POLITICAL MUTTERS: The two main presidential aspirants, of the admin and the opposition, still have no VP running mates. The third force, though yet undecided to run, has not just one or two, but three committed VPs.
So far three VPs whom Mar Roxas was wooing have turned him down: Grace Poe, Vilma Santos, and Leni Robredo. Jojo Binay too thrice has been jilted, by Poe, Rodrigo Duterte, and Bongbong Marcos.
In contrast, three VP contenders declare Poe as their presidential standard bearer: Francis Escudero, Alan Peter Cayetano, and Antonio Trillanes IV.
There’s a message there perhaps. Politically savvy, Escudero and Cayetano know that campaign money and machinery are crucial. Yet they have thrown their lot with Poe who, because undeclared, has yet none of the two M’s, only the big P, Poe-pularity.
Meanwhile, a pro-Roxas congressman says Noynoy Aquino no less should be his VP. There’s a joke there perhaps but, sorry, we didn’t get it.
* * *
His 55 or so consultants must restrain Senator Trillanes from suing for libel the critics of his hiring of, um, 55 or so consultants. In justifying them he says he has a consultant for “practically all aspects of governance to help” him. Maybe one of them knows enough to not antagonize Netizens into crowd-sourcing more dirt against him, and swarming into virtual protest demonstrations.
Criticisms are par for the course in politics. Being accustomed as a former soldier – and failed mutineer – to barking out orders does not change that. To sue the critics for libel is to muzzle them. The Netizens might fight back, like they did in actual demonstrations at the Luneta and other major plazas against the pork barrel. Already there are agitations for the public pelting of Trillanes with rotten eggs everywhere he’s seen.
What the Netizens post online are valid reactions to news about Trillanes’ 55 or so consultants, like:
• Quoting the Tagalog saying, “Ang magnanakaw ay galit sa kapwa magnanakaw (The thief hates his fellow-thief),” to liken his attacks on Binay’s “plundering” as ex-Makati City mayor, with his overspending of P1.25 million a month on consultancy fees from the Senate’s allowable P506,262 a month;
• His attack on the Binays’ political dynasty, while he builds a dynasty in the Senate, with a brother as consultant and another relative as chief of staff;
• His allegations of “ghost” senior citizens in Makati’s roster of beneficiaries, in contrast to his “ghost” consultants – previously secret until the Commission on Audit asked the Office of the Senate President for documents of their supposed special skills;
• His “betrayal of public trust” in hiding the 55 or so consultants, the same way he betrayed ex-Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile who had him released from military stockade, Binay who supported his second (Peninsula Hotel) mutiny against ex-President Arroyo, and the country when he took the side of Beijing in the 2012 invasion of Scarborough Shoal.
Those Netizens are entitled to their opinion about Trillanes, the same way he’s entitled to opine as “cheap” the P60,000-a-month that he pays his brother (P71,200 in COA records, according to The Manila Standard), and “petty” the matter of having 55 or so consultants.
* * *
“Manhid at palpak (insensitive and inept).” Being in the Cabinet for five years, VP Binay saw the true traits of the members to describe them such. The public learns about them only through their words.
The Cabinet men follow the leader P-Noy’s ways. Recall that days after Super Typhoon Yolanda, P-Noy snapped at a Tacloban City grocer for asking for stern action against looter, from whose gunfire he had just survived: “Buhay ka pa naman, di ba (You’re still alive, aren’t you)?” For which the Cabinet men have these variations:
• “It was just a ‘mis-encounter’” – Interior Sec. Mar Roxas’ first statement about the massacre of the SAF-44.
• “He has talked about it enough” – Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda, on why P-Noy left the SAF-44’s heroism out of his last SONA, while honoring his hairdresser, clothes stylist, and housemaid.
• “You benefited from our DAP too” – Budget Sec. Florencio Abad, to Binay’s criticism of the outlawed presidential pork barrel.
• “Zzzz!” – Agriculture Sec. Proceso Alcala, on rice price surges after unfulfilling his promised grain self-sufficiency by 2013.
• “Traffic won’t kill you” – Transport Sec. Joseph Abaya, on gridlocks as the new normal, due to delayed LRT rail extension and dilapidated MRT trains.
• “Be glad there’s progress” – Lacierda again, on the LRT extension into only two additional towns as a sign of economic prosperity.
• “Go ride the bus” – Press Sec. Herminio Coloma, as advice to MRT commuters who get to work and school late due to erratic trains.
• “Those are newly dead, we already cleaned up yesterday” – Roxas again, on corpses strewn on tree branches from Yolanda’s lethal storm surges.
• “We only got, in catch-up, what (ex-President Arroyo) withheld from us” – Abad again, on why he released P860 million in pork to his congresswoman-wife in 2011-2013, when others received only P70 million a year.
* * *
Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).
Gotcha archives on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarius-Bondoc/1376602159218459, or The STAR website http://www.philstar.com/author/JariusBondoc/GOTCHA
E-mail: jariusbondoc@gmail.com