By Diego Morra
Just plain dirty. This is the most decent thing one could use to describe the pathetic attempt of the militarist forces to spread the canard that Bayan Muna partylist was “disqualified” by the Commission on Elections and it appears to be the worst gimmick that can hardly compel voters to change their minds.
Sa madaling sabi, salto ang gimik ng National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict na linlangin ang mga botante na naghahanda nang bumoto laban sa pangungurakot ng tambalang Marcos Jr. at Duterte Jr. They are just two ugly faces of the same rotten coin and they only differ by the level of their greed, one a grafter who would use a vacuum to get the entire moolah and deliver it to the her pocket using a universe of fake names. It is called graft since it involves stealing public funds.
Yung isang paksyon naman, ang estilo ay kagalang-galang na pandarambong na dinadaan sa paghulma ng pambansang budget. Lahat ng kasama sa bicameral conference committee (BCC) na bumuo ng budget ay naulingan, kasama na si Imee Marcos na namangka muna dalawang ilog subalit tumuloy na yata sa bangin. The entire trouble here is that Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin was the ponente of the Supreme Court (SC) decision that banned the despised pork barrel. Now, the 2025 budget oozes with fat, beef tallow if you will, and it appears to be continuously mocking Bersamin.
As one notorious US president said: “Let the justice enforce his decision.” It is as bad as the 1857 Dredd Scott decision of US Chief Justice Roger Taney, which ruled ridiculously that Blacks and Whites are equal but separate, which justified the Jim Crow laws which institutionalized segregation. But then justices do not need battalions to enforce their rulings because the US Constitution says it is the job of the Supreme Court (SC) to interpret laws. It is a different thing from what Stalin asked: “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Surely, moral suasion is one thing that religious leaders invoke to influence behavior.
It is clear that the social media announcing the “disqualification” of Bayan Muna bears the signature of the NTF-ELCAC and the scenario crafted by the militarist faction in the Marcos Jr. regime that wants to create new crimes—what the Americans now regard as “thought crimes.” NTF-ELCAC is fascist core of the Duterte plot to wage another tokhang, a “people’s war” as it were, against those who think differently from the Dutertes, who think logic must on walk on its head for it to mean anything.
This is Dutertization of the glial cells, Dutertization is the naked use of force by appointed or elected officials against their inferiors, like Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio mauling a Davao City court sheriff, or Rep. Paulo Duterte headbutting, slapping, kicking and punching manhandling his favorite procurer for failing to deliver the best guest relations officer (GRO) in Obrero. Dutertization also refers to the reduction of obsession with sex as a function of “biology.”
By engaging in black propaganda and meddling with the electoral process, it is not enough for the Comelec to curtly say that it has not disqualified Bayan Muna and that the partylist will remain on the ballot, whether NTF-ELCAC likes it or not. It behooves the Comelec to investigate and find out who was the mastermind for the bloody intrigue. Kailangang gawin ito ng Comelec motu proprio sapagkat nakipagpulong na ito sa mga talamak na vloggers na dapat ay nasaway na nila George Garcia.
So bad was this ploy that the Agence France-Presse (AFP) described the post as simply bogus while the Philippine Star, Philippine Daily Inquirer, ABS-CBN News, Rappler and Vera Files slammed the scurrilous fantasy woven by militarists as failed jawboning. It appears that Duterte’s boys have lost the best tools in their shed to influence the mid-term elections. The outright dismissal of the gimmick shows that even their much-touted keyboard warriors are losing their touch, if not their minds. #
