Vice President Binay cashing in on Pacman

Vice President Jejomar Binay’s decision to cash in on the political ambition of the vastly popular ring icon and congressman Manny Pacquiao, by including him in his 2016 senatorial slate, reiterates what most of us already know of him: He would stoop to anything that he thinks would assure his election as president.

The glaringly dishonorable inclination of the Vice President was impressed on my mind when he tried to make political hay of even the thorny issue of burying the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. His absurd recommendation to President Aquino for Marcos to be buried in Ilocos Norte with full military honors was a naked attempt to please everybody. He wanted to placate the Marcoses and their loyalists and at the same time retain the favor of the people who thought it unthinkable to bury the body of a former dictator in the cemetery for the heroes of the country.

It really boggled my mind how Binay could have made such a recommendation for someone who, after risking his life for the country as a soldier, would bring that same country to its darkest hours as a dictator.

In the same breath, I can’t find any satisfactory explanation to Binay’s invitation for Manny to join his senatorial team for 2016, except as a cold-blooded scheme to exploit the boxing great’s vast popularity for his own personal, political ends. Binay knows that Manny is unfit for the position of a senator. His invitation to Manny is not about what the latter can do as a senator but about what the boxer’s enormous popularity can do to Binay’s presidential bid. If  Filipinos are not crazy over Manny, I doubt if Binay would even  give him a second look.

I cannot believe that Binay is unaware of how Manny made a big fool of himself in the first and last time he figured in deliberations in Congress. I refer to that painfully embarrassing so-called debate with then representative Edcel Lagman during the deliberations on the Reproductive Health bill.

Binay knows that Manny’s skills and knowledge as a legislator have not improved one bit since that debate, and here he is foisting the trusting boxer as senatorial material to the public!
Binay and the United Nationalist Alliance know the consequence of their offer to Manny on his career and legacy as a boxer. They are aware that their designs on the perceived vote-pulling power of Manny could abruptly end an illustrious career that could still give the Filipinos additional moments of glory or could prematurely close the curtains on the show Filipinos the world over enjoy and cherish. But to Binay and his self-serving bunch, nothing is more important than winning the presidency. Never mind if the man adored by Filipinos and admired by millions of peoples of other races will turn into a laughingstock provided that in the transition, he would be useful to Binay’s drive to Malacañang.

—ESTANISLAO ALBANO JR.,
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