“Maybe the Leni campaign has acquired genuine strength and has started to snowball to become unstoppable.”
It boggles the mind why the camp of the frontrunners, or at least the father of vice presidential candidate Sara Duterte, are attacking the only woman in the presidential race who is so far, far away in the surveys.
President Rodrigo Duterte, basking in the rapidly fading light of his presidency, rose from his bed a few days ago and accused the Leni Robredo campaign of harboring communists with the view of disrupting the 2022 elections.
The allegations came in the wake of the claims made by Rep. Crispin Remulla who said some of those who attended the March 4 Cavite rally of Robredo and her running mate, Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, were members of the communist movement.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, another presidential candidate, was quick to follow suit by saying that the Leni-Kiko campaign was indeed infiltrated by the communists.
Duterte and Lacson are ganging up on a woman who was only scoring a measly 16 percent in presidential surveys.
The president should be directing his last executive energy in exposing further the “weaknesses” of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos who he described as a weak leader and not fit for the presidency.
He has no reason to run after Leni if indeed the survey numbers of his daughter and partner, Marcos, are genuine and insurmountable.
After all, there’s no use in kicking a candidate who is already down and is slumped on the survey floor.
With a solid 60 percent rating for president and 53 percent rating for vice-president, the “UniTeam” of Marcos and Inday Sara should now be preparing in forming their new government than picking a fight with the second best.
Lacson, who is scoring a low 4 percent in the latest survey, could be following a campaign pivot in the hope that Leni’s 16 percent will go further down.
But even if Lacson gets the whole of Leni’s 16 percent, he will only end up with 20 percent— still not enough to pierce the UniTeam’s thick armor.
Lacson may see some good results if he attacks instead the 8 percent each of Mayor Isko Moreno and Sen. Manny Pacquaio, which will give him a combined 16 percent.
And he could score big time if he manages to bite a bit into the 60 percent rating of Marcos.
But Lacson is not doing it. The tough former PNP chief seems to be holding off his punches against Marcos.
Which begs the question, why is Lacson is not directly squaring off with Marcos? Has Lacson already signed a secret pact with the devil?
Unlike him, Moreno and Pacquaio have already fired their shots against Marcos. Moreno also initially unleashed some anti-Leni tirades.
Marcos and Lacson appeared to have agreed to be “Mr. Congeniality” to each other but will do everything to attack Leni.
The latest “red-tagging” has been denied by the Leni camp as a cheap black propaganda that will only be believable during the time of the “Huks.”
The brains behind this attack should also know by now that the world has changed a lot since the Cold War and that calling Leni a “Red terrorist” is like saying that the Earth is flat.
In fact, Robredo has repeatedly rejected violence as a political tool and the communist ideology from the very beginning.
And if there’s a leader guilty of harboring communists, it would be President Duterte who flirted with the communists in the early years of his bloody mayoralty reign in Davao. He even allowed cadres of the NPA to march into his city as a sign of their friendship. In the first years of his administration, he even appointed several known Leftist prior to various posts to show good faith in resuming formal peace talks with the National Democratic Front, the political arm of the CPP-NPA.
It’s also of public record that the former first lady, Imelda Marcos, was fond of the Reds when she waltzed with Chairman Mao and made “beso-beso” with the old Soviet leaders when she was at the peak of her diplomatic charm offensive to deodorize the faltering regime back then.
Maybe the Leni campaign has acquired genuine strength and has started to snowball to become unstoppable? That can be the only reason for the Red-tagging.
As the Leni campaign draws mammoth crowds in rally after rally—defying the low survey ratings—are the two “best friends” in the presidential race expected to erect a more solid united front to gang up on the lady?
(Email: ernhil@yahoo.com)
