RED HERRING: HERE WE GO AGAIN

 

“A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question.” (Oxford English Dictionary)

While not a few have looked red to the red-tagging eyes now instead of yellow then, Marcos Jr. operatives are throwing everything to VP Leni, including the kitchen sink at mga bangkay for Leni – and the Communists too – as their last resort. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Today, everyone seems to be for VP Leni. That’s not-so-good news for Marcos Jr.’s camp. Out of desperation, Marcos Jr. operatives could not even grasp their contradictions that I wrote in my previous article “Marcos Jr. Operatives Have Scrambled To Cover Up His Interview ‘Cowardice’ Fallout” as excerpted below:

“Marcos Jr.’s operatives are unwittingly contradicting themselves. They have been saying that VP Leni is a US-backed candidate and, in the next breath, calling her a laughingstock too.  Interestingly, Marcos Sr. was a friendly ally and guarantor of US interests for eighteen years. Yet, I have still to read an article about Marcos Sr. as a laughingstock.

“The US is just like a business organization, on a smaller scale, that undertakes ‘due diligence’ before ‘investing’ in an ‘asset.’ ‘Due diligence’ is an investigation, audit, or review performed to confirm facts or details. All US allies like, Marcos Sr. and VP Leni, were subjected to such ‘due diligence.’ With its global dominance, the US will not back up a leader of any country that is a laughingstock. The US backing up of VP Leni as its worthy ally in the Indo-Pacific volatile region demolishes Marcos Jr.’s operatives’ ‘laughing stock’ smear.”

Here’s another Marcos Jr. operatives’ propaganda: Communists for Leni. Simple logic will demolish it by another contradiction. Let’s take as an illustration this typical news headline in the past: “Philippines Police Van Rams Protesters outside US Embassy in Manila” (The Guardian). According to the report, the protesters were activists that have organized regular anti-US protests in front of the US embassy for decades, made up of students, workers, and tribespeople, demanding an end to the US troops’ presence in the country. Let’s analyze.

Given Facts:

1. The activists vs. U.S. troops’ presence in PH

2. VP Leni is a U.S. ally

Question:

Why will the anti-US activists (coalition of students, workers, and tribespeople) support in the May election VP Leni, a U.S. ally?

Answers:

1. The activists are not Communists.

2. VP Leni as the next President embodies the real essence of UNITY. Even if a handful of those activists, for the sake of argument, maybe were Communists, they have envisioned in the person of VP Leni today, like what the masses of Filipinos at various levels of our society have conjured up the same image of her -- a unifier – who possesses authentic leadership committed to transcending human differences to promote her all-inclusive program “Angat Buhay Lahat.”

By throwing everything to VP Leni, including the kitchen sink, his operatives have left almost nothing to Marcos Jr. – Catholic Church, atheists, Communists, US, business sector, Rappler, Vera Files, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility – add to that the long tally of massive endorsements of VP Leni Robredo ranging from 180,000-member Alliance of Concerned Teachers to Vendors for Leni that represent the broad actual demographic coverage of the Philippine society beyond the bounds of what a survey could project.

By throwing everything to VP Leni, and leaving almost nothing to Marcos Jr., his operatives have failed to see this unfolding notion: Marcos Jr. appears to have a problem in dealing with everyone. Such a notion reminds me of John C. Maxwell’s The Bob Principle: When Bob has a problem with everyone, Bob is usually the problem.

In like manner, when Marcos Jr. has a problem with everyone (including the Comelec), Marcos Jr. is usually the problem. One striking example: Marcos Jr. will not attend the Comelec-sanctioned presidential debates – the benchmark of a healthy democracy. One good thing about presidential debates: Declaring one’s policy positions during the debate that will become part of the public record, the winning presidential candidate can be held accountable by citing the debate transcripts. This will be another story.

MARCOS SR.’S RED HERRING: PRETEXT TO MARTIAL LAW

(Excerpted from the book “Impossible Dream: The Marcoses, The Aquinos, And The Unfinished Revolution” by Sandra Burton)

“When the campaign resumed, Marcos [Sr.] continued to hammer away at the unsubstantiated Communist threat. But his line that a vote for the Liberal party was a vote for the Maoists fizzled, as voters watched the injured opposition candidates earnestly addressing rallies from their wheelchairs.

“On September 20 [1972], [Ninoy] Aquino made another privilege speech in which he puzzled aloud over Marcos [Sr.’s] motivation in accusing him of confiding information about the Communists to the Marcos regime. His conclusion served as an eerie preview of the circumstances surrounding his death in 1983.

“Marcos [Sr.], he deduced, had, godfather style, planted two fatal kisses on him by portraying him, not simply as an enemy of the state, but also as a man who had betrayed his Communists allies to the regime. ‘Should I be assassinated,’ he said, “Mr. Marcos and the defense establishment would have a ready alibi: The NPAs killed Aquino because he betrayed them.’ Playing to the galleries, Ninoy uttered the last prophetic line of his Senate career. ‘I would now like to enter these words into our records: Should I be assassinated, my blood would be on the hands of those who set me up for the kill.’”

PUTIN’S RED HERRING: PRETEXT TO UKRAINE INVASION

(Excerpted from NBC News)

“Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday peddled accusations of Nazi elements within Ukraine to justify the attack on his western neighbor, a move that experts slammed as slanderous and false.

“Putin has long sought to falsely paint Ukraine as a Nazi hotbed which is a particularly jarring accusation given that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish and lost three family members in the Holocaust.”

FROM YELLOW TO RED

“All seems infected that the infected spy, as all looks yellow to the jaundiced eyes.” (Alexander Pope)

Now that “resentment” – a totalitarian single source of recruitment and unification -- being a spent tool (“kumita na”) that targeted Dilawans (if used again will backfire: the resentful will unite and turn instead to Pharmally & Malampaya shenanigans and the Marcoses’ plunder), hence, this time Marcos Jr.’s operatives have resorted to the “red herring”: Communists.

Be not afraid.

“There are more things… likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” (Seneca)

I would like to conclude this article with “brave” words of FREEDOM and a “fighting” stance of TRUTH.

“Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live, at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our FREEDOM!” (William Wallace)

“The TRUTH is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself.” (St. Augustine)