‘Grin and bear it’

By Herbert Vego

“GRIN and bear it,” a proverb which means “to go through adversity with good humor,” is all this writer can advise followers of Vice-President Leni Robredo who still can’t comprehend how she could have lost the presidential race to the “junior” of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

There are no compelling reasons for us to believe in the legitimacy of Congress’ proclamation of “BBM” Marcos and Sarah Duterte-Carpio as the next president and vice-president, respectively. The numbers are too good to be true.

It is mind-boggling just to think that Marcos won 31,629,783 or 58.77 percent of total votes counted, while Robredo got only 15,035,773 votes. How could the voters have flipped-flopped with no apparent reason?

The composition of the new “magic 12” in the Senate is unbelievable with only one opposition re-electionist in it. Robin Padilla, an ex-convict, topped the race.

Anyway, we can still laugh at Senate President Tito Sotto (one of Sara’s opponents) for telling the two during the proclamation ceremony at the Batasang Pambansa: “You have been placed by God in this position for a reason.”

OMG, placed by God?  Not by the smart alecks from Smartmatic and the Comelec?

Remember when Robredo bested Marcos for vice-president in 2016?

He protested before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), only to be embarrassed when his protest even rewarded more votes for Robredo.

And as I cited in a previous column, Bongbong ended up blaming Smartmatic – the sole provider of vote-counting machines – because “ang ibinebenta nila ay hindi ang election system. Ang ibinebenta nila ay daya-an system.”

Oh well then, was it he who bought that daya-an on May 9, 2022?

There could be good reasons for Leni now to file an election protest at the PET based on evidence purporting to show automated rigging of votes – as in Comelec’s transparency servers spitting each batch of election returns constantly giving Marcos 68% of the votes and 32% to Sara.

There are no indications that VP Leni would go for it. She seems resigned to waiting for the Supreme Court (SC) decision on the disqualification cases filed against Marcos which hinge on the premise that he had not filed income taxes for four years.

Another school of thought on the matter is that if Marcos is disqualified after assumption of office, the elected vice-president would take over.

However, VP Leni – who is still in New York City with her daughters — seems “resigned” to whatever will be, will be. She has expressed no objection to Congress’ proclamation of Bongbong and Sara. Her counsel Romulo Macalintal did not go beyond saying, “She accepts the decision of the majority”.

If VP Leni did say that, was she saying she had really lost the election? Not robbed of the winning number of votes?

That is not what her supporters are willing to accept, as some 200 of them staged an anti-Marcos rally at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) compound the other day, coinciding with the Marcos-Duterte proclamation. Call it a “snapshot” of bigger rallies to come.

Members of International Observers Mission (IOM) who have been monitoring the conduct of the May 9 elections are in collaboration with the CHR in documenting the state of our democracy. IOM Commissioner and Belgian Parliamentarian Séverine De Laveleye was reported in the local media to have said of the polls, “The outcome suggests a continued drift towards repression, state impunity, and state terror.”

The congratulatory calls made by United States President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping were no doubt meant to ask him to pursue closer ties with them.  Which one would he be closer to?

Days after those phone calls, Marcos declared his intention to resist pressure from China and stick to the 2016 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration invalidating China’s nine-dash line territorial claim over the South China Sea. China has rejected the verdict.

Incidentally, while all Bongbong’s relatives (including his aging mom, 92-year-old Imelda), none of Sara’s were around. One could not help but recall that President Duterte had never dreamed of his daughter running for vice-president under a standard bearer whom he had called “weak leader” and “spoiled child”.

It would not be presumptuous to say that the incoming administration – being made up of factions loyal to either the Marcoses or Duterte — is not without internal rivalry stemming from mutual distrust. Take note of the names being floated for appointive positions.

It is no secret that Sara had aspired to head the Department of Defense, but BBM is inclined to send her to the Department of Education instead. As to why, your guess is as good as mine.

Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, elected anew as congresswoman of Pampanga (2^nd Dist.) wants to regain the House Speakership. She seems to have already given up without fighting to another aspirant, Leyte’s Martin Romualdez, a first cousin of BBM. This should deter any move to Impeach BBM.

The Senate presidency appears to be headed for a showdown between Migz Zubiri and Cynthia Villar, who are also identified with the incoming president and incoming vice-president, respectively.

BBM has identified a traditional politician, Congressman Boying Remulla, as Secretary of Justice. Is he sending a strong signal to the media to “behave”? Remember, Remulla was one of the major prosecutors in Congress who junked the franchise renewal of ABS-CBN.

The heat is on.