The word going around among political operators for months now is that erstwhile undecided presidential candidate Rody/Digong Duterte is allowing himself to be used in a ploy by the Roxas camp to try and pull down Grace Poe’s ratings.
The buzz is that Duterte is Roxas’ cat’s claw. What that means is that Roxas deployed Duterte as a countermeasure against Poe in order to bring down her chances of winning, at least, in Mindanao.
According to a Pulse Asia Survey, in Mindanao, Duterte is at 35 percent, Binay is at 20 percent, and Poe is at 18 percent. If you remember what Virgilio Garcilano said in the Hello Garci tapes, cheating elections involves cleaving to survey stats and taking votes from the weakest contender. More over, you have to consider that for the longest time, most of the so-called electoral cheating has happened in the southern Philippines.
Anyway, there is no denying that Duterte said that he had finally decided to seek the presidency the Senate Electoral Tribunal decided to throw out the disqualification case against Poe — which, by the way, was filed by Rizalito David whom political operators say was funded by Congressman Egay Erice.
Political operators told me months ago that there are many plans under Erice’s Oplan Atake Hila (attack and pull down Grace Poe).
Plan A was to get Poe to run as Roxas’ vice president and if that didn’t work, Plan B would be to launch a sustained vilification campaign against Poe if plan A didn’t pan out well. Then, as Plan B was being implemented, Plan C would be simultaneously come into play and this would involve the filing of cases against Poe at the Senate Electoral Tribunal and at the Commission on Elections.
Then there is Plan D, which is to unleash Duterte against Poe. Which will work in conjunction with Plan E, Election Cheating and from there on,political operators wonder if there is a Plan P for PCOS.
As I have been saying in a number of previous posts, politics is deception and the only way you can discern some form of truth in all of this is to pay more attention to what politicians do. The revealing questions one should ask are: Whose interests are affected positively or negatively by their actions? Who has to most to lose or gain as a consequence of their action/s? What are they not saying or what questions aren’t they answering directly?
I guess, if a journalist is really serious about reporting on political developments, these are the things they would report on. But seeing as some journalists are suspected to be figuratively and literally in bed with their sources or are too busy trying to become some kind of celebrity, I guess it is up to the viewing/reading public to do their best to filter out the propaganda.
With this Duterte-as-Roxas’-cat’s-claw-theory going around, there are number of things over the past several months that I find hard to ignore.
Apart from what I have heard from political operators and my other sources, there are these following things:
Kung si Liberal Party Chairman for Electoral and Political Affairs Rep. Egay Erice ang tatanungin, tatakbo pa rin si Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte sa pagkapangulo sa 2016 elections. Aniya, isang political strategy lang ang pag-anunsyo ng alkalde na di tatakbo. Maraming beses na raw kasi niyang sinabing walang interes sa mataas na posisyon pero patuloy ang pag-iikot sa mga probinsya.(Translation: If Liberal Party Chairman for Electoral and Political Affairs Rep. Egay Erice were to be asked if Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is running for president in 2016, he says that the mayor’s announcement that he isn’t running is merely a political strategy. Erice pointed out that there were many times that Duterte said that he had no interest in a higher position but still went around the provinces campaigning.)
Then in October, one several Grace Poe for President pages I had liked on Facebook had been renamed to United Supporters & Volunteers of Rody Duterte.
Here is a crop of the description of the page:
But even before these things, in June, Roxas claimed to be really best friends with Duterte:
Matagal na kaming magkaibigan ni Mayor Digong. Kapag nasa Manila siya, nagkikita kami doon. Kapag nandito ako (sa Davao), nagkikita kami,” Roxas said in an interview with reporters.(Mayor Digong (Duterte) and I have been friends for a long time. When he’s in Manila, we see each other. When I am in Davao, we see each other.)On Wednesday night, INQUIRER.net received a photo of Roxas and Duterte’s meeting, which the DILG secretary confirmed.“Ganun lang ‘yun, isang pagtatagpo ng dalawang matalik at matagal nang magkaibigan,” Roxas said.
Gee! Really? Best friends? Yeah, the body language in Rappler’s picture says it all. Duterte with arms crossed and Roxas looking as if he is pleading with Mindanao’s tough guy.
First of all, there are no permanent friends or allies in politics. The only permanent thing is self-interest. What does Duterte have to gain or lose? Think about it.
And, oh yeah, what does the next picture communicate?
No comments:
Post a Comment