explains why suddenly Grace Poe and Chiz Escudero are experiencing a downward slope in their campaign. Their hope of substituting Roxas and Robredo is fast evaporating even after Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno and her shameless cabal in the Supreme Court did their dirty job of vandalizing the Constitution to allow an alien candidate of the oligarchy to run for president.
The other candidates, particularly Alan Cayetano, played with much gusto his assignment of a nasty political bouncer. He tried to maximize what he could extract as his bargain by zeroing in on Bongbong. He alone had the stomach to play the role of a pig ordered to wallow in the pool of mud and excrement. To put it straight, Cayetano realized that there is no way he could win, and the debate was, for him, a chance to demolish and besmirch the name of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. Nothing more could prove that, for right after that debate that he maliciously reduced to a wrangle, it was his rating that went down, and the man he reviled astoundingly increased that it affected the standing of Malacañang’s decoy candidate Chiz Escudero. All his sleaze charges appeared to have backfired. Despite that, Bongbong remained sober and cool under fire.
When Cayetano accepted that nauseating role of a political bouncer, he hoped to be repaid in terms of political accommodation in the event the puppets of Malacañang win. As one would put it, election, to him, is like a cancer that it has its own death, and Cayetano expects that to come. Thus, he could surmise that if it is not possible for him to win in this coming election, the least he could do is secure a political bargain from the ruling oligarchy and enjoy the same bounty accorded to corrupt politicians. Besides, Cayetano realized there is no more rating that could be reduced in him. Cayetano’s go-for-broke approach in the debate resulted in two of Malacañang’s kennels slugging it out with Bongbong Marcos surging way ahead of them.
Some say Cayetano acted not as a lawyer, but that as a jerk. Common sense should have made him refrain from raising the issue of corruption against Bongbong because that would surely backfire against him. It is he and his wife who are now facing corruption and plunder charges. Whether the complaint for violating R.A. No. 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act or for violating R.A. No. 7080 or the Act Defining and Penalizing the Crime of Plunder will prosper is something for the accused Cayetano to think about. People might rhetorically ask: Look who’s talking? The desperate Cayetano, as usual, alluded to the pork barrel scam supposedly masterminded by Janet Napoles. But the alleged mastermind herself has denied sharing to Bongbong her loot or even meeting and knowing the senator.
In fact, Cayetano appeared to be talking nonsense because the person who is supposed to narrate the charge against Bongbong as having received the anomalous DAP is now out on bail. On the contrary, Cayetano’s own colleagues in the Senate have pointed to him as one of the recipients of that “convict-for-a-price” bribery to impeach Chief Justice Renato Corona, Jr. Cayetano was completely caught off-guard when he said that corrupt people end up as congressmen and senators when Marcos asked him if that was how he became a senator.
The candidacy of this Cayetano is truly pathetic. It is beyond description. Instead of him doing the legwork for his presidential running mate, Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte, to increase his chances of winning, it is Duterte who is begging his voters-supporters to vote for his doggone vice presidential running mate. On one occasion, Duterte even threatened his own supporters that if they will not vote for Cayetano, they might as well not vote for him. Again, it has never happened in the political history in this country. Traditionally, the presidential candidate is given a free hand to select his running mate, not necessarily on the basis that his choice will win, but on the basis that he will be able to increase his chances of winning the presidency. As one would put it in the vernacular, si Duterte ang kumakalong kay Cayetano.
Probably irritated, Duterte made an off-the-cuff statement that should his campaign against corruption, drugs and criminality fail in six months, he would vacate his post and give it to Bongbong Marcos. That statement carries deep-seated implications. First, that Duterte is confident he and Bongbong will win, respectively. Second, Duterte could no longer deny that his running mate is the one pulling him down. Such statement from his own presidential running mate is enough for Cayetano to resign if he has the decency and shame for of himself.
If he is man enough, Cayetano should run alone because it is not fair to be treated by his running mate as though he were afflicted with a social disease. There is no love lost between him and Duterte. They belong to two different political parties, and it was Cayetano who persisted in wanting to become the running mate of Duterte to a point of unilaterally proclaiming himself as Duterte’s vice presidential running mate to purposely box out Bongbong. Cayetano was part of the US-sponsored grand conspiracy to deprive Bongbong of a political party and machinery to translate the clamor of the people to vote. On the contrary, when Duterte mentioned Bongbong, by political instinct, he was betting on the right horse, and politics, whatever one would say, is a game of survival.
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