Is Rizalito David really alone?

QUITE SUDDENLY from under a rock, one Rizalito David has come out with guns blazing and filed a disqualification case against Sen. Grace Poe in the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET). He says it’s nothing personal, much less political—just a matter of principle and conscience! He just happens to believe Poe does not deserve to be a senator. He is supposedly surprised to learn that such filing entails expenses for case-docketing and process-related services. He himself joined the senatorial race with Poe in 2013 (but ended up a bottom-dweller, way below Poe who was the topnotcher).

Apparently, he was unfamiliar with what goes with the territory he dared to tread. We saw him panhandling for doles from the public to raise the money required (P60,000) by the SET to give his complaint the time of day!

Who does David think he’s kidding? When asked why he took action only now, he responded that he had thought about it a long time ago but he was all alone then and didn’t have the wherewithal to embark on such a costly enterprise. He is still alone and penurious, isn’t he? Well, evidently, no longer so.

Try ruminating on these facts: It was the Binay camp that first floated the rumor that Poe is not qualified to run for president for lack of citizenship and residency. But because Vice President Jejomar Binay himself was still baiting her with the idea of running with him, Poe bashers held their tongues. When it became clear that she was not biting, Binay gofers went to town! Curiously, so did David.

Sure, David made a big deal of the fact that the SET threw out his complaint for failure to pay the filing fees. That dovetailed with the pretense that his gambit was not being bankrolled by any political group. He went cadging around and collected enough from generous “friends” whose identities he would rather not disclose, and—voila!—he’s in business! If one had never been in an elementary school which already teaches what the sum is if “two and two” are put together, he would most likely take this canard hook, line and sinker!

Truly, David’s complaint is as cockamamie as it gets. Questioning Poe’s qualification this late as senator (even as former chair of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board) can only be seen as a sample, a foretaste of what Poe should expect the moment she files a certificate of candidacy for president to give Binay a run for his money. It foreshadows an evisceration far more intense when that event takes place. Is that how scared the Binay camp is of Poe?

—STEPHEN L. MONSANTO, Monsanto Law Office,Loyola Heights, Quezon City,[email protected]