Honey trap

Considering the toxic political environment, it was probably just a matter of time before a supposed plot to spring a honey trap targeting a top public official would emerge.

And it says a lot about the poisoned environment that people are believing many of the accusations hurled by both sides.

This plot, supposedly targeting the “little president,” Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, would have made a good movie if it had pushed through.

Honey traps or honey pot traps are found throughout the history of espionage, intel gathering, blackmail, extortion, and campaigns to shame and bring down public officials.

A notorious case in our country is the one involving the audio tape recordings made by American actress Dovie Beams of her sexual encounters with the first president Ferdinand Marcos, pre-martial law in 1970.

According to accounts from multiple published sources, the tapes featured Marcos moaning and breathing heavily, begging Beams for oral sex, singing the Ilocano folk song “Pamulinawen” and telling her “I will kiss you” as Beams giggled.

Following what was described as an ugly break-up after a two-year affair with Marcos, Beams released the tapes to the public, saying she needed protection from threats she had been receiving.

Of course University of the Philippines students could not resist the eww content, and broadcast the recording on a loop over the Diliman campus radio for a week.

The affair with Beams was said to have turned a furious Imelda Marcos into a powerful first lady, later becoming the other half of the conjugal dictatorship.

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Rumors of the alleged plot against Recto circulated on Thursday, following an online post of Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste seeking a probe of the alleged womanizing by a high-ranking government official at Rockwell.

Since there are only a few high-ranking government officials, speculation on the identity quickly narrowed down to enemies of Leviste. Inevitably, speculation focused on Recto.

A woman later disclosed the identities of the alleged players in the honey trap. The plan, according to alias Jen, was to lure Recto into a dalliance with sex workers and illegal drugs. Or at least for the woman to claim that Recto had been caught in such a compromising situation.

The brains, according to Jen, is none other than Leviste, whose clan is the political opponent of the Recto / Vilma Santos family in Batangas. Helping in the alleged plot, Jen claimed, was Jacinto Paras, who served as Palace legislative liaison when Rodrigo Duterte was president. 

National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag said that other administration officials were targeted in the plot supposedly bankrolled by the billionaire Leviste. 

It’s not the first time that Leviste has been accused of trying to frame up a public official. In August last year, at the height of the flood control scandal, he was also accused of instigation in a police entrapment of Abelardo Calalo, at the time the Batangas 1st District engineer of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), in Taal, Batangas. 

Calalo allegedly tried to hand over to Leviste P3.1 million in cash from contractors who had bagged three projects worth P104 million in the DPWH district. The status of this case is unclear.

In the meantime, Leviste and his mother, Sen. Loren Legarda, along with former energy secretary Alfonso Cusi face preliminary investigation by the Office of the Ombudsman for “ghost electricity” involving P10.44 billion worth of solar power projects that were never delivered.

I was among those who hailed Leviste as a young disruptor in Congress. This was after he blabbed about a P2-million “Christmas bonus” last year for all members of the House of Representatives plus an offer of P1.5 million for supporting the House version of the 2026 General Appropriations Bill – both of which he said he turned down, and both denied by the chamber’s leadership.

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, on the other hand, noted that Leviste, at just 21 years old, bagged a 25-year congressional solar power franchise through the intercession of his mother, who chaired the Senate finance committee at the time. 

Legarda has denied the accusation of influence peddling on behalf of her son. She defends her integrity, although Senators Tito Sotto and Panfilo Lacson will probably scoff at this.

The feud between the Legarda-Leviste and Santos-Recto clans has been simmering for some time now. Last May, Recto uncharacteristically came out swinging, accusing Leviste of offering him P400 million to help in persuading a political rival to withdraw from the 2025 race.

Recto said he rejected the offer. But he said that a week later, Leviste showed up with his mother, this time offering P1 billion for Recto’s wife, Batangas Gov. Vilma Santos, to drop her reelection bid and give way to Leviste. Recto said Legarda was “crying” during the meeting.

“Again, I rejected it. It was insulting. It was infuriating. Only my respect for his mother as a former colleague stopped me from exposing him and filing charges,” Recto said. “He is a deranged and dangerous person who will even skin his loved ones, and use their skin to drumbeat his empty achievements to feed his narcissism.”

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Since political warfare has come down to this, we might soon see Dovie Beams-type audio/video recordings of certain personalities in compromising circumstances.

The oldest profession is thriving in this country where men even brag openly about their womanizing, so honey traps can be relatively easy to spring.

One former top official reportedly liked paid sex with girls dressed as high school students. At least he avoided being subjected to a honey trap.

Over the years, there have been video / audio recordings of certain public officials and movie stars in sexual encounters. Some were taken by the men themselves, for bragging rights in a society with a twisted sense of machismo.

But others won’t brag about such encounters, and are vulnerable to honey traps. One of them in particular, who reportedly married his father’s mistress, supposedly has a predilection for sex orgies with multiple male partners.

Matibag said the alleged plot involving Recto targeted others, and smacked of a destabilization campaign.

We’re waiting to see how much lower the political warfare can plunge after this.