Filipino insulting the Filipino
By Al S. Mendoza
THOSE voting for Marcos Jr. are as blind as a bat.
They don’t care about history.
They don’t care about facts.
They don’t love their country, the Philippines.
The horrible facts and figures are screaming right in front of them.
They hear, but don’t listen.
They see, but refuse to look.
They feel it, but ignore the impact.
Just looking at the unassailable data makes the guts churn.
Only the diehard dregs in society wouldn’t flinch.
After President Cory Aquino stunned the world by allowing the Marcoses to return to the country in 1991—just five years after the Marcoses had been unceremoniously driven out of Malacanang in 1986—Imelda, the dictator’s widow, immediately ran for President in 1992.
Not surprisingly, she did well, propped up by the so-called Solid North and her loyalists in her Southern turf in Leyte and the Visayas.
In fact, her candidacy enormously helped derail Danding Cojuangco’s own presidential bid that year as Imelda’s votes would have been concededly Danding’s.
Tarlac’s proud son that he was, Danding also enjoyed the support of the Solid North.
But history was unkind to the man known as the estranged first cousin of Tita Cory—the late Danding being closely allied with the late dictator.
As fate would have it, Fidel V. Ramos won the 1992 derby, merely on the strength of Tita Cory’s backing.
Before winning, Ramos broke away from the convention pact that selected the late Ramon Mitra as the official presidential bet.
Mitra, the well-loved House speaker, took to his grave a pained mind, a wounded heart.
But as Imelda lost her presidential ambition, the dictator’s son won as congressman before becoming governor again of Ilocos Norte.
Marcos Jr. won as senator in 2010, but lost to Leni Robredo in their vice presidential duel in 2016.
Their rematch in the coming May polls is keenly seen as a thriller, if not a squeaker.
Already, the Marcoses have come back politically, with Imee, Marcos Jr’s sister, a sitting senator.
Imee’s son, Matthew, is gunning for reelection as governor of Ilocos Norte.
Ferdinand Alexander, Bongbong’s 28-year-old son, is running for a Congress seat in Ilocandia.
Historically, the Marcoses have lost court cases involving gargantuan sums of money.
In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that $658 million of Swiss funds were deemed illegally acquired by the Marcoses, with the high court saying, “Marcos and Imelda were unable to conceal the skeletons of their kleptocracy.”
In its records, the PCGG (Presidential Commission on Good Government) has recovered $3.3 billion of an estimated $10-billion ill-gotten wealth and unearthed over $2.4 billion more in assets like condominiums, paintings, and landholdings (all under litigation).
In 2018, the Sandiganbayan found Imelda guilty of 7 counts of graft. It also found Imelda as having funneled around $200 million to Swiss foundations when she was Metro Manila governor under the Marcos regime.
Only recently, exposed was the P203 billion in estate taxes owed to the government by Imelda and Bongbong, the co-administrators of Marcos Sr’s properties.
Will you still vote for Marcos Jr.?
Do it and that will redound to the Filipino insulting the Filipino.
Self-respect thrashed down the gutter.
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