Imelda Marcos, 92, must be on tenterhooks.  We haven’t heard from her for a while now, but I like to think that she knows, sees, hears what’s going on, and that if the surveys are to be believed, tila panalo na si Marcos Jr., Oplan Balik-Palasyo soon to be accomplished, she must be so excited.

But who knows. Ang dami pang puwedeng mangyari. In Imelda’s place  I’d be on some happy anti-anxiety pill by day, and a sosyal -zepam by night, to see me through these next 60 days or so just because, you know, what if?  What if may talo pala, just like in 2016.

What if the kakampinks are right, that the monster crowds of VP Leni’s rallies are a sign that there’s hope of overtaking Marcos Jr. in  the surveys?

And what if other kakampinks are right who simply disbelieve surveys that find Marcos Jr. leading by a comfortable margin … who shrug off the big survey outfits as “bayaran” [as in “False Asia”] … who have this romantic notion that these surveys aren’t tapping the true pulse of the electorate (samples too small, not asking the right questions, atbp) … and others who think that survey respondents are just afraid to speak the truth but dare blurt out Junior’s name just to be pasaway.

What if, indeed.  What if Leni could still win it?  Then the current surge of engaged energy among young creatives aching itching to help, networking across communities, now moving on their own [funded by like-minded titos and titas] to both level up and level down campaign rhetoric in social media and on the ground – especially on the ground, including far-flung LGUs where only Marcos-Duterte posters are to be seen – can only help win this. Hope springs eternal.

Wishful thinking ‘yang balitang the Marcos campaign is losing steam, running out of money even. Aint gonna happen. Mas malamang na bumubuwelo sila for the final push in the last three weeks when they they pull out all the stops — all systems go, all hands on deck, all resources mobilized.

Expect no miracles except that which we can make happen if we act as one in these “last two minutes” when every effort, big and small, is focused on targeting that 31% that we need to convert to our side.  One major concerted action for the good of the whole, beyond what was done the past four months by the official campaign, might surpass expectations.

Sana magulantang natin si Imelda.

as if the omicron surge and the duterte government’s care-less response weren’t bad enough, we have to deal with a marcos jr. running for president…

one who brings back awful memories of martial law, the conjugal dictatorship, the greatest robbery of a government, the murder of ninoy aquino…

one who faces disqualification cases filed by civil society groups on grounds of income tax evasion and moral turpitude that the COMELEC is taking its sweet time deciding.

not surprisingly there’s talk of “insider” info that the COMELEC, whose seven commissioners are duterte appointees, is “not inclined to disqualify the client of legendary solicitor general Estelito Mendoza of the elder Marcos.”

raissa robles is right.  “The Marcoses never really left home” (Inquirer 2014).

In 1998, by Imee Marcos’ own reckoning, “we waited 12 years to be on the right side of the fence.” Right side meant a political alliance with then victorious President-elect Joseph Estrada, velvet seats in Congress for Imee and her mother, and a governorship for Bongbong.

An ecstatic Imee spilled the family’s secret to success: “Many professionals were appointed by my father. So you have this immense bedrock of Marcos appointees who keep moving up.”

Like secret stay-behind units, this vast army of professionals scattered in all sectors of society have defended the Marcoses and helped erase the dark legacy of their regime. 

it’s like ferdinand marcos laid a cruel curse on the nation that the children are happily carrying on in his name, in his memory, with the eager support of a “bedrock” of grateful and beholden loyalists, bureaucrats and professionals from all sectors, who held the fort while they were away, and who have since moved up to real positions of power.

maybe this explains why the court of appeals dropped the jail sentence in marcos jr’s appeal of the RTC decision vis a vis his failure to file income tax returns for four years?

and maybe why COMELEC’s 2nd division ruled against canceling his COC despite the NO to question #22 because the respondent daw “cannot be said to have deliberately attempted to mislead, misinform, or hide a fact which would otherwise render him ineligible” ?!?

really ?!?  as in, he didn’t mean to lie?  is that like saying it was an honest mistake?

but is there anything honest about marcos jr. who has lied again and again about historical facts vis a vis martial law and his parents’ plundering ways, human rights violations and EDSA ’86?

and isn’t the fact that he took 4 years to follow the court of appeal’s order to pay up an indication of moral turpitude — a demonstration of arrogance, as though he were above the law?  isn’t that of a piece with the supreme court’s 2016 definition of moral turpitude in G.R. No. 219603?

Moral turpitude is defined as everything which is done contrary to justice, modesty, or good morals; an act of baseness, vileness or depravity in the private and social duties which a man owes his fellowmen, or to society in general. Although not every criminal act involves moral turpitude, the Court is guided by one of the general rules that crimes mala in se involve moral turpitude while crimes mala prohibita do not.  G.R. No. 219603

mala in se are acts wrongful in itself.  mala prohibita are acts that are not inherently evil or wrong.

i submit that tax evasion and lying about having been convicted are inherently wrong — no ifs or buts, no benefit of any doubt — and the liar and tax evader marcos jr. should be disqualified.

here’s praying the COMELEC en banc — or failing there, the supreme court — sees the light and disqualifies marcos jr. once and for all time.

otherwise these institutions would be complicit in perpetuating, keeping alive, the marcos curse on nation, and history and posterity will judge them harshly for betrayal of public trust.