The political mafia which had purloined the government’s treasury through massive corruption in ghost flood control projects had been crucifying VP Sara Duterte over the use of a ₱125- million confidential and Intelligence fund passed on by the Office of the President to the Office of the Vice President and the ₱612.5 -million CIF Congress had allocated to the Department of Education when and where she was Secretary then.
The meat of all the impeachment charges against VP Sara revolve around the issue raised by shady characters in and out of Congress and gloated on by the tenant in Malacanang Palace The vultures themselves should be the last to preach of ethical or moral values. From the quagmire of unprecedented corruption they have been pointing their accusing fingers at VP Sara whose office they practically defunded.
The Commission on Audit had issued an unmodified opinion on VP Sara’s liquidation report but this did not matter to the crooks in Congress whose primordial objective is actually to derail her from the route to the presidency.
When it was time to demand Pres. BongBong Marcos to publicly account for his ₱4.5-billion pesos Confidential and Intelligence Fund, the Palace quickly doused cold water on the issue with the garrulous Presidential Spokesperson Kler Castro preaching: “Hindi kailangan ang resibo kaya nga tinawag na ‘confidential’ fund”. Meanwhile the mafiosos were eerily quiet nobody ever asserted that whatever is good for the goose is good for the gander.
In another display of absurdity, the political cosa nostra had been peddling to the public their presidential bets who in turn never kept their desire to be one. The first to declare her intention to run was Risa Hontiveros who unabashedly claimed there is a clarion call from Mindanao and Visayas for her to run President. Before she can get any traction the fractured group who parade themselves as the “Opposition” jettisoned her and picked former Vice President Leni Robredo as their candidate.
There was no fuss from the Johnny-come-lately analysts and the big media establishments. So unlike when VP Sara Duterte announced she is running, which is actually a reaffirmation of what the mafiosos had expected, they were all agog and heaped all the negative criticism they can conjure to denounce the Sara’s early declaration.
In the meantime Malacanang Palace came astir from limbo. Bongbong Marcos will meet with Leni Robredo in what is seen as an ironic move to forge the Administration and …the Opposition in a grand conspiracy to stave off another Duterte Presidency.
That effectively shed off the mask and shameless pretense of the coterie of politicians who claim to be the “Opposition”. The duo are leading to a trap they themselves contrive. Leni’s simple math again comes to play. ..if you get my drift. Her votes when she ran for vice president (versus BBM) plus that of the votes of Marcos when he ran for President actually does not add up. Let us look at the figures.
In 2016 vice presidential race Leni won over BongBong by the skin of her teeth. She garnered 14,428,817 votes against BBM’S 14,155,344 votes with a difference of 273,473 votes.
In 2022, Leni ran for President against BBM and Manny Pacquiao. BBM defeated her scoring 31,629,783 votes against Leni’s 15,035,772. Sara who ran for Vice President romped away with 32,208,417 votes. That’s a huge 16,594 011 difference. If we reckon with the score of Marcos (14,155.344) when he first ran for Vice President versus Leni this would reveal the indelible fact that Sara helped Marcos win with 16,594, 011!
Using the same statistics, even if you combine the votes of Leni 14,428,817 plus BBM’s 14, 155,344 or a total of 28,584,161 votes Sara would still enjoy a lead of 4-million votes.
That is as far as a quick math is concerned. The political atmosphere has radically changed. Sara, the real and lone but a formidable political figure with true grit and intellect, enjoy the highest and approval ratings in all surveys done by prestigious survey firms. She will deal with them with the backing of a nation that had enough of undeterred corruption and inept politicians.
This relives the memory when in 2018 Sen. Panfilo Lacson described then Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte as one who “has all the qualities of a good leader: strong-willed, stern, vibrant and progressive-minded”, and is his, “top choice among the country’s young leaders”. That statement is transforming into a prophecy.
