If Marcos Jr. becomes president
Since the start of 2022, I decided to keep the writing down to five days a week. This is due to the Twitter Spaces becoming a regular every Sunday afternoon. But this column by Randy David has again pushed me to break the norm because it deserves to be brought forth to the public, specially to those who do not bother to read him.
The propaganda being churned out by the opposition is sickening. It is hard to believe that they have not seen through the reasons for their loss in 2016 and 2019. They continue to pile on the same in this election cycle. You would think that if they were so intelligent, they would have prepared for the contingency of Marcos running for President in 2022 since he ran for Vice-President in 2016. But, as I am wont to say, stupid is what stupid does.
It is the same with David’s column today. Stupid again. The political structure Marcos is running under is the 1987 Constitution which was written by a Constitutional Commission whose members were all appointed by Cory Aquino. There were only a few from the opposition who made the list. It cannot be said that the members were representatives of the people.
David plants the seeds of fear in the public by elaborating on the weaknesses of the political structure in the 1987 Constitution, which begs the question, why was not these deficiencies addressed by its framers to begin with?
That will never be answered by any opposition stalwart since the purpose to just to put off voters from voting for Marcos. This is nothing different from the opposition not accepting the fact that the reason for Marcos’ popularity is their turning him and his family into uderdogs.
Filipinos are well-aware of the excesses of Imeldific. Most of them are the opinion that it was she who caused Apo Lakay’s downfall. Up to a certain extent, that is true. But there is also Marcos’ egregious error of doing away with succession planning. As Gerry Sicat stated in his paper, Marcos’ choice of dynastic succession did not sit well with the leaders of the power blocs who were all qualified and competent enough to succeed him. If Marcos addressed the issue after his recovery from the kidney transplant operation, then the transfer of power could have proceeded without the subsequent events of February 1986.
Despite this, Marcos Jr. is on track to win the Presidency by a majority. From his body language and speech pattern, it does not appear that Marcos is set to take advantage of his Presidency to favor his family in the legal dispute it has with the goverment. The best solution is a settleement. It has to be a credible settlement as each and every move of Marcos is for scrutiny when he is the President. The impact is not limited to him but the country as a whole.
It took President Noynoy Aquino, at his inaugural speech in 2010, to remind the Filipino people that elected public officials were not entitled to break the law. His “no more wang-wang” policy was emblematic of his belief that in a democracy, the people are the real boss. But under a new president, we quickly went back to the same ingrained habits.
David makes it appear that Noynoy Aquino did much to put a stop to what he termed as “wang-wang” culture. But was it really that? Was not the persecution of GMA, Chief Justice Renato Corona, Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla not examples of “wang-wang” culture when compared to the preponderance of evidence against Janet Lim Napoles and her links to Liberal Party members, including Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas?
It is about time that the opposition stops with its hypocrisy. This is one reason why voters are going for Marcos. They are sick and tired of the hypocrisy and the double-standard. The people cannot wait for May 9. They are raring to render the Yellowidiots irrelevant.
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