These trapos may be assuming that we are all stupid enough not to understand. If you believe that former senator Manny Pacquiao and former Negros Oriental 3rd District congressman Arnie Teves’ meeting in Timor Leste was a chance encounter, then you might have been born yesterday, or are so naive and was not informed that Teves supported Pacquiao in the 2022 presidential elections in exchange for a huge financial support from the billionaire presidential candidate.
Teves was facing a strong opposition in his 3rd District reelection bid in 2022. In fact, his opponent, Col. Rey Estrella gave him a very good fight. Teves got 91,482 while Estrella was credited with a respectable 87,462 votes. He needed Manny’s financial help and Pacquiao allegedly delivered. The Teveses were facing some very formidable electoral challenges. Pryde Henry Teves, the younger brother, was running for governor against the late Roel Degamo. Initially, Pryde Henry was credited with 296,897 votes for the whole province of Negros Oriental. The late Roel Degamo got 277,482 but eventually, the Comelec credited the 49,039 votes of the supposedly nuisance bet Ruel Degamo in favor of Roel, thereby leading to the proclamation of the late slain Roel Degamo as the duly-elected governor of the province.
Therefore, this column is one of the many pundits who do not buy that cheap news dispatch by the Department of Justice and the camp of Manny Pacquiao that the encounter in Timor Leste was a mere coincidence. Knowing the heart and the disposition of Manny Pacquiao, he would not just abandon an old friend who needs help. Pacquiao is a grateful man. In 2022, because of the help of the Teveses, Pacquiao got the second place in the entire province. BBM was credited with 254,806 while Pacquiao gave Marcos a run for his money with 218,511 votes in Negros Oriental. Manny, with all his popularity, could not have achieved that without Arnie and Pryde Henry helping him. Negros Oriental was one of the very few provinces where Pacquiao got more votes than Leni Robredo. In Negros, Leni only got 178,236 votes.
This news development of the Pacquiao-Teves encounter in Timor Leste has exposed many important facts. First, it confirmed that Teves is really in that country and is reportedly shuttling between Timor Leste and Cambodia. Second, it exposed the hand of Timor Leste as a most probable protector of the fugitive former congressman. This behavior of Timor Leste may yet prejudice its pending application to become a full-pledged member of the ASEAN. If the Philippine government interposes an objection to Timor Leste’s entry to the association, then Timor can kiss its aspirations goodbye. The Philippines is a founding member of ASEAN and our voice commands respect among the other nine member states.
That encounter also put Manny Pacquaio in a bad light. The proper thing for him to do, as a former senator and a former congressman, was to alert our embassy in Timor Leste and facilitate the arrest of Teves in coordination with the police authorities of Timor Leste. If that was indeed a chance encounter, Pacquiao had enough time and ample opportunity to ask his security contingent to coordinate with the Philippine government so that a formal and legal arrest could have been effected. But Pacquiao acted more as a personal friend than as a Filipino citizen and former high official. Pacquiao was embracing Teves to the full view of global mass media. He had a fugitive of justice in front of him, and who stayed with him all over the event. Pacquiao failed to do what was incumbent of a former senator.
That was either one very crucial error in judgment or an intentional act of protecting a friend who is in dire need of help. Well, for me, I could very well say: Pacman, tinimbang ka ngunit kulang. I am not saying that he was giving aid and comfort to a fugitive of justice. I am only saying that the Philippine government failed to arrest a high-profile evader of the law because a former senator did not do his civic duty either by simple lapse of judgment or by an intention to help a friend.
If these trapos expected us not to discern all these, they better know that the Pinoys may be silly at times, but we are not that stupid. We know that they are just playing games with us.