‘Sackfuls of money’ is another joke

What is true is that people have different idiosyncracies, needs and wants. To attain the individual goals of those who profess to have directions, they employ different methodologies. They act and react to diverse situations in innumerable ways according to the depths of their understanding. The idiomatic expression “different folks, different strokes” says it all.

President Rodrigo Duterte must be a political genius. He reads the Philippine situation far too differently from us ordinary citizens and even from the most brilliant of his detractors. By making simple issues confusing, his ways appear to be incomprehensible. The normal yardsticks used to gauge the moves of presidents are inapplicable. I remember the speculation that the standard compasses of the five US Avenger torpedo bombers of Flight 19 went awry causing them to disappear at the Bermuda triangle. There is obviously no compass that can tell where is the President’s north. In other words, the strokes of President Duterte are so different that no one can predict him.

Take the case of his announcement that he would bring in “sacks of cash” for candidates of the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino – Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) in the 2022. He knows this is wrong. If this remark will be coupled with what lawyers call as overt act, this is criminal and can bring him to jail and he, of course, knows it. Yet, discern his genius. President Duterte subsequently unleashed his blabbermouth of a spokesman, to make us stupid again. Immediately the loquacious Roque refused to act as a bright lawyer that he is by saying “Of course, he knows it’s illegal to use public funds for partisan purposes, but there is no prohibition in the Omnibus Election code to raise funds from private individuals for the candidacies of individuals so that is what the President meant,” The greater bulk of our citizenry must be confused. What would have been a criminal act simply, is, to them, shrouded with innocence.

Here is one more. Did not the president say that he, in the 2016 elections, ran roughshod over his opponents for the presidency without financial backers. He instilled in our psyche and made us believe that money, so to speak, did not matter.

During the 2016 election campaign, presidential candidate Duterte made commitments that excited sixteen million plus of our countrymen enough to vote for him only to learn later that those promises were jokes and that those who believed in his jokes are stupid. I am of the opinion that he continues to hold the Filipino people in contempt. He believes that we are willing to laugh at his antics. His promise to bring “sackfuls of money” to his PDP party mates in the 2022 election can be another joke. I do not imagine that the PDP partymen are that gullible. They remember that Duterte vowed to put an end to contractualization. It was a more important policy pronouncement compared to his present statement to support his candidates with millions of campaign funds. If the “endo” promise turned out to be only a painful joke, PDP underlings should can expect that this “sackfuls of money be another terrible joke.

In any case, the assurance by President Duterte to his party mates of huge funds in the coming polls is probably based on his perception that our votes are for sale. The president might have accepted the reality that the only way to win is to bribe voters. Boodles of funds will only be needed when electors accept money from candidates. Sackfuls of money will be required only when candidates buy votes. From my little experience, logistics for campaign purposes are not outrageously big. Compensation for campaigners and election materials do not require mind-boggling fortunes. In plain language, there shall be no need for incredible wherewithal. Of course, I can be wrong in every aspect of this article today.