Look who wants to win by hook or by crook?

Here’s an article that caught my eye last Monday entitled “Lawmakers pad DPWH budget by P30 billion.” What does this mean “pad” the DPWH budget? Can we say that this added budget will be used in the coming May elections by these self-serving congressmen? Also noted in that report was that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) proposed to reduce the DPWH budget for this year because they still had tens of billions in backlog spending. I fully agree; the Escario Street widening in Cebu City has remained unfinished for two years now. So there is really no need to pad the DPWH budget!

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I got this e-mail from Bobby Tordesillas ([email protected]) last week, but due to our holiday schedules, we are only reprinting this now.

“Hi Bobit, Don’t you find the latest MBC survey report very misleading? In one part of the news report, it says that 61 percent of the members of the MBC favor Noynoy Aquino, when what is accurate to say is that 61 percent of the 13 percent of those members who chose to reply, favor Noynoy. Because in fact, only 13 percent of the members chose to reply. Review the news reports and see if I am wrong. That’s a world of difference.

“And yet they print the 13 percent figure only in the last sentence of their report when it should have been printed in the very first sentence of the news. How misleading can that be? Don’t you agree? Bobby Tordesillas”

Indeed, I checked that news report and lo and behold, Mr. Tordesillas is correct that only 13 percent of the 800-member Makati Business Club responded to the questionnaire. That’s where they got the 61 percent who chose the tandem of Noynoy-Roxas over the other candidates. Now in fairness to Noynoy or Mar Roxas, I don’t blame them for the over-eagerness of their supporters to magnify their lead in the hope to create that bandwagon effect for people to line up before their presidential bets. 

But this is what we’ve been harping all along… that I’m not scared of Noynoy Aquino; after all, he is just like us, God’s creature. What I’m truly scared of are the people behind him, pushing for his presidential ambition (which was nonexistent until Tita Cory died) to the point of even lying or cheating in the surveys, despite the fact that they are painting Noynoy a picture of integrity and probity beyond compare. What’s happening here is, Noynoy’s supporters and the Liberal Party so desperately want their “manok” to win and the message that they are selling to the Filipino people is, they would win by hook or by crook!

This is what we wrote in our New Year’s column yesterday: “We must choose a candidate for his character, probity, integrity and above all, his capability. Let me include in this list, the people behind the candidate because I succumb to that dictum that says, ‘Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are!’ Indeed, the people pushing a candidate is as important as choosing the candidate himself because surely from this group will emerge the next Cabinet secretaries or the kitchen Cabinet of the governor or the mayor.”

I have already written about this before and for the sake of making the bigwigs of the Liberal Party realize their serious mistake, I am writing it again that the people backing Noynoy and Mar Roxas in the province of Cebu are the same washed-out and has-been politicos who in the elections of 2004 belonged to the Sugbuak Group and wanted to carve or slice the province of Cebu into four smaller provinces: Cebu del Norte, Cebu Occidental, Cebu del Sur, and the present province of Cebu.

That is because these politicos could not win as governor of Cebu so the next best thing for them was to become the governor of their own small part of the province of Cebu. This got Cebuanos so incensed and indignant (even the Catholic Church campaigned against Sugbuak), and these politicians experienced a humiliating loss in their respective districts. So when the Liberal Party chose Noynoy as their standard-bearer, they found in Noynoy a name that could hopefully propel them back to power. But will these politicians win? I don’t think so! If they can’t win back their districts, how can they even sell their candidate Noynoy Aquino for president?

If you didn’t know, former governor Emilio “Lito” Osmeña who was the Liberal Party’s man in the province of Cebu went out of his political hibernation to help the Liberal Party. But somehow LP stalwart Florencio “Butch” Abad made the grievous mistake of choosing Vice Gov. Greg Sanchez (a known enemy of Lito Osmeña who left Gov. Gwen Garcia’s One Cebu Party) to be the running mate of former Cebu City councilor Hilario “Jun Jun” Davide III. So in gaining Greg Sanchez, LP lost Lito Osmeña who is running for senator under the Promdi banner… a big LP brouhaha!

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. Avila’s columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.