Duterte being chastised by his mere subalterns?

Batas Mauricio .

NO matter how one looks at the whole thing, the impression one indelibly gets is this: President Duterte is being castigated by the Department of National Defense, the Philippine National Police, and even by his own mere subordinates in Malacanang, on the supposition that he was not telling the truth on the alleged plot of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US to assassinate him.

Isn’t it a fact that the President already claimed, in his speech during the League of Municipalities Visayas Island Cluster Conference in Cebu City on Aug. 21, 2018, that the CIA is out to kill him? Indeed, the truth is that, even long before this Cebu speech of the President, he had already been publicly discoursing on his accusations against the CIA and its supposed plot to liquidate him.

Yet, the President is being made to appear as a small boy being chastised of mischief by the DND, the PNP, and by Malacanang, with their public refutation of what he had been saying. Wittingly on unwittingly, what these mere subalterns of the Chief Executive have been succeeding to do is to portray him, their superior and commander-in-chief, as a liar who is not to be trusted with his public pronouncements, or as someone who is delusional on account of the books he has been reading.

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This part was written almost half a day before another Senate hearing on the alleged cheating that attended the 2016 elections was held on Aug. 6, 2018, yet I was already convinced of the results: cheating is certain to continue in the elections in 2019 and 2022 and in all other elections thereafter, if computerized voting in the Philippines is not stopped.

Even in the face of grievous disclosures made by lawyer Glenn Chong and by other personalities and groups in social media (like Facebook and Twitter) on poll anomalies, it seems clear that computers will continue to be used in succeeding electoral exercises.

This, notwithstanding the fact that experts say that computers were the principal instruments of poll cheating in the 2010 and 2016 elections, to install in office people who were chosen only by a few

and not by the popular mandate of the electorate.

Clearly, the solution to electoral cheating is stopping the use of computers in our elections. Too, all who are being accused of having masterminded the poll cheating in the 2010 and 2016 elections must be jailed right away. The only problem here is that, this cannot be done under the present legal system in the Philippines.

What we need therefore is to change the system, by installing a revolutionary government right away!

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Preambles of constitutions–like the Preamble of the proposed Federal Constitution in the country–are an attempt to explain why constitutions are drafted and approved, delineating the underlying philosophy of governmental authority in any given country. In the proposed Philippine Federal Constitution, it also serves as an introduction to the change of government that the country is envisioned to undergo–from purely presidential to federal.

But this Preamble of the proposed Federal Constitution is not only an introduction to a change in government in the Philippines. It is far more important than the Preambles of the 1935, 1973, and 1987 Constitutions, in that it also signifies, henceforth, the country’s firm commitment to keep the entire archipelago intact as one nation, one Republic. Notice the part of the Preamble which says: “to build a permanent and indissoluble nation.

This is gravely important at this point of our country’s history whereby we are wracked with secessionist movements and communist insurgency and rebellion, coupled with the Chinese occupancy the South China Sea off Zambales coast. The Preamble seeks to impress upon each and every sector in the country, and to other nations as well, perhaps particularly China, that we shall not allow any part of our territory to be dismembered or given away!

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com