I used to think Cory Aquino was a saint. Not that I think she’s the devil but these days, thanks to a mind that’s been opened, I no longer think she is on the same league as Mother Teresa. (Even Mother Teresa isn’t on the same league as Mother Teresa anymore. A saint that has so fallen from grace in my eyes.)
And I used to think the Marcoses were the most corrupt politicians that ever walked the earth. And whenever I would talk to a Marcos loyalist, I would often hear that they thought corruption had become worse after Marcos fled and I would think that was hogwash. Just words of a blind fanatic.
EDSA happened, didn’t it? ALL shall be well now.
Except that it didn’t.
And quite suddenly, Noynoy Aquino became president. A most flamingly horrific president.
Indifferent, incompetent, lazy, shallow, heartless. I would need to thank him though. The pain of his indifference to the sector I held close to my heart—the impoverished—was blinding that I had no other choice but to wake up.
Awake, I finally saw what I had, long ago, been blind to: that those I had thought decent were, in fact, obscene monsters who were no better than the Marcoses they demonized.
And that it was indeed true that the corruption that the Marcoses gave birth to had flourished when he was long gone. He laid the groundwork for legal theft of our money by government officials and made it a breeze for scoundrels to steal from us. He showed them how to get it done—with arrogance and impunity.
And then the rest followed suit.
The theft and plunder of public coffers was long and wide and deep and vast. And the impunity and greed, breathtaking.
If indeed the 32 passbooks Tish Bautista showed us is genuine, then the greed of Andres Bautista is, quite simply, stunning the way a blow on the head with a hammer is stunning. No less stunning is the brazenness and arrogance with which he used his positions of trust to betray the public he had sworn to serve.
This is the LP trademark: obscenity garbed in Dockers, flashing an Ivy league pedigree, cloaked in decency and respectability.
The hypocrisy is galling. And the betrayal of our People, if all of these are proven, utterly complete.
The truth is, we all suspected this.
How else to explain the come-from-behind 2nd place of the perennial kulelat, Mar Roxas?
The presidential candidate an overwhelming majority of us found galling for his phoniness and horrific incompetence –as well as his feudal view of the country as nothing more than property to be divided among warring fief lords. Typical elitist ass.
And just to prove to you how much of a loser this phoney is (besides living with his mother all his life and most probably till the day he dies. Boy wattaloser.), he lost by 5 million motherfekking votes—despite the possible mighty leg up of a most corrupt COMELEC Chair.
And might it be possible that Leni Robredo owes her victory to the COMELEC Chair?
Who else benefited from the COMELEC Chair prostituting himself?
Lest Andres Bautista puts on his elitist hat and think answers to these questions are optional and where he can say, “Uhm, you know what? I pass. I’d rather not respond.” And where he’d think being answerable to the Law is too commonplace—only for ordinary mortals like us, not for Harvard pedigreed powerful men like him, let me just roll my newspaper up and swak him on the forehead.
Hoy Andres, anong sininghot mo? Acetone?
And please, stop it already with those testimonials. “He’s such a good man.” “Really good.” “Decent.” “Respectable.” As if good, really good, decent, respectable men never fell from grace.
That’s not what we’re talking about here. This isn’t some glutathione soap endorsement we’re talking about where the whiteness of his soul is under scrutiny.
Devoid of any talk and judgment about who he is, let’s talk about the possible commission of High Crimes against the People of the Philippines.
Let’s stick to that.
Yes, I don’t want to hear about whips and sex with boys and call girls. Sure I find it amusing that someone I hear is a homophobe might be kinda gay but that’s because the human psyche is an endless source of fascination to me.
I don’t see myself as any better than Andres Bautista. Neither should you. We’re all cast from the same mold. Our shared humanity. I’d like to thank him though for reminding me to protect the sacred trust given me as a public servant.
I don’t see myself as above corruption. Andres Bautista must serve as a cautionary tale to public servants who would be so arrogant as to imagine themselves made of sterner stuff.
Andres Bautista reminds me to remain forever vigilant and keep watch over my soul.
And I don’t think people lose their souls in one go but in increments. And one certainly loses it when you start believing some things are far more precious than your soul: money, power, loyalty to one party.
So yeah, that’s as far as my fascination for Andres Bautista the person is concerned.
99% is about Andres Bautista as COMELEC Chair and PCGG head. Such powerful positions that not accidentally are such solid positions of public trust.
I want to know if he betrayed us. And if he did, how far and wide and deep did he rend the sacred garment of public trust.
Andres Bautista must be made to account for these crimes.
Source: Lorraine Marie T. Badoy
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