“Our president heard the loud voice of the electorate as evidenced by the results of the mid-terms”
There have been instances in history when despots did some drastic measures to preserve or enhance their continued power. These periods, and I will ask our readers to search these in the internet, have sometimes been called “the night of the long knives,” or purges.
This is what our president sought to convey to the electorate, though he used a kinder term – “reset.”
The ostensible reason? Our president heard the loud voice of the electorate as evidenced by the results of the mid-terms.
He and his Alyansa fielded well-known political brands: Lacson, Sotto, Cayetano, Binay, teleradyo favorite Tulfo, movie celebrities Revilla and Lapid, re-electionist Tolentino and his very own DILG secretary, Abalos, even the “pambansang kamao,” Manny Pacquiao.
Their awareness level were in the high 90’s. “Formidable,” as Charles Aznavour would sing.
Arrayed against these “iconic” superstars were just two re-electionists, Bong Go and Bato, plus a lesser known Marcoleta who started out with 30 percent awareness along with singer-composer-turned lawyer Jimmy Bondoc.
There was an imprisoned pastor who claimed “legions” of followers, a retired movie actor, a discarded executive secretary of the current president, and others whose names ring a bell perhaps only in their towns or provinces.
Plus, ne pas oublier, Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan, outliers from the pinklawan tribe whose names were household though.
And then there were two defectors from the Alyansa, with high awareness as well, the president’s sister mismo and an heiress to vast family fortune, Camille Villar.
The odds were clearly stacked for the president’s chosen 12, later diminished into 10.
When the race began, the Alyansa clearly outclassed their rivals. Their resident pollster predicted a 10-2 sweep, with only Bong Go surviving, plus an independent Ben Tulfo. His worst case scenario had the clueless Revillame making it 9-3 for the Alyansa.
Congress through its Quadcomm and other “comites de pakialam” roasted over the coals the other half of the vaunted “Uniteam” which severely hurt the lady VP who to her eternal regret joined up with Marcos II in late 2021.
The trial by publicity engineered by the Torquemadas in the HoR did severe political damage to the vice-president, which of course further limited the chances of her father’s senatorial slate.
But then again, whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
Arrogance and hubris crafted a budget “most corrupt,” in the words of two of the Alyansa candidates: Imee and Ping.
Then, within eight hours of Feb. 5, just as Congress was to recess for the campaign, 215 congressmen signed without reading an instant impeachment complaint crafted in the dead of night. Do a time and motion exercise, and see what I mean.
They unanimously gave the lie to the president’s oft-repeated pronouncements that “impeachment would not improve the life of a single Filipino.” Ah! But it would fatten their pockets as the Alyansa campaign manager said for the record.
Bribed to sign, to put it simply.
This was followed by a mysteriously insane political act a month later, when a beloved 80-year old former president was shanghaied into the enfeebled arms of an ICC which needed a shot in the arm to keep it alive, through concupiscence with a prosecutor who wanted to deflect attention from charges of sexual harassment.
That turned strong waves of public disaffection into an emotional tsunami impossible to stop, and polarized the nation into a disaffected North reeling from economic problems and a raging South where salt was rubbed into wounds created by the impeachment of their favorite daughter.
In time, even the Alyansa coalition with the “mostest” in money and machinery, was deserted by El Presidente’s “manang,” – among Ilokanos, a term for an elder sister – and informally by another candidate.
Tables were instantly turned. Even the absentee votes from the soldiers and policemen who could not vote in their respective precincts made a complete shut-out of the Alyansa and a loud shout-out for the Duter-ten, unknowns and imprisoned preacher selected.
Merveilleuse! As if getting Marcoleta, Imee and Camille squeak to victory on top of Go and Bato was not enough, a political resurrection for Bam and Kiko gave the dirty finger to the pollsters.
Malacanang was shell-shocked. To desperately try to snatch survival from defeat, the president does a “night of the long knives” and calls for the resignation, albeit “courtesy” of all in his Cabinet, later expanded to every other agency.
In our Thursday column, we will try to analyze what is turning out to be the night of “plastic” knives.
