Ramon Tulfo’s column titled “Oplan Nognog just an invention” (Metro, 10/23/14) confirmed my suspicion that “Oplan stop Nognog 2016” was an idea hatched by Vice President Jejomar Binay’s PR men and was intended to elicit for Binay sympathy or compassion from the “politically vacuous masses,” and consequently gain votes for him as a candidate in the 2016 presidential election.
When I first read and heard of “Oplan stop Nognog 2016,” I immediately sensed that the word “Nognog,” a funny, charcoal-black comics character that stirs up mixed feelings of ridicule and pity, could be a mere “gimmick” to generate sympathy for Binay, he being dark-skinned. In fact, one of the factors that made the “Binays ruled Makati one after the other is because they go to great lengths to emphasize their looks.”
Little did Binay’s PR men know that by using the same kind of gimmick, they revealed themselves to have run out of ideas to defend and save the Vice President from the avalanche of corruption charges now swamping him. No amount of denials, allusions to political persecution, demolition job, or whatever, will extricate him from the political maelstrom he is in now. Only his presence in the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee hearing, to answer point by point the corruption charges hurled against him, will be his “saving grace.”
—MARIO “YOA” BOCO,
Salcedo, Eastern Samar