Butch Bagabuyo “We compete in the land of giants. What we lack in size we make up for in focus and agility.” – Clayton Jones IN horse racing, homestretch is that straight part of a racetrack from the last turn to the finish line. Or it is the final phase of any work or project. On the other hand, a home run is a hit in baseball allowing the batter to circle the bases and score a run. But a home run need not be the end of the game. A phenomenon is unbeatable. And because Davao Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte has become a super rockstar phenomenon in our country today, he has become unbeatable despite his bad tongue. After all, leadership is not about one’s tongue but focus and agility. Needless to stress, a foul mouth is unacceptable to high society. But it does not mean lack of respect to womanhood or humanity itself. In short, Duterte is fit to become a president of a hundred thousand Filipino voters who are mostly poor and therefore accustomed to gutter lingo but not a joker to the ruling elites. Gets mo? Hypocrites! Nineteen days from today, Wednesday, 20th of April, we will elect our 16th President. Ergo, we, the teeming millions of poor Filipinos, have reached the homestretch. And as far as the 14 millions of Mindanaoan voters in Mindanao-Basilan-Sulu-Palawan-Tawi-tawi and the 26 million Cebuano-speaking voters all over the archipelago, the elections are over but the counting for the landslide victory of the Duterte-Cayetano tandem. Based on demographics (the science of vital and social data of population) 90 percent of the voters (or 49,500,000) belong to the poor category (D and E class). It is undeniable that of the 55 million voters, more or less, 49 million are Cebuano-speaking Filipinos all over the archipelago. Hence, Team Duterte-Cayetano is assured of a landslide victory, the conspiracy between the oligarchs, the operators in the Comelec and the VCMs of Smartmatic notwithstanding. Undoubtedly, both the Comelec and the 92,000 VCMs of the Smartmatics are on trial by the sovereign Filipino people, and, hereunder are among the compelling reasons:
  • The Comelec spent billions of hard-earned pesos to purchase the highly controversial PCOS machines in the 2013 elections. Despite the glaring fact that the PCOS are most vulnerable to heat, dust and non-use, the Comelec, for reasons of her own, decided to waste them and instead rammed into our throats the VCMs. (Originally called OMR by its owner, the Smartmatics, but because we continually called the attention of the masses that OMR meant “Oplan Mar Roxas” just like the PCOS [“President Cory’s Only Son”], Smartmatic and the Comelec jointly changed the initials from OMR to VCM [“Victorious Count for Mar]). This is one reality where both the executive department, the Comelec and the Congress must look into for possible impeachment right after the holding of the forth-coming elections.
  • Knowing full well that the Automation Law requires the use of at least four security measures, the Comelec willfully disabled for flimsy arguments the mandatory provisions of law. However, after the Supreme Court required the Comelec to ensure that the VCMs produce the required voter’s receipts, she used everything in vain to make it very difficult to comply with the SC decision to have the required receipts.
  • Rebuffed by the Supreme Court, the Comelec was constrained to hold a public bidding for the pen and the thermal papers to be used in providing the voter’s receipts. But, lo and behold, right after the Smartmatic lost in the bidding, the latter wasted no time in deciding to donate what they have bidded for, and if only to ensure secrecy of their not-so-hidden agenda, the Comelec en banc in a vote of 6-1 agreed to accept the donation by the highly suspect Smartmatic. Why, in heavens name, did Smartmatic participate in the bid when they knew all along that they would donate it anyway? And this question is not a joke but an impeachable offense. Does not Congress think so? Not only that, the said donations are violative of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, RA 3019, the 1987 Constitution and other existing laws and regulations. Further, since when did the greedy Smartmatic become benevolent?
Not in 2010 nor in 2013 elections. In fact, never!
  • Undoubtedly, the warm bodies--the unschooled, the unfed and mostly unwashed--of the Duterte-Cayetano tandem has reached the homestretch without accepting or asking donations from businessmen with vested interests, and because “Super Digong” Duterte has acquired super rockstar status, the sovereign Filipino voters have made up our mind to have a true and meaningful change now unlike in all past elections. Like it or not, the elections are over but the counting for a landslide victory for the Duterte-Cayetano team. Remember People Power of 1986?
  • Comelec ought to know that elections are not about expenses. It is about sovereignty which is beyond the commerce of man. Shame on Chairman Andres Bautista and the five other commissioners who voted in favor of the anomalous donations amounting to the so-called P49 million in savings. Hence, there is compelling reason to believe that the donations are meant to derail the purpose for the voters’ receipts. Don’t you think so?
  • Considering that everywhere the Duterte-Cayetano tandem goes, all walks of life and ages within and even those outside the periphery gather in multitudes and on their on unlike the traditional hakot-system (at P200 per head) readily resorted to by the traditional political machineries, the ruling elites--the Marcoses, the Aquinos and the Cojuangcos, to mention but a few in the national scene--are experiencing nightmares even in broad daylight and sleepless nights and days even as they walk and talk like zombies.
  • In all his previous public pronouncements, Duterte has assured us all that he is willing, able and ready to lose his liberty and even his own life to end criminality within three to six months. Sadly, not one of the “presidentiables” but him alone is willing to die for our country. Hence, since all machineries, especially political, are no match to man and we are the warm bodies of our man, Duterte, the dawning of the real and meaningful change that we’ve all been waiting for, is now a certainty.
Undoubtedly, Duterte is the next President of our country if not, the Independent Federal Republic of Mindanao-Sulu-Basilan-Palawan-Tawi-Tawi--but only if the Comelec, God forbid, allows cheating. Duterte-Cayetano pa more! Tsada, di ba?