Siftings
The Battle for Credibility
Everyday, the plot thickens. Everyday, there’s a new angle, a new intrigue, a new gusot among the wanabes to be straightened out.
The 2 standard-bearers of the top 2 political parties, the National Party and the Liberal Party, are presently engaged in a deadly struggle for credibility,via questions of each other’s integrity, moral ascendancy, and plain honest-to-goodness honesty. But where, really, lies the real truth? The way I see it, the half-truths manipulated or even slightly modified are misleading. Take the case of the NP standard bearer’s claims to a poverty-stricken past, to wit: swimming in a “sea of basura” in his Tondo neighborhood; having a brother die of leukemia purportedly due to lack of money for doctors and hospitalization, etc. These can be dangerous signals of a manipulative bent in the person’s character. If he lied about these facts, what can stop him from lying about other things, other actions, once he gets the presidency? What can stop him from making more insertions a la C-5 in government deals, making his deals look official under the guise of political acts? With the billions he has spent so far, can it be possible that he would not move heaven and earth to get back his money? Successful businessman that he is,self-made to boot, would he be able to accept what would amount to a huge financial loss for long? Babawiin niya ang gastos niya maski papano.
I remember that a month or so ago, commercials started carrying these themes of poverty seemed to work, marked by an increase in the survey ratings of the candidate, augmented by official and unofficial endorsements from celebrities like the so-called comedy king (whose “comic” antics now run to sickening and questionable verbal and physical insults on the persons of other characters which are supposedly endlessly funny for his Pinoy masa audiences); the popular, fabulously wealthy host of a noontime variety show (by virtue of his milyun-milyong salary and perks at ABS-CBN); the billionaire boxer with his megabucks now running for a congressional seat in Sarangani, a convenient place to run as congressman despite his (I guess) lack of residence there because we know that his real residence is in Gen. San.
But too much too soon can induce vomiting and disgust. The ratings have started to go down again, hence this latest attack on the LP standard bearer. Oh oh, nagabalus lang kuno sila kay human lang sila.
But does being human mean one can and should get away with half-truths, which actually are half-lies? And these half-lies can be veritable murders, because, after countless repetitions they get accepted as truths, while the real Truth lies gasping for breath, bleeding at our doorsteps? Sad.
The NP Vice presidential bet has of late, gotten officially into the mud-slinging fray: she claims to be the victim of an image-busting campaign by her closest rival, which is indeed very strange and clearly unbelievable, because her rival trails her by almost twice her score in the survey ratings game. In a TV news coverage last week, the workers (their faces blurred for their protection) on a promo campaign to besmirch the reputation of the rival contender’s wife identified her as the mover behind the promo. I’m not clear about this, having been busy with dinner preparations. But gee! If you were in the lead by almost twice the rating of your rival, would you still go for that kind of smear campaign, endangering your own sterling reputation and your family’s impeccable legacy of honor? The above poverty claims have been exposed as lies by the rival political party. And for that, the NP is relentlessly pursuing the Topak issue against the LP standard bearer with fake documents about a past mental problem, which has been debunked as fake. They are challenging the standard-bearer to submit to a psychiatric test. A psychiatric test? Hello. Sobra naman sila, you get recommended for that kind of test only when you are actually foaming at the mouth, as in M-A-D, a real dementia praecox case, not the madcap type or mad housewife with the diary type. His willingness to take a lie detector test is already a form of giving in to the demands of Truth, because one cannot take the psychiatric test basta-basta.
So, who’s the guilty party in this particular mud-slinging? The NP denies it, although it has been targeted by ABS-CBN’s Maria Ressa as the source of the fake document. If it is the NP, kapalan na talaga; whoever it was has done the damage. The LP standard-bearer now walks under a shadow of doubt as to his mental state. But it needs looking into.
Has anything this Senator done or spoken point to a mental aberration or emotional problem in him? No. But look at the rival: he has consistently refused to answer or clarify the C-5 issue which is now filed as an unresolved scam along with the P720 million fertilizer scam, the ZTE Broadband Deal, the P50,000 gift of unknown origin placed in paper bags and doled out as gifts to congressmen. What about that military scam by that general who tried to hide dollars from an allocation for travel funds to a delegation, under his sons’ names, etc.? Who are the real beneficiaries of these scams or would-be scams?
And this plunder of the Filipino people’s money goes on unabated, unchecked, unconscionably without a pang of conscience. Consider how the old pensioners at GSIS periodically complain of not receiving their pensions, or of receiving pensions with subtractions, etc. Is that because GSIS funds are being siphoned off to fund the election campaign, official trips abroad of the President and her entourage, etc.,etc.?
For shame, for shame.
Is the official plunder of a nation’s coffers, filled up by the taxes of the hardworking middle classes and OFW’s, now considered a bona fide part of governing? Since when? It seems that acts of this nature has become so common, almost routine, that they have seeped into our consciousness so deeply as to become a modus operandi for governance, a now completely acceptable mode of political action for politicians who, by the way, are paid more profitably than their colleagues in the past.
Consider how political dynasties proliferate in our land, despite a law to the contrary which can never be passed because Congress and the Senate are trimming with father-son, mother-son, husband-wife, uncle/aunt-nephew, brother-sister, in-laws, cousins, etc. occupying practically all levels of government officialdom. I am not saying here that these have no other intention but to steal from the coffers of the nation. What I mean is, having one’s family members in government positions of power with access to government funds makes a family not only within sight of wealth but also prone to excess and abuse of power – the Maguindanao massacre is the grim ultimate result of this centralization of power in one very extended family of vast political power.
I didn’t realize that politics is really, truly profitable these days. Even the once lowly, poorly-paid councilors get P38,000 a month salary, with access to a budget of P48 million government funds (did I get this right from a brief TV newscast the other night?)
In any case, politics in the Philippine is one great PD–not Presidential Decree–but more correctly, PP-DDD or Profitable for Politicians but Dirty, Deplorable and Destructive for the Filipino People.
But take heart, Kababayans, kasimanwas. Let’s make May 10 make the difference for us as a nation, so we can throw away the PP-DDD’s from our lives! Daw masuka na gid ako!
