Published October 21, 2017 by Collective
Antonio P. Contreras' recent article about the Marcos factor in the Duterte Presidency bears undeniable truth it cuts right through the bone.
While a lot of Duterte supporters who openly flaunt their anti-Marcos sentiments may continue to deny this, the fact that President Duterte's political base is made up mostly of people who voted for Bongbong Marcos because they are sickened and disillusioned with decades of thievery and incompetence under the Aquinos is simply too hard to ignore, perhaps even impossible to repudiate.
It is equally noteworthy that many of these rabid Anti-Marcos voters even supported Leni Robredo in the 2016 elections. But there is no such thing as a Duterte-Robredo. None. Their ideological differences are just too glaring and contrasting that voting for Duterte-Robredo is practically akin to a vote for a Roxas-Marcos tandem, which, as Professor Contreras mildly puts it, is a rarity. We'd go as far as to consider it an anomaly.
A vote for Duterte is a vote for change. It is an act of rebellion against the previous ruling order. The Filipino voter's way of lifting the middle finger at the yellow administration, whose ineptness and corruption breached unimaginable and previously uncharted levels. A vote for Leni Robredo, on the other hand, is a vote to retain the previous dispensation. It means you are convinced, if not partly satisfied, that BS Aquino did a good job and represents a politics worthy of continuance that his ilk deserves another shot at the limelight.
Nothing can be more contradictory. In fact, it is worth mentioning that a lot of people who voted for Leni Robredo regardless of their preference for President have actually found Bongbong Marcos more palatable AFTER the 2016 elections. Leni's sudden unraveling - from allegations of cheating, to her inane antics and shameless posturing, her overt acts of destabilizing the government, her duplicity and hypocrisy, and issues of corruption that go way back to the Robredos' political dominance over Naga City - has actually convinced a lot of people who may have originally supported her to do a 180 degree turnaround and are now more open to the prospect of a Marcos Vice-Presidency which is precisely what the popular mandate dictated.
Following the aforementioned arguments, it would be safe to assume that Duterte supporters who continue to shun this political reality to this very day could be masquerading their ulterior motives by openly flaunting their support for President Duterte. Either that or they are simply ignorant conflicted fools who do not know right from left.
How can you reconcile your support for this President while inadvertently supporting Leni Robredo either by denying that Marcos actually won or by supporting other candidates or contenders whose long-term political interests run counter to President Duterte's and are even ushering us back to the same yellow shitpile?
A clear example would be Cayetano and Pimentel. Pimentel's duplicity is actually too glaring and obvious that he keeps recruiting turncoats to populate his PDP-Laban party instead of grooming new material to run against these opportunistic trapos. He allows his yellow colleagues to use the Senate as a venue to openly destabilize the government while he conveniently nestles himself in the power of the Senate presidency and pays nothing but lip service to flaunt his "support" for President Duterte. He allows political mercenaries like Trillanes to travel abroad possibly using government funds while he 'denounces' Trillanes' open acts of treason in front of TV cameras. Pimentel has even weaponized Rudy Farinas against the Marcoses, perhaps offering political concessions to the Ilokano lawmaker who holds much power and influence over the Lower Chamber mostly made up of turncoats (like Farinas himself) from the abomination that is the Liberal Party.
Cayetano, on the other hand, is much more subtle. He openly projects himself as a staunch defender of the President when it is public knowledge that he hates the Marcoses to the core and cares for nothing but his own political survival and ambition. As DFA Seretary, Cayetano publicly announces the administration's stance when it comes to foreign policy, yet in truth Cayetano is so pro-American (and this has more to do with his closeness to former President Ramos than himself having American genes - Alan's mother is American) he even had American consultants aligned with Obama helping him map out his long-term political strategies way before 2016. It was Cayetano who most probably bridged Tabako to Duterte and Rody Duterte did the smart thing by playing along. Otherwise, Tabako would have found ways of engineering the results (with the help of the CIA) to favor Duterte's nearest opponent.
President Duterte claims that the CIA is out to get him. But Ramos IS CIA's asset here in the Philippines. And Cayetano is Ramos' protege. One should just look into the Cayetanos' sudden dominance over Taguig, half of which was practically sold by Tabako during his term in what is now known as the Bonifacio Global City. When the late Rene Cayetano ran for Senator, he won on account of his TV program and media exposure and did not have a political base. Thanks to Ramos, Taguig was practically handed over to the Cayetanos perhaps as a way to ensure that Tabako's interests in the area are adequately protected.
Truth is, if Alan Cayetano had not run as Vice-President during the 2016 elections, Marcos' victory would have been guaranteed. No different from what Ping Lacson did back in 2004, Cayetano only managed to split the votes and offered the yellows a convenient pretext to rig the results in favor of Leni. And Cayetano most probably knew that even as Duterte's running mate, he had a slim chance of winning. Yet why did he persist? Bakit tumakbo pa kung alam na matatalo din lang? Did the President gain additional votes out of the pairing? Or was it the other way around and it was Cayetano who got more votes because he ran alongside Duterte? Votes that should have went to Marcos and solidified his win. Who benefited from Alan Cayetano's political decisions? Whose interests are he actually protecting now? We doubt if it is the President's. We doubt it even more if it is the country's interests he holds close to his heart.
So those claiming that we are being divisive by panning duplicitous schmucks like Cayetano and Pimentel should bang their heads against the wall and do the simple math here.
Who is really who in this real-life Game of Thrones where political dynamics are shaped by self-interests and dictated by survival instincts?
Nothing is as it seems in politics. Just because somebody openly flaunts his support for the President does not make him a true ally. We should look closely at a person's history and the consequences of his actions if we are to gauge his true motivations.
And it doesn't take rocket science to do that.
No comments:
Post a Comment