By Al S. Mendoza 

 

THE late dictator’s son has skipped the first major presidential public interview, disappointing some 62 million or so Filipino voters.

It was Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s first major gaffe in the run-up to the national elections on May 9, 2022.

His reason?

He accused the immensely respected Jessica Soho, the interview host, as biased against the Marcoses—without citing any reason at all.

Nobody believed him, though, except his mother.

Like him, his mother was also convicted on several counts for graft only a while back.

Like him, his mother escaped jail time under vague, if not mind-boggling, circumstances.

But what was the reason for the junior’s conviction again?

Tax evasion for not paying his income tax returns in 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985.

It’s simply teeth-gnashing that he committed those crimes yearly while he was vice governor and governor of Ilocos Norte.

How do you call a leader that knowingly commits a crime and comes out unremorseful afterwards?

He thought he wouldn’t be caught?

He thought he could always get away with crime?

He thought he was above the law?

He might have not paid his taxes, too, in 1986 had he not joined his dictator-father in exile to Hawaii as a result of the People Power Revolution.

Habits die hard, you know.

So infuriated was Rowena Guanzon, the just-retired Comelec commissioner, of Junior’s tax-dodging offenses that she couldn’t restrain herself from labelling Marcos “convicted” three times in public, in the process rendering himself guilty of “moral turpitude.”

That is the very same reason why Guanzon voted in favor of the petitioners’ call to disqualify Marcos.

However, Guanzon’s decision fell by the wayside when her fellow commissioner Aimee Ferolino, tasked to author the Comelec verdict of whether or not to kick Marcos out of the presidential race, failed to issue her position before Guanzon retired on Feb. 2.

Comelec rules provide that only a decision by a sitting commissioner is counted.

That benefited Marcos—although it is but a temporary victory as the dictator’s son’s case is almost sure of going all the way to the Supreme Court for the final and executory judgment.

The public is still irked over Junior’s move to snub the presidential interviews aired over GMA 7 only very recently.

His loyalists said they did the right thing for the simple reason that Junior could have exposed himself to unnecessary questioning by Soho.

“We are already ahead in the surveys,” said a Marcos loyalist.  “We don’t need public interviews as questions might just mislead the people.”

Ah, so the Marcos camp relies heavily on surveys to map out their plans for the May polls?

They are grievously mistaken.

Junior is now leading, yes, but wasn’t Manny Villar also ahead in the surveys, only to lose to the late Noynoy Aquino in the 2010 presidential derby?

Junior is now leading, yes, but wasn’t Jojo Binay also ahead in the surveys, only to lose to Rodrigo Duterte in the 2016 presidential race?

The Marcoses might have fooled the people once but can they do it a second time?

Fools can only rush in when we give them an opening.  Not again.

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