Aquino has mandate to stop the return of a dictatorship

I cannot abide the thought of having, for our next president, a self-confessed vigilante who has publicly admitted having committed more than 1,000 extrajudicial killings, or who is a foul-mouthed satyr who flaunts his lecherous proclivities, or who has been exhibiting on an almost daily basis since the election campaign began unmistakable signs of a seriously flawed character and tell-tale symptoms of a mental disorder marked by an inability to tell right from wrong, and thus a concomitant inability to admit any wrongdoing.

I am writing, in behalf of Filipinos who refuse to condone the return to power of the heirs of the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, via the candidacies of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and the politicians allied with the Marcoses.

Today an insidious connivance of forces has become increasingly evident as the 2016 national and local elections approach. These forces are hostile to democracy, to freedom, to stability, to the fight against corruption and the corrupt, and to the economic liftoff President Aquino has successfully managed to launch.

The President has gained enemies in the process. But that is to be expected.

The corrupt abhor the incorruptible, or anyone who stops their profiting from corrupt deals. Those who have been punished for their sins against God and the Filipino people have been understandably determined to discredit and undermine the present administration.

The forces that do not want to see the present administration to succeed and the Filipino people to prosper are led by the very persons against whom the Filipino people rose in the 1986 people power uprising. The President knows who they are—the individuals and groups in connivance with those out to undermine the gains of the present administration. And each day, we endeavor to discern the powers at play in our increasingly troubling political landscape. These persons and their ilk have not kept secret their plans and vile intent to wrest control of political and economic power once again.

The President, as head of the executive branch of government, has the power and resources to stop the heirs of the dictator who plundered our country and stole our freedoms, from becoming our leaders. That power has been reposed in him by the Almighty through us. He should use that power now. He should act now. It is his mandate.

Neither the President nor we can allow ourselves to be led in the next six years and, God forbid, even beyond, by this candidate reportedly leading the dubious preelection surveys. This candidate has been manifesting highly disturbing signs of a flawed conscience and inability to discern the most glaring distinctions between right and wrong.

The President should do what he—and all of us who stand for rectitude, sanity, democracy and integrity—knows he must!

—MA. SOCORRO G. NAGUIT, [email protected]