The
Vice-President of the republic of the Philippines has always been viewed as the
spare tire- of the President in cases the latter can no longer fulfill the duty
of the office of the presidency.
Here comes
the case of Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo, her latest public appearance
was when she was at the political rally in Marikina City wherein the opposition’s
senatorial hopefuls were introduced.
But things
have hounded Robredo since the start of her office as the Vice President, she
was a former cabinet member of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte up until she
resigned as head of the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB), she has
openly attacked the president on policies that has been laid or implemented by
the former, she has the habit of going abroad, attending forums as its resource
speaker, wherein she will only say bad things against the current president of
the country, in collateral she is destroying the image of the Philippines.
VP Robredo and former president Noynoy Aquino during the announcement of the oppositions senatorial hopefuls in Marikina City (photo credit to owner) |
Her
pending electoral protest against former
senator Bongbong Marcos is now taking long, issues have cramped up one of which
is a COMELEC decision which tends to favor as early as now his case as against
Marcos Jr.
Robredo is
indeed a colorful political personality, in his Ocotber 13, 2018 in Manila Times
DLSU Professor Mr. Antonio P. Contreras wrote a mouthful with respect to the
Vice President and more.
For purposes
of the reading public, see below the full quotation of the beautifully written
article by Mr. Contreras, aptly titled “ Robredo’s Karma.”
Robredo’s
Karma
MANY people are anxious about the health of the President not just
because they fear the instability it would bring to the country. They also
dread the thought of the President becoming permanently incapacitated as it can
only mean the ascendance of Vice President Leni Robredo to the presidency.
At the heart of the doubts over Robredo is not only her capability to be
president, or the lack of it. More importantly, it goes deep into her dubious
legitimacy. There is a pending electoral protest against her. Convincing
evidence are coming out that seem to indicate systematic fraud in the 2016
elections, particularly in the position of vice president — from unauthorized
entry into the electoral system, to the unvetted source codes of the
vote-counting machines, some of which were shown to have transmitted even
before the elections, to the establishment of unauthorized regional election
hubs, and the presence of an illegal fourth server.
What makes the case even more convincing is the seeming participation of
the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the perpetration of acts that tend to
cast doubt on the integrity of the 2016 elections. The Comelec’s failure to be
transparent in many of its decisions has seriously undermined the credibility
of the process. No less than the Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential
Electoral Tribunal, has called out the change made by Comelec on the minimum
shading threshold without the proper resolution prior to the elections, and
without informing the relevant parties involved.
In addition, there are reported cases of actual manipulation of or
tampering with election results, from opened ballot boxes and wet ballots to
missing ballot images. There were also cases where the election results of
different voting precincts had identical signatures of their boards of election
inspectors, or of signatures of actual voters not matching the signatures of
the registered voters.
And a forensic analysis of the numbers reveals footprints of possible
fraud associated with automated elections, from abnormally high undervotes for
the position of vice president in areas that Robredo won, to anomalous straight
lines and data trends. It is also patently questionable that the sum of the
total votes which the official central Comelec server had tallied for the vice
president is different from the sum of the total votes tallied from all
provincial and city servers.
Thus, there is the pervasive cloud of doubt over the mandate of Robredo.
But what is most damaging to Robredo is to know that even the members of
the committee on constitutional amendments and revisions of the House of
Representatives, which is technically part of the constitutional body that
proclaimed her, had to initially write into their draft constitution a
provision that would bar her from succeeding the President during the
transition period after the ratification of, and before the first election under
the new Constitution. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Vicente Veloso, expressed
serious doubts about Robredo’s place in the line of succession when he asked if
we are in fact certain that Robredo is the Vice President.
Thus, even if the House appeared to have reversed Veloso’s committee on
the issue, and has reinstated Robredo in the line of succession, the damage has
already been done. And what actually inflicted more damage was not the proposal
of the committee, but the reaction of Robredo and her allies to the proposal.
In shooting down the proposal, they argued that such proposal would be illegal,
and is patently unconstitutional.
What seemed to have been lost on Robredo, a lawyer herself, and her
election lawyer, Romulo Macalintal, is that the Veloso committee was talking
about a transitory provision in a proposed constitution which if ratified would
supplant the 1987 Constitution and all its provisions, including that of
Robredo being the successor of the President. Thus, it is incorrect to judge the
legality of a provision in a new constitution on the basis of a provision in
the old one it effectively replaced.
Not contented in appearing ignorant about this fundamental principle in
the hierarchy of laws, Robredo went further into the shallow waters of
illogical thinking by deriding Veloso’s slim edge over his closest rival,
making it appear that her edge over former senator Bongbong Marcos was much
higher. In doing so, the argument of this economics graduate from the
University of the Philippines that her 263,000-vote edge over Marcos is better
than the 100-vote edge of Veloso over his opponent betrays her lack of
understanding of the basic principle of ratio and proportion. Otherwise, she
would not have failed to understand that there is not much difference since
both of them ended up having a vote margin of less than 1 percent of the total
votes cast in their respective constituencies.
Actually, there is a bigger issue against Robredo.
It is not only her lack of palpable intellectual savvy, complicated by
her being apparently mathematically challenged. And it doesn’t end with her
questioned legitimacy in having a very slim margin in a highly contested
election where evidence of fraud preponderate.
It is also in her lack of ethical bearing.
A prudent person would not have shown the same eagerness as she had in
asserting her right to become a successor at a time that the health of the
President is rumored to be failing. A more sensitive statesperson would have
simply refrained from making a statement, and instead just asked supporters and
critics alike to focus on wishing for the good health of the President.
But there she was, at the moment when talk about the President’s health
was going around, and worse, peddled by her political allies, she through her spokesperson
had the gall to remind the President that it is not his call to determine who
his successor should be. There was a readiness to cite constitutional
provisions. It is almost like an heir of questionable legitimacy who, at the
moment when her father is already dying, seizes the moment to remind her
siblings of her right to an inheritance.
This is simply in poor taste. Robredo need not raise the issue of the
Constitution because it is a given and its text does not depend on the good or
failing health of the President.
In the end, this may be the karma of Robredo. Despite the constitutional
guarantee, she remains insecure because she knows deep in her heart that she
doesn’t have the legitimacy.
The Veloso committee simply called out the elephant in the room. While
she has a legal claim that the Constitution already assures, a great majority
of the people do not accept her. And the more she insists, the more she loses
that acceptance.
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Report from Manila Times
1 Comments
The DLSU professor touch the half of the story. The Philippines is already desperate of her weakness after the strongman Marcos Administration. EDSA revolution was accepted to bring more greatness for Philippines but it fails her promises to be better than Marcos Administration which was FULLY demonized by EDSA leadership without basic references or facts. One of EDSA revolution results was VP Robredo system in politics that instead of helping the government, she become worst than NPA and leftist combined together with Media Mainstream. I never regret my vote to Bongbong Marcos, due to his courage then the unfair BBL of Aquino was reversed with other accomplishments in his hometown. I wish and pray that Sarah Duterte to be the President after Digong, then her vice-president will be Bongbong Marcos. And Bongbong Marcos after Sarah Duterte. It will be an experimental politics but it is the only way to reversed our weakness resulting to losing our territories (Scarborough & Spratlys) and weak electricity and other projects. May God Bless Us!
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