IN A rare, perhaps even unprecedented scenario, another widow might pull off a victory in the presidential race in 2022. It could happen via two ways: political or legal. There is a third, in fact: a miracle, providential, if you like, resonating a popular sentiment that becoming a president is a matter of destiny.
It happened before, meaning the sense of a déjà vu is in the air now. The possibility is growing everyday, and one camp is obviously unnerved. Can you imagine an assassination plot is suddenly seen, like a cul de sac? Three or four months is a long time in politics. Anything can happen.
For Vice President Leni Robredo, winning isn’t just about political. She wants a moral victory,too. She prefers beating former senator Bongbong Marcos, again, in the May 9 polls. Once and for all, she wants everybody to know, including BBM himself, that her hard-won victory in the vice presidential race against him in 2016 was no fluke. Of course, it wasn’t, as facts and figures showed, even if BBM is still swimming in The Nile.
Before the unintimidated but intimidating Jessica Soho became publicly intrusive and compelling with her presidential interviews where BBM conveniently begged off, Robredo was riding on an impossible dream, it seemed. The survey was lopsided: 53 per cent against 20 percent. After the interview, the myth of invincibility dissipated into thin air, melting down BBM as just another mortal who can be beaten, fair and square.
Now, the ball is in Robredo’s court. More public interviews, tough and honest as they come,are in the offing. This time around, BBM can only make himself scarce at his own peril. Come clean or fade quietly into the night. At this time, Robredo must have already learned the ropes. Politics is a contact sport. She needs to be honest, if brutally. Her rival, she said without hesitation, is a liar and becomes an invisible man in times of crisis. “I’m not upset that you lied to me,” wrote Nietzsche , “I’m upset that now on I can’t believe you”. Her elbows are getting stronger by the day.
There’s a second window for Robredo: the pending disqualification cases against the dictator’s s before the COMELEC. It has dismissed one petition, but the petitioners insist the poll body missed the law and have asked that it reconsidered its earlier dismissal. For one, they argue , BBM made false material representations — lied, in short — in his certificate of candidacy. There are other pending petitions the body has yet to resolve. This is where the rubber meets the road.
Outgoing COMELEC Commissioner Rowera Guanzon has already blown the whistle. A senator she didn’t name, she revealed, is meddling on the cases, thus creating a delay in the COMELEC decision. The delay was on purpose, apparently. Guanzon is set to retire in February. The delay will make her decision, which was to disqualify BBM, of no effect, which was already foreseen by opposition lawyers urging COMELEC to release its decision while Guanzon and two other commissioners were still on board.
There were two stark reactions to Guanzon’s revelation. On the one hand, the BBM camp wants to “kill” the messenger– a COMELEC sanction (forfeit her retirement pay) and a disbarment, to boot. On the other, Robredo wants a probe into the unnamed senator’s arrogant incursion into prohibited territory. It may only be a matter of time before the intrepid lawbreaker is publicly exposed.
Even if the COMELEC dismisses all the DQ cases in BBM’s favor, the petitioners will go down fighting as a matter of course, cause and conscience. They will, in all likelihood, bring their cases to the Supreme Court to write finis to the simple and yet complicated story, and hopefully make more than a footnote in Philippine political and judicial history— both badly needing some kind of redemption.
Here, the plot becomes tricky. “Oh what a tangled web we weave,”wrote Sir Walter Scott”, when first we practice to deceive”. The domino effect implied by Scott is not lost on the Senate. If the SC is unable to come up with the DQ decision before the polls, and BBM wins the election,there has to be an acting president to lead the country in the interim. Under the 1978 Constitution, it is the Senate President who will call the shots for the meantime.
Two things are possible under this complication, ridiculous and unsublime. Sen. Lito Lapid, barring unforeseen circumstances and strange circumspection, may be elected Senate President, ergo, the impossible. Or President Duterte can overstay his welcome in Malacanang until a new president is finally installed, ergo, the abominable.
At this point, Santayana’s warning resonates. Forget the past, you repeat it. Is another EDSA People Power possible?
Last Sunday, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban wrote in his column in a national daily that BBM should be disqualified on the basis his conviction for violating the Omnibus Tax Code and for making false representations in his certificate of candidacy. His opinion, which, supports that of former SC associate justice Antonio Carpio, should weigh heavily in the public mind, not to mention in the minds of the COMELEC officials and, ultimately, the justices.
In other words, Panganiban may have thrown another curve ball into the DQ controversy in addition to that of Guanzon that could potentially trigger a perfect storm politically. “The power of his relevance will surely be a potent aid in the coming days… founded and guided on the principle that the delivery of justice must be timely and fair, transparent and accountable.” This was a tribute paid by the present Chief Justice to Panganiban.
The pressure is on, so is the snowball.
In the 1986 snap election, 35 COMELEC workers staged a mass walk-out against unprofessional ethics in the commission. Looking back, it was one defiant scene that sparked the EDSA Revolution that ensued and, as they say, the rest is history.
Robredo, who recalled Rizal in a second interview, must be aware of the hero’s belief that the Filipinos’ peace-loving nature must be difficult to rouse from stupor. But there’s always a red line. Literally or symbolically. She must believe that, too.
