The incoming president must have figured out that taking his oath of office with a woman whose mandate is highly questionable is to tinge his administration with the same cloud of dishonesty. Even if Duterte is not a product of that electoral fraud, it would appear he is approving and consenting to the rape of our democracy by allowing the impostor to stand side-by-side with him in the oathtaking ceremony.


Yes, Robredo has been proclaimed by Congress that is controlled by the same notorious lackeys who catapulted her to power, but her proclamation will never erase the doubt about her election or will prevent the people from calling her an impostor. This is because those who operated what many now call swindling machines denied them the evidence to point out how the results were systematically manipulated to make the lackeys of the corrupt regime win. The impostor could no longer be prevented from taking her oath of office, but neither can she demand to be called Vice President or be allowed to stand side by side with the one they rightly elected to office.


If the non-taxpaying clerics had their privilege to bless the person as the alleged winner despite the heckles and denunciations, President Duterte has the right and even the moral high ground to demand that. In fact, many suspect that the late filing by the Liberal Party of its Statement of Contributions and Expenditures was intentionally done to show their disfavor on the manner how the election was rigged to let Robredo win. Many now interpret this as a crack within the party. Some party insiders grumbled that the first-term congresswoman from Camarines Sur spent P406.82 million worth of airtime from Feb. 9 to April 27, even surpassing her own presidential running mate Mar Roxas as the biggest spender. She spent more than any presidential candidate!


Some party members claim they know no oligarch or tycoon to have vouched for the financial cost of Robredo's candidacy, which means that a great portion of the campaign funds was most likely funneled to her directly by Malacañang. It must be recalled that PNoy was quoted saying he will not allow any of the Marcoses to ascend to power again, and the best weapon to effectively check the candidacy of Bongbong Marcos was to provide Robredo's candidacy with enormous campaign funds. Bongbong was touted as the unbeatable candidate for vice president and PNoy concentrated his firepower in preventing that imminent victory of Bongbong. He forgot that his stupid strategy would somehow hurt and humiliate Roxas.


For being tactless and irascible, PNoy forgot that the primary objective in that election was to capture the presidency. He should have considered that by electing a Liberal Party president, the party would easily be able to control Congress because this pretending-to-be-honest government has systematized bribery called “pork barrel” by christening it as Disbursement Acceleration Program and, of course, the Priority Development Assistance Fund. PNoy did not even consider that Roxas gave way to allow him to run in the 2010 because their prefabricated poll surveys indicated that he was more popular than Roxas even if he had not filed a single bill as elected legislator.


Even if we might say that the rating of Roxas failed to pick up such that there was a consensus of pessimism that he, unaided by his acerbic character, would fail in his presidential bid, PNoy should have taken into account that Roxas was the man who made him President, and served him will as a Cabinet member even if he was disliked by many. Paradoxically, it could be well said that it was PNoy who betrayed him at the last moment when he needed his assistance most. It was treachery of the first order because he paid much attention to his hatred by preventing Bongbong from winning which was painful to Roxas.


Aside from the late submission of SOCE, the huge amount of expenses has cast much doubt on how Robredo was able to recoup that amount by merely selling lugaw (congee). It is telling that the Roxas camp now has its eye on destroying the credibility of the impostor. The disgruntled LP candidates knew that they would be putting at risk the favored lackey of PNoy. 


The late compliance in the filing of SOCE was intended to disallow her to assume office because that specific provision is clear that there is a fixed period for the candidates or their party to file their statement of contributions and expenditures within 30 days after the holding of the election. Among the vice presidential candidates, Chiz Escudero only spent half of what the maglulugaw spent, placing him the second-biggest spender for the vice presidential race spending P269.05 million, followed by Alan Cayetano, P185.39 million, Bongbong Marcos P45.44 million, Antonio Trillanes IV, P40.13 million and Gringo Honasan, P21.83 million.


To make things palatable, a poll survey has again been rolled to appease the public who sharply reacted to the wholesale defrauding of their votes as when it was discovered that a new script was uploaded to the Comelec's transparency server which resulted in the alteration of the hash codes of the packet data without their permission. The hypocrites have come out with a survey telling the Filipino people that the impostor now enjoys a higher trust rating than President-elect Duterte. It says the poll survey conducted recently by the Social Weather Station, Robredo got a 45 percent "good" trust rating as against President-elect Rodrigo Duterte who only got a "moderate" trust rating of 26 percent in a survey conducted from May 1 to 3. 


It was another mind-conditioner to the people to accept the impostor as the alleged elected Vice President. SWS also cited the unprecedented trust rating record of PNoy after his election in 2010 where he got a trust rating of 83 percent despite the fact that his only credential is being the son of Cory and Ninoy. The same can be said now of this demagogue who was plucked from nowhere but had the only qualification of being the biyuda of the late Jesse Robredo, the Local government secretary of Noynoying.


Sources: various

Separate oathtaking conveys a meaning deeper than what one might think