MILF’s proof of ‘trust and sincerity’?

After being accused of massive corruption, expect Vice President Jejomar Binay to be accused of lying. He has been going around the country delivering campaign speeches, making election promises, shaking hands and distributing campaign materials—in other words, everything that a candidate campaigning for votes does—and yet he has the cheek to say that he is not campaigning. He says he is just doing his job.

That’s not his job. On the contrary, he deserts his job in Manila to roam the provinces courting votes. He is the administration’s housing czar whose job is to provide housing for homeless Filipinos. But look at the millions of our countrymen who are still homeless. He has also been assigned by President Aquino to look after the welfare of overseas Filipino workers, but look at how many OFWs are languishing in prisons in other countries, some of them sentenced to death. One of them, Mary Jane Veloso, was almost executed in Indonesia. What did Binay do to save her? It was President Aquino’s personal plea to his Indonesian counterpart that saved her from the firing squad.

During all that time, what was Binay doing? If I remember correctly, he just wrote a letter to an Indonesian official and then left Mary Jane to her fate, as he continued campaigning for votes in the Philippines. But he barefacedly claims he is “not campaigning.” What does that make of him?

In fact, that is what he has been doing since he became vice president. When it was announced that he won the vice presidential election in 2010, Binay announced that he would seek the presidency; he has done little else but that since then.

I do not understand why the Commission on Elections does not make even a squeak to warn him against premature campaigning. The legal excuse is that Binay has not yet filed his certificate of candidacy (the time for filing is still in October), so technically he is not yet a candidate.

But Binay himself said he is a candidate for president and is, in fact, campaigning for votes. Except for the technicality of the lack of a certificate of candidacy, Binay is, in all respects, already a candidate and is certainly behaving like one. Because of the Comelec’s timidity, Binay has made a mockery of the intent of the Comelec rule against premature campaigning—and of the intelligence of Filipinos.

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John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic to become president of the United States. Barack Obama is the first black American to become its president. Hillary Clinton MAY become its first woman president. But with Donald Trump’s announcement that he, too, would run for president, the United States may have another first: If “The Donald” wins, he would be the first US president with the queerest hairdo. He would also be the most conceited and bombastic US president ever.

Trump (rhymes with chump) boasts that his net worth is $9 billion, (Forbes Magazine said it is only $4.1 billion), but how much personal income tax does he pay every year? He is known in America as a master of self-promotion (shades of Jojo Binay!)

In his speech announcing his candidacy, he boasted that if he becomes president, he would defeat the Islamic State and make trade deals with China. He also boasted that he would fortify the border with Mexico by building a “Great Wall of America” to prevent Mexican “rapists” from entering the United States. “Nobody builds walls better than me,” he boasted. “I will make America great again.”

In the same way that most Filipinos are afraid Binay would really run for president of the Philippines, Republicans in the United States, under whose party Trump threatens to run, fear he would turn an “otherwise serious Republican primary contest into a circus.”

Said a Republican strategist: “I just apologized to my toddler for bringing him up in a country where Donald Trump runs for president, (and) gets better than 2 percent in the polls.”

Canadian singer Neil Young, whose song, “Rockin’ in the Free World,” was used at Trump’s announcement, was so embarrassed that he issued a statement saying that its use was unauthorized and that he was not supporting Trump.

Trump is an example of what wealth does to some people. They become conceited.

So don’t get rich or you may become like (ugh!) Trump.

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The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, showing “its trust and sincerity,” handed over to a foreign monitoring team (not to the Philippine government) 75 assorted firearms in a well-publicized ceremonial decommissioning (not surrender, MILF emphasizes) to entice Congress to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law. Also, some 175 MILF fighters allegedly decided to return to normal life, in exchange for P25,000 and a means of livelihood for each.

Big deal, 75 guns out of an estimated 16,000 firearms in MILF hands of more than that number of MILF fighters?

During the ceremonies led by no less than the President of the Philippines, MILF chief Murad Ebrahim warned that there would be no more future surrender of firearms if the BBL is not passed. And a congressman, who was part of the cabal that railroaded the passage in the House of Representatives its version of the BBL, threatened that it would be “war” if Congress does not pass the BBL.

Threats are proof of trust and sincerity? Don’t they realize that if a BBL with unconstitutional provisions is passed, the Supreme Court would strike it down and we would be back to square one?