BBB bashing is very popular these days it might just become a mobile game. The opposition should see the potential of that though it will not happen that Marcos will allow his likeness to be used for the purpose. Marcos realizes this comes with the territory which is why he’s perfected the art of being a cool cat. In the 2016 Vice-Presidential debate, he was under fire from Robredo, Trillanes and Cayetano. Three against one. He made it through that with flying colors.
Semantics matter. Even the President has said so himself. Nag-aral sa labas. Magaling sa English. Mareng Winnie doesn’t seem to understand the difference between “convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude” as opposed to convicted of crime as defined in the Omnibus Election Code. Marcos’ tax evasion case is covered by three legal codes; civil, national internal revenue code and the revised penal code. The omnibus election code comes into the picture because he is a candidate running for President.
How much did we lose due to gov’t folly?
In his reply yesterday, Estelito Mendoza was curt. The Court of Appeals ruling made final and executory in 1997, serves judicial notice to all government departments and agencies of its ruling. Therefore, when applicable, it is the function of the department or agency concerned, to apply the apporiate sanction, if any, against Marcos. Simply put, if there was any basis for Marcos to be disqualified from running for public office, for any elective post he intended to run for after 1997, it falls upon the Comelec to apply the apporiate sanction, if need be. No sanction was applied.
This should put a stop to all the legal wrangling and the commentary but now Mareng Winnie is accusing Marcos of being a barefaced liar. She’s not the first one. Antonio Carpio did the same in his column this week. Perjury in his answer to Question No. 22 of the Certificate of Candidacy form. He didn’t even bother to point out that for purposes of candidacy for elective office, shouldn’t there be a colatilla in Question No. 22 to provide context? It should therefore read, “have you ever been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude?”
Mareng Winnie doesn’t stop with the Marcos bashing. There is also her usual target, the administration’s economic managers. The insinuation is there is a huge amount of monies missing from government. Billions, if not trillions. The implication is it will go to financing the campaign of the administration’s candidates. This is more due to the President’s statement “magdala ako sako-sakong pera.” Pragmatists understand how elecitons are won in this country. It’s not like candidates and political parties can say with a straight face that they never engaged in vote-buying. As it is, we have Manny Pacquiao going around the country doling out a thousand pesos to each lucky individual in his campaign sorties. What do we call this? Fiscal stimulus?
NEDA Secretary-General Karl Chua doesn’t mince words when it comes to economic losses. But we are not alone, not that we should be proud of it. It will take some time to build GDP back up to pre-pandemic levels. This is why the word pandemic is used. It is global in scale. Global as in the whole world. The other side of the coin is, could Mar Roxas have done better if he was President? I don’t think so. One only has to look at the track record of the Aquino administation with its flagship PPP. It became Pira-Pirasong Project. Nothing near Build Build Build.
It’s no different from the Vice-President’s Kalayaan sa Covid platform. The economic recovery strategy has always been premised on the safe reopening of the economy. That is within reach now with the vaccination rate of NCR+ making it possible to do so. Monsod doesn’t mention government’s success in handling the Delta surge and how we have managed not to become anywhere near like what India and Indonesia went through.
As a friend remarked yesterday, “ang problema ngayon walang critical thinking. Kung ano na lang ang mabasa sa social media.” It doesn’t help that this is reinforced by a Professor Emeritus of the UP School of Economics. By the way, the Veep is an alum of the UPSE. Have you ever heard her speaking like an economist?
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