"The documents to prove Pacquiao’s accusation will be unveiled after almost two months."
"The documents to prove Pacquiao’s accusation will be unveiled after almost two months."
There is a song from way back when whose lyrics go this way: “The party’s over; It’s time to call it a day; They’ve burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away.”
Listening to Senator Emmanuel Pacquiao in a press conference with his table filled with voluminous documents (also known as props) the day he was about to leave for the US of A to train for his upcoming non-title fight with a certain Errol Spence, my initial reaction was one of “Wow! Is this for real? Does the Pacman have the goods?”
Right after claiming that tens of billions of pesos were purloined by a woefully under-capitalized electronic payment purveyor contracted by the DSWD for “ayuda” to locked-down beneficiaries victimized by the pandemic, the Pacman packs his bags and leaves the country.
The documents to prove his accusation will be unveiled after almost two months, when the pugilist returns from his boxing match. The investigation of the Senate, of which he is a member, will begin only after a resolution is filed, and who is to file when the accuser is neither here nor did he leave the paper trail to give enough substance to his charges?
I will leave it to Harry Roque to scoff at the “watusi” he describes the Pacman’s explosive, and the DSWD to disprove the accusations. As for the remittance conduit called Starpay, whoever owns it, let them explain themselves. Surely, in the days to come, while the accuser is in absentia, their explanations will be grist for the mill.
Maybe someone in his circle of advisers told the Pacman he could not leave the country without trading blows with El Presidente, (mismo!), who chafed at his allegations that corruption in the present government is three times greater than the previous. He was challenged by the president to prove his allegations, or forthwith be called a liar.
Liar he is not, thief he is neither, the Pacman avers, and so, before boarding his flight to the land where honey drips from boxing gloves, he charges.
He will fight on the 21st of August, which is the 22nd in these parts of the globe, coinciding with the peak of the ghost month, the day when Orientals believe all the ghosts roam all over the place. Will they roam for Spence, or will they roam around our Pacman?
The Philippine Airlines plane he took after his expose had to return to Manila because a passenger had a medical emergency necessitating immediate hospital attention. The superstitious would call that “signos”, but not the Pacman, who believe he is anointed, just as Pastor Quiboloy thinks he is appointed.
On July 17, eleven days after his delayed departure, his PDP Laban is set to burst his pretty balloon, or so the party chairman’s surrogate proclaims. The majority of his party-mates will heed the piper’s call and take the moon away from his use of the party for his presidential ambitions.
Instead, they will proclaim the incumbent as the vice-president for 2022, his president for him to choose. And that certainly will not be the Pacman.
Before he left, the rumor mill was rife with talk that the Pacman was in serious talk with another political party to use as his flag of convenience, certain as everyone seems to be that come July 17, “his” PDP-Laban will disown him. Already, the newly proclaimed secretary-general has accused him of “lese majeste” for daring to criticize the party chairman, then challenged him to resign from their party.
There was talk that El Chavit of Narvacan and Vigan upon Ilocos Sur was the Pacman’s precursor in joining the Nationalist People’s Coalition. Everyone not in the know thought that as Chavit would always climb into the ring after every Pacman victory, he was one of the closest to the pugilist save only for Jake Joson. But as it turns out, they had a political falling-out, because of the excise tax on tobacco, the product closest to the heart and gut of Chavit and his Ilocos Sur.
So if not the NPC, where? Reporma of former Speaker Bebot Alvarez?
We hope, as most every other Filipino hopes, that the Pambansang Kamao will come back after August 22 victorious over Spence. Emmanuel Pacquiao after all is the pride of the Filipino nation.
But whether his victory will pump enough air into his political balloon or whether it will go pffft after the peak of the ghost month, when the party is over, or when he goes into another as he flies into the political stratosphere, that remains to be seen.
