WOULD you believe the buzz coming out of political circles?
Senator Bong Go is the chosen one for 2022. Even more unbelievable, or remarkable, his running mate for VP will be – guess who but the man who’s always seen standing beside him, in front of him, whose fresh off-the-cuff statements he’s repeating like a messenger of good news.
The bombshell is at least two years early, definitely premature, and absolutely deniable, with no one to blame for its playfulness. With droppable names like Ping Lacson, Tito Sotto, Sara Duterte, Manny Pacquiao, Isko Moreno et al. being floated to color the air like balloons, it’s anybody’s game, one worth billions. However, when you play politics, the reality is that politics creates the perception of reality. And Filipinos love to speculate about anyone prominent, more prominent, most prominent in the industry of fame and infamy – politics and showbiz, for starters.
The other buzz concerns a very real question that’s taken two years to answer. This week fencesitters are waiting, biting their nails to see how the referees in the Presidential Electoral Tribunal have decided, once and for all, who deserves to be Vice President. With a gag order imposed on the protagonists and media, it won’t be easy to guess which direction the two-year-old dispute between Leni Robredo and Bongbong Marcos will take. The long wait has been agonizing and expensive, especially to the losing candidate who’s taking his protest further than any other before him, even giving up the chance to be elected to a Senate seat in 2016; previous protesters abandoned their cases by dying or running for another elective position.
Now that we’re almost at the finish line, it’s time to ask if it has been a battle between the lawyers on the opposing sides, between some of the fake news already circulating on social media and the facts that are meant to form the basis of the truth, between your guess and your brother-in-law’s.
Shorn of the language of the law as used by lawyers, the Marcos protest was boiled down to the number of votes cast and correctly counted in three pilot provinces and the 50-vs-25 percent shading of ballots. It’s not just math, it’s a matter of trust.
