BBM still a winner

By Alfredo C. Garvida, Jr.

Contributor

Amid the cries of Bongbong's quarters and a disinterested civil society group, led by Mr. Boy Saycon, that the vice presidential race in the just concluded elections was marred by cheating, Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo was proclaimed on May, 30, 2016 as the elected vice president of the Philippines by Congress.

That Rep. Jonathan Dela Cruz, Bongbong's national spokesman, has stated gamely that the Ilocano senator's camp will respect Leni's proclamation—although they will protest her election on the ground of fraud—defines clearly what the senator's breeding is all about. For the good of the country and those who doubt the integrity of the vice presidential election however, this column hopes that indeed the election was not tainted by fraud, contrary to Mr. Saycon and company's serious allegations that it was. If Mr. Saycon and/or Bongbong will succeed in proving that the Ilocos Norte senator indeed he was robbed of his election, justice must be served by swiftly hailing the culprits to court, including President Aquino, if as suspected, he is involved. 

This political imbroglio would not be occurring now had PNoy not issued that mystifying public rejoinder that he will do everything within his power to keep Bongbong from winning the vice presidency. The human intervention made by Smartmatic on the system in the middle of the counting while Bongbong was a million votes ahead of Leni, compounded by this machine provider's failure, intentional or otherwise, to request permission from the Comelec en banc, as required by law, add an eerie conspiratorial twist to President Aquino's anti-Bongbong pronouncement. It is a big question mark why Smartmatic, which was paid billions of pesos to provide, maintain and operate the machines, failed to detect the error on the letter "ñ" which place was originally taken by a "?" before they gave their final ok on the machines' reliability. Was the error intentional to give them reason to manually intervene "when needed," to effectively comply with PNoy’s agenda against Bongbong?

Mr. Saycon is known to be active in civil society's involvement on matters affecting people's lives. He may be wrong this time, but he could be right too. If he is wrong, it's time to move on, but in this context, we can't help but ask what went wrong on a lost battle that was clearly winnable.

People I have spoken to complained about the atmosphere in Bongbong's headquarters at the height of the campaign. They went there to offer help but no one in the office was certain whom they should be referred to; not even a cup of coffee or a glass of water offered, as any professionally run office would do--as if these "volunteers" were there to beg for favors. "I was not asking for a special recognition or reward, but merely to volunteer my family's services for Bongbong," one active Metro Manila civic leader connected with interlinking socio-business networks, whose loyalty to the late President Marcos is beyond question and whose wife is an officer of some national organization of government employees, lamented. Other "volunteers" from other places also complained of the same treatment. "Bongbong's campaign people were not disrespectful; they were just aloof and un-empathetic, totally detached from the real world of a national campaign," one disgruntled visitor to the senator's national headquarters bitterly complained.

We don't want to be judgmental on the senator's campaign team but if we were to gauge its competence on public relations strategy, especially on the TV ads battle, this team would not even get a grade of 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. It is to be remembered, which any savvy strategist would not miss, that Leni Robredo's rise in rating was done by her unremitting TV ads which were zeroing in on women and the underprivileged sector of society. It is to be remembered as well, which a savvy strategist would not miss, that her pretty face, articulateness in getting her message across, delivered in simplified provincial language, were hitting home. And Bongbong's strategists had no counter measures to offer. But of course, they came up with TV ad—to counter Leni's avalanche of TV ads—which featured the senator talking about the same message he has been saying in his previous ads. No jolting message to the poor as opposed to Leni's; no counter message concerning women's interest. And to add insult to injury, his public relations strategists disgustingly deformed his pretty face with an overdose of make up on his face that made him look like an aging matron instead of the handsome Bongbong people have known him as. You compare Bongbong's matron-like appearance on that TV ad against Leni's pretty, amiable, smiling face and you can draw a conclusion which candidate the voters were more attracted to.

Bongbong lost the vice presidency but he has gained substantial political stock in consequence thereof: Firstly, the martial law stigma is now non-existent; secondly, the legendary Solid North is still alive and kicking--for his benefit; thirdly, he has proven that he has a great appeal to people; lastly, but not the least, a belief is generally permeating the country that he was cheated in the election, which necessitates thus some sort of vindication forward on.

This column believes that Bongbong will be our president, after Duterte. There is no better portending indication to this scenario than Duterte's refusal to give Robredo a cabinet post, "because Bongbong is my friend." The new president is trying to reduce Leni to political insignificance because of his friendship with Bongbong, which means that the two vice presidential rivals could meet again in the presidential race of 2022, and he is giving Bongbong some leeway to rebuild his political stock to fight a battle on a level playing field. 

The Filipino people will be in for the biggest surprise of their lives when the Marcos asset, repeat asset, not wealth, will be allowed to enter the country under the blessings of President Duterte. 

It is an open secret to world leaders, including those from the Philippines, that the late President Marcos was the asset manager of a humongous financial foundation sanctioned by the economic and military superpowers. He was appointed as such allegedly after the war, while he was a budding lawyer and before he entered politics. His fortune all started in consortium with a certain Father Antonio Diaz, who hired him as his lawyer/agent in prepositioning some 640,000 metric tons of gold (worth $25 trillion in today's LMER) from the Vatican. Atty. Ferdinand Marcos and Father Antonio Diaz brought the gold to the Central Bank of the Philippines and they were supposed to earn a commission of 15% each from this asset. Certain documents are saying that the gold horde was intermittently used to stabilize nations' currencies, therefore their economy, and it was the brilliant young lawyer from Batac Ilocos Norte who was managing this asset's investment--from where he was drawing huge commissions. The story also tells that Marcos lent 200,000 metric tons of gold to Japan in the early 60's to stabilize the yen. The United States and the former Yugoslavia were also beneficiaries of the assets being held by the former president also to stabilize their respective currencies. 

To cut the story short, the foundation metamorphosed into an unbelievable financial empire until the big powers, like China, the U.S., Great Britain, Russia, and all, dipped their hands into it for purposes of protection and proper management of the asset. It was also for this reason, the report says, that the late President Marcos was deposed from power because the United States demanded that he relinquished the asset manager ship to the U.S., which he refused, and came back with a defiant move against the superpower economies by initiating the creation of an Asian common market governed by a common currency, called Ang Bagong Lipunan and backed up by the gold under his control. 

The rest is history. The world knows, as propagandized by the Marcos enemies, that he was deposed by a people uprising in the streets. Only a few know that he was deposed because of his refusal to give in to the United States' demand to relinquish his position as asset manager of the biggest financial empire in the whole world. The story about the foundation that the late president was managing is somewhat complicated because the assets under his management allegedly involved also the legendary Yamashita Treasure.

Before Diaz died, he bequeathed all his interest from this foundation to the late president, including his 15% share from this asset's earnings. President Marcos parlayed his earnings from this asset into investing them in different financial institutions--not to benefit his family but the whole Filipino race. Hence a lot of gold and cash deposits were made under different names, but they were layered in unbreakable schemes until there maturity arrived. It is worth noting that not a single account was made in any of his children's name, let alone his wife's. He had drawn a Letter of Instructions (LOI) as a guide on how the money will be disposed of for the Philippine's development, yet the asset has not moved up to this day because of political complications. For one thing, if the Marcos Asset emerges, it will unmask his enemies' dishonesty in stereotyping the late president and his family as thieves. 

The Filipino people will find out therefore that Marcos was the wealthiest man on earth; that his wealth did not come from plundering his country's wealth but from his sheer labor as a brilliant lawyer; that his earnings were not meant for his family but for the Filipino people. Therefore, if Duterte will let the Marcos Asset come in and be served as it was intended "this nation will be great again," and Bongbong will be our next president, contingent, however, on getting a competent team to run his campaign.

(This writer intends to write about the Marcos asset in a more extensive and detailed form, but we need to do further research to support our narrative.)