BBM's Thorny Road To Malacanang

The 2022 election is fast approaching and this early Bongbong Marcos is lording it over in the latest surveys dwarfing the pinkdilawan's bet Leni Robredo, or the charismatic mayor of Manila Isko Moreno Domagoso, the never say die boxer turned politician Manny Pacquiao and seasoned political stalwart Ping Lacson.

BBM has been in the top form and nobody can deny that his alliance with the presidential daughter Sara Duterte is a perfect combination as they complement each other very well (Marcos having his bastion in Ilocos/Luzon and Sara's bulwark and stronghold are Mindanao). It was a political marriage made in heaven. Any rocket scientist can easily surmise that they can almost smell the sweet aroma of victory and Visayas becomes the proverbial eye of political activities where they have to double time courting voters. Well, Leyte is already a Marcos country too being Imelda Marcos province.

After Bongbong filed his certificate of candidacy and applied for the position that is the highest in the land, several people have been running after him either to disqualify or invalidate his chances of being one of the official candidates. One petition says he is a convicted tax cheat, another that he was the son of the former dictator, that he is morally unfit, that he was a drug problem and the most unusual claim was that he's dead. And they don't want him to make the cut for the following reasons: 

1. tax-related issues and his old failure to file his income taxes for four consecutive years. - however, his lawyers countered that they can't prohibit him from running otherwise the Comelec would have not allowed BBM to run for governor, congressman, senator, vice president, and now the President of the Philippines.

2.  he was convicted by a Quezon City court for his multiple failures to file income tax returns from 1082 to 1985. Personally. I believe the petition is bound to collapse once evaluated by the Comelec because it appears to be defective in form and offers an insufficient legal basis and is unlikely to move forward. 

3. Another petition to stop BBM from running came from Ilokanos themselves. According to them his failure to pay his taxes is a "willful intent" to evade his payment obligations which the group said is tantamount to "moral turpitude".The petitioners band together with the common desire to uphold the rule of law.

4.  Martial law victims and human rights advocates filed also a petition to disqualify him being the son of the former dictator. They also noted that historical revisionism on the abuses and corruption committed during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. may be exacerbated should his son be elected to the highest post in government.

5.  Another petitioner was Tiburcio Marcos who claimed in a petition that the real Marcos Jr. allegedly died, and the person who filed his COC is an alleged impostor. “For Tiburcio, the principal petition raised was identity, something to the effect that BBM is not BBM. 

All these petitions are water under the bridge now. as Comelec has junked the bid to cancel Bongbong COC. But what caught my eye was the petition made by another Marcos who was putting a shade on the identity of a candidate applying for the highest position in the land. I heard all this gossip before, I thought it was just an urban legend, but it has its way of resurrecting and haunting BBM no less. 

And now more questions arise. Was this all true? Was BBM really dead? If he is, who is this impostor applying as president? Or is it just a figment of somebody's fertile imagination?  Or was this a bad joke that turned worst? Or some kind of political ploy to discredit him or shake the wits out of him? 

Was BBM really stabbed to death in Sussex England by his classmate? Oddly there was no news of a body being returned to the Philippines. And what is that story where BBM has to undergo plastic surgery so he will look like BBM? Shades of President Hidalgo being cloned and impersonated by Mariano in Ang Probinsiyano.  A case of art imitating life?

And the urban story's plot thickened.  Other versions said he was killed in a street mishap in Manila.  And the third version was that he was kidnapped by a radical group and was brought to Mindanao where he was killed.

Whatever is the answer to all these questions the voting public has the right to know.  They need clarity and transparency.  As I said before, I am apolitical and I am not voting because of my work, but the news, fake or not is polarizing ... at times confusing.

In his blog, I remember BBM facing the urban legend thingy head-on. 

The former senator has already belied this urban legend.  "For real, this is me, as you can see, for the entire history of my life, I was in the public eye. So don’t worry, this is me."