ANYBODY BUT BONGBONG MOVEMENT

 By Ba Ipe

IN the run-up for the 1995 midterm elections, intrepid political forces joined hand to launch what it was known the ABB Movement. No, it did not stand for the Alex Boncayao Brigade, a band of urban guerillas of the New People’s Army (NPA), the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). This group of guerillas was formed to honor Alex Boncayao, the labor leader who joined the New People’s Army (NPA) to pursue armed struggle.

The ABB in the 1995 elections was the Anybody But Bongbong Movement, or ABB for short, which was launch to derail the senatorial candidacy of BBM. It launched several negative campaigns against BBM and they were largely successful. BBM lost miserably in 1995, forcing him to go local for a while.

It was easy to derail his bid. The 1995 elections was only nine years away from the 1986 “snap” presidential elections, where the Marcoses did all tricks in the book to defeat Cory Aquino in the Comelec official count. Those days, many voters still remembered the fraudulent ways of dictator Ferdinand Marcos like ballot box snatching and switching, massive vote-buying, delisting of many voters in the official list of voters, triggering disenfranchisement of more than three million voters, and the presence of goons and guns that resulted in intimidation, fear, and failure to vote of many voters in areas where the opposition was strong.

Of course, nobody forgot the fateful 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, where the people revolted to protest the election fraud and topple the misrule of the Marcos dictatorship. BBM learned that many people knew and understood the misdeeds of the Marcos dictatorship, resulting in their misfortune.

 The Marcos dictatorship was characterized by three major points:

1.     Centralized corruption, where fat under-the-table commissions were given directly to Marcos in exchange for big state projects and it has been estimated officially that Marcos earned between $5 billion to $10 billion, an amount that was stashed mostly abroad by his trusted lieutenants;

2.    Crony capitalism, where Marcos and his stable of cronies and friends cornered a big chunk of the Philippine economy by creating agricultural monopolies in sugar and coconut and waterfront services, among others, and fat contracts with the government; and

3.    Massive human rights violations, where tens of thousands of student activists, labor leaders, Church and civil society workers, peasant leaders, among others were arrested and jailed without charges, tortured, and fell victims to involuntary disappearances, making Marcos a global name in human rights violation.     

BBM was closely associated with these abuses in power. He did nothing to counteract those unsavory recollections on what his father's martial law did to the Filipino people. He did nothing to explain the Marcos’s side of the overall misery, suffering, and difficulties the people  experienced under his father’s infamous regime. He did not have the heart to face those political realities.

Instead, BBM focused on local politics in the home province of his father-dictator in Ilocos Norte. Even though BBM is notorious for his poor command of the Ilocano dialect,he did not lose. He run again for senator in 2010 and he won as landed 8th. His six-year term in the Senate was described as mediocre and uneventful. He did not have a single enacted bill to be proud. His Senate seat was almost vacant.

He won in 2010 senatorial elections because the nation’s demographics had changed drastically. The voters’ profile showed an increased number of young voters, who hardly knew and understood what took place in 1986. The BBM camp merely took advantage of the overall ignorance of many voters of the Marcos dictatorship.

Knowing the voters’ profile would further change due to the influx of many young voters, who either possess do not have recollections of the  martial law years, or distorted views for those who have knowledge (some young people even think we had our “golden era” under Marcos, which is just bull), BBM took his chances in 2016 by running for vice president.

BBM lost to Leni Robredo, who was a political newcomer those days. He lodged at least two electoral protests before Presidential Electoral Tribunal but lost miserably, as Leni was declared the true winner.

This mediocre underachiever son of the infamous dictator, with nothing to show except the Marcos loot, is running for president in 2022. He is seeking the country’s top political post even though has no coherent political platform or program of government, no political ideology or belief system , or any alternative to offer to the Filipino people.

He has nothing but motherhood statements to which nobody would deny or oppose. He has nothing but his exaggerated estimate of himself and limited understanding of the many global and local issues which a president has to address.

(More to follow tomorrow, including details of the campaign of the ABB Movement)