Whether or not the UNA leadership decides to discard Juan Miguel Zubiri as one of its 2013 senatorial candidates in favor of Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel, most people think the latter should no longer join UNA. Zubiri is allegedly the voluntary beneficiary of the 2007 Maguindanao votes, that area so closely associated in people’s minds with the world’s worst massacre and mutilation of journalists, innocent wives and daughters, and unfortunate passersby.
Can people ever forget the contrasting stand of Zubiri’s partymate in Team Unity, Mike Defensor, who refused to “win” based on highly questionable votes, declaring even as the votes were still being counted that “he did so to stop their Team Unity from committing acts inimical to the essence of democracy and fair play in an electoral battle”?
As everyone knows, Zubiri eventually resigned, but some are asking if his resignation was three years too late. Three years before, Pimentel reportedly proved beyond reasonable doubt that Zubiri lost the election by more than 200,000 votes.
The UNA leadership’s obstinate insistence on the inclusion of Zubiri in its slate enfeebles and even disavows the party’s perceived objective of changing our country’s political system, which has been festering in moral rot. Pimentel (though a son of a hero who resisted the exceedingly brutal and greedily acquisitive martial law regime, bar topnotcher, dedicated fighter for honest elections that we Filipinos badly need, and champion of the country’s first widely-supported and ably-led campaign against corruption and dishonesty in government), by sticking it out with UNA at any point hereafter, would be casting doubt on the honor and legacy of his father and even on his own personal unrelenting commitment to end the corrupt system that we have suffered under for too long.
—BENJAMIN B. AGUNOD,
benjamin2914@yahoo.com