By Gonzalo Duque

 

A lot of things are unfolding before our eyes.

For one, the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte now becomes an issue in the forthcoming May elections.

Surely, the opposition will use this as an opportunity to paint the evil side of the present leadership of the Marcos administration and expose issues like the bankruptcy of PhilHealth, graft and corruption, the corrupt budget of Congress, our economic disaster and the indecisive leadership of PBBM.

Will this be enough to topple or crush PBBM and his administration ticket?

From the looks of it, it may not be enough and it can be compared with what happened in the aftermath of the Plaza Miranda bombing of 1971, where almost all opposition candidates were severely injured.

From that time, when the Liberal Party senatorial candidates held their rallies at Plaza Miranda, the administration candidates of then President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos were very sure to capture almost all the seats in the senate.

But if I can remember it right, after the Plaza Miranda bombing, the Liberal Party senatorial candidates won by a margin of 6-2 (there were only eight senatorial candidates then as provided for in the 1935 Constitution).

But methinks that even if the opposition gets the people’s sympathy in the coming election, I am not very sure if our electoral system will not result in cheating because of the possible machination of the COMELEC through the use of the new MIRU System of South Korea, whose track record has not been amply demonstrated as provided by law.

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Just this morning, February 7, as I am writing this column, the city COMELEC office gathered all candidates of Dagupan to sign a covenant for a peaceful and orderly election in May.

This has been repeated a lot of times in the past with all the fanfare as if all the commitment of the candidates will hold true.

Of particular interest is the appeal of City Election Officer Michael Franks Sarmiento that they (candidates) should only expound on their advocacies, platform and vision and refrain from exploiting the faults of the other aspirants.

While the appeal may be “cute”, the realities during elections will not reflect such admonition.

I am quite sure that after the signing, the candidates will return to their old rhetorics and engage in mud-slinging just to paint each other black and black.

Let us see if they will comply with the COMELEC’S request that they discuss only their advocacies, platform and vision. 

But I would love it if they will mix it up a bit in my presence. Yong may kunting pasundot-sundot, that would be okay. 

What I appeal to all the candidates is there should be no vote-buying as it is against the law of man and God.

Ang sagot ng mga kandidato dito ay: He, he, he, he!

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I had been asking our coordinator, Janice Hidalgo, to invite Her Honor, Councilor Celia Lim, for a one-on-one interview with me at our podcast, “The Punching Duo”.

Ermin, my co-host, has assured me that if Celia will come, he will allow me to interview her alone.

As of this time, we have not received any response from her.

In case Celia does accept our invitation, we also requested Janice to get Vice Mayor Bryan Kua, and Councilor Michael, Fernandez, and Celia’s allies, Councilors Redford Erfe-Mejia and Alfie Fernandez.

It will be two each every podcast or altogether in one podcast, whichever they prefer.

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Going back to the impeachment of Sara Duterte, we observed that Congressmen  Ramon Guico Jr.  of the Fifth District, and  Arthur Celeste of the First district did not sign the impeachment complaint.

I can only guess that their not signing the impeachment complaint is due to the massive votes of the Iglesia Ni Cristo in our province. 

One hundred thousand more or less is a lot of votes and it will greatly affect the results of our local  elections. 

‘Nothing wrong with that! 

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