WE HAVE no doubt that Sen. Loren Legarda-Leviste is grooming her son, Congressman Leandro Leviste, for a Senate seat.
Yes, the broadcast journalist-turned-politician will soon be bowing out of office because of the Constitutionally-mandated term limit. And what a convenient way to bring the Batangas representative’s name to the public consciousness but to make earth-shaking exposés against the government or any of the people running its instrumentalities like the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
With his exposés on alleged unfinished or grossly overpriced and corrupt-ridden flood control projects in his province, and lately with his supposed possession of a Cabral Files relative to the graft-laden flood control projects, Leviste has suddenly become a household name.
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Another personality who is clearly in the process of personally building her name for a likely political expedition to the Senate is former Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner lawyer Rowena Guanzon.
And she is using her scathing denunciations of the incumbent Malacanang tenant. In her vlog, haranguing the President, Guanzon is using the vilest of words that, to many, can only come from some critics who have remained pure in spirit and spotless in character.
But is the former Comelec commissioner really that clean and capable of running the biggest bureaucracy that is the government?
Of course, other than Guanzon and Leviste, there is another clear senatorial aspirant who uses the scheme adopted by the lady from the Ilonggo-speaking region. That is, attacking with gusto the persons who he thinks are really the ones causing all the troubles in our country. He, too, snipes at the administration on certain issues.
His favorite targets, however, are the Dutertes, whose patriarch, former President Rodrigo R. Duterte, he once aspired to be taken as his (Duterte’s) Vice Presidential tandem but was rejected in favor of now Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano.
We are referring to maverick former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV. Despite his dismal performance when he ran for mayor in Metro Manila City, he never denied his desire to return to the Senate.
It is our take, though, that his chances for a Senate comeback depend largely on the outcome of the case that his top nemesis, former President Duterte, is facing in the International Criminal Court. Trillanes is a key figure in the crime against humanity cases that he helped file with the ICC.
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Like many other Filipinos, we also believe that more organized efforts will be rolled out to destroy the present government. Specifically, the efforts will be more focused on the President, hoping that the magnitude of the destabilizing moves will pressure the President to quit.
Another target of the efforts to attack the government is the country’s armed forces, including the police. Yes, the anti-government organizations, mostly those identified with politicians who are looking forward to benefit should a change in administration occur, will be doing their best to convince the military to withdraw support to the President and help in driving him out.
The question, however, is whether the anti-administration will succeed in their desire to get the military to turn their back on the elected President and force another people’s revolution? From the looks of it, the Filipino soldiers now seem to have realized that certain politicians are merely using them attain their ambition in a shortcut manner.
And when the smoke of upheaval will have subsided, it is already too late for them to realize that only another set of the same mannered leaders rise to power. And they start “harvesting” the “fruit” of what they have planted.
As we averred earlier, the year just starting will be full of expectations by the various sectors of the country’s population. There are those who are looking forward to the resignation of the President; there are those who are hoping for the military to intervene and trigger a new People’s peaceful revolution, and there are those who may even be wishing ill against the Philippine leader.
With all these, however, we are certain that many still believe that the President is still not a totally hopeless case and that the country, with all the odds against it, will still manage to survive the crisis presently obtaining.
