How to self-destruct on TV: 101

We just had a long weekend, which would have been a great time to go on a short vacation and check out the new Be Grand Resort Hotel in Panglao, Bohol, but with the Marawi Crisis still unresolved, I decided it wasn’t time yet even for a two-day holiday. But somehow over the weekend we were rewarded with that unexpected but very welcome BBC HARD Talk interview by talk show host Stephen Sackur of nosy Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, which we unfortunately missed watching on BBC. But eagle eyed Netizens posted that interview on our Facebook page and in YouTube and I watched it twice and it did not just make my day… it made my weekend!

Call me a Johnny-come-lately as I don’t have a weekend column, but after years of hearing this ex-mutineer, who wanted to oust the legitimate government of then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and getting frustrated that this man ended in the hallowed halls of the Senate instead of a stank jail cell…it was time for his comeuppance! And that’s exactly what BBC talk show host Stephen Sackur gave his international audience when he literally unmasked the real Sen. Trillanes… especially for us Filipinos who are tired of his antics in a Senate where the Filipino people demand so much from our Senators.

Sadly, Sen. Trillanes during the last six-year term of his master former Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III was a total and complete disappointment! I do not even remember any statement of Sen. Trillanes that made me say that the Filipino people was right in voting him to the Senate. Many pundits have already written their piece on the BBC interview of Sen. Trillanes that exposed him as a man who didn’t get his facts right… and he showed himself as a man who lacked any confidence… despite the numerous interviews he has made in his career… be it as a mutineer or Senator!

Allow me to repeat the part that I really enjoyed the most when Sackur said, “Ratings for Duterte remain high-75% approval rating. I’m just wondering whether your comments, which is constantly negative, are out of tune with the ordinary Filipino opinion.” Trillanes replied, “Well, the numbers you mentioned are the numbers way back in March. But if you looked at his numbers when he assumed office, it went high as 92%. So in less than a year it went down 17 points.” BBC talk show host Sackur laughed at this reply by Sen. Trillanes and retorted, “Believe me Senator that if a Western politician command a 75% approval rating, they would regard that as the happiest day of their life. Believe me!”

I have never heard or seen a Filipino politician self-destruct on live television and Sen. Trillanes just gave us a lesson on how to make a booboo on TV. Worse, it was no ordinary GMA-7 or ABS-CBN interview which he gets a lot but on the internationally acclaimed British Broadcasting Company (BBC) which for many years have never shown their political bias… unlike that of Cable Network News (CNN) which obviously shows its political bias.

What is even more remarkable in that Trillanes brouhaha, I didn’t get to see or read any yellowtards back him up. For sure, only the stupid and the damned would vote again this mistake of a Senator back into the Senate… more so that the Liberal Party no longer controls the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines. It had to take a BBC interview to discredit Sen. Trillanes and this was one interview that he truly deserved to get!

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While we’re still in the midst of the Marawi crisis, even if its winding down, we already chastised the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the National Democratic Front (NDF) and the New People’s Army (NPA) for conducting raids against the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) while they are in Europe talking with the Philippine government’s peace panel.

It is for this reason why Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said, that the NPA offensive disrupt the conducive and enabling environment indispensable in peace making and peace building. He added, “Several recent serious offensives in Mindanao and elsewhere in the country allegedly committed by the CPP-NPA-NDFP (Communist Party of the Philippines- New People’s Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines) forces further fueled the public’s doubts on whether it is still worthwhile to continue the peace negotiations with them.”

Again I’d like to reiterate what we’ve already written in this corner that either the aging leadership of the CPP/NDF/NPA no longer have any operational control of the armed cadres in our countryside or the NPA officers waging their war against the AFP no longer respect their aging leaders. Hence we would like to know whether we should continue talking peace with the Reds when any peace agreement that the Philippine government would sign with them would never result in peace in our countryside?

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