2 High Profile Narratives That Don’t Get Traction From The Public!

Jeffrey or Jennifer Laude, a transgender was a victim of a hate crime and VP Jejomar Binay was poor man being persecuted by the rich mestizos in the Senate. These are two high profile national narratives that don’t get much traction in the print media and the social networking sites. You just have to read the reactions of people on PDI, Rappler and GMA online news or browse Facebook to find this out.

Though how tawdry these narratives are – they are being drilled into the public consciousness as testaments enough of our contempt against public’s sense of right or wrong. These are lies unworthy of the billing in the national landscape because they are contrary to the truth  but they get important coverage nevertheless.

Jeffrey, aka, Jennifer died on October 11 allegedly at the hands of a U.S. marine soldier inside a cheap Olongapo motel room because the soldier hates gays. Obviously absent in this narrative is the  sleazy angle that the victim sold the gringo the way an snake oil salesman would sell a potent cure-all medicine which turns out to be outright phony. The gringo expected a more curvaceous tadpole ensconced in between the peddler’s  lower extremities instead of a rigid flagpole in between them.  It must have come as a shock to the poor gringo, that he turned allegedly “violent.”  Our local boys could have done the same  — but we are oblivious of this possibility because the “suspect” here is a Gringo and not our own local suspect.  We refused to bring up this angle in the narrative because we should be respectful of the dead.

This misguided outrage continues and political groups find this  incident enough to reduce American’s prestige in the country.  Politicians join in the fray to re-spark the luster in their careers that has been dimmed.  They called for the junking of the VFA and looked at this isolated crime as an insult to the sovereignty of the republic  —  though they were never as loud and as enraged  when China insulted our sovereignty over Spratleys.

Politicians who called for the abrogation of the VFA are political lightweights in geopolitics who saw the predicate of joint US-RP military exercise only for the best interest of America and not for the protection of the dear Republic. Yes, that is true  –  America’s  “pivot” in Asia was to contain China’s influence over the region for its own imperial interest. These joint military exercises were adjuncts of this Asia pivot.  This military cooperation though  between the countries indirectly benefits the Philippines  from further aggression from  China, though they were not undertaken chiefly for the noblest intention to protect us against this giant flexing its obnoxious muscles in our face.  As a regional weakling or beggar we cannot be choosy, though majority of the Filipinos would rather hitch their fortune in the stars and stripes rather than on pure yellow stars  in blood red fabric.

Incidentally, the normal refrain of the public from Jeffrey/Jennifer’s death is this: “Some of our young innocent school girls had been raped and their limped bodies dumped in grassy abandoned lots just everywhere and there was no outrage – no outpouring of sympathy, no expression of condolences,  let alone crocodile tears for their tragic fate from VFA critics and Jeffrey/Jennifer supporters.  Our society has been addicted to circus  –the more ruckus the vaudeville, the better  is the entertainment and merriment.  Jeffrey/Jennifer’s death rekindles our hatred against the gringos and provides fuel to our misplaced outrage.  Other deaths are too insignificant to stir our passion and inebriate our hysteria for dramatics.

The other narrative was provided to us by no less than the second powerful man in the country who claimed he was poor and was being persecuted by the rich “mestizos” in the Senate.  He denies owning some 350 or 150 hectares of elegant hacienda in Batangas, or having overpriced the constructions of government buildings  in Makati to pad his pockets or of having expensive mansions and residential houses in choice lots in  city  and adjoining summer hideaway in Tagaytay.

Construction projects were undertaken at the time that VP Binay was the Mayor of Makati and which the Blue  Ribbon Committee of the Senate considers overpriced.  VP Binay denies  the construction being overpriced and ever pocketing a single centavo from these projects.  Arrayed against this “immaculate” personification of himself as honest and incorruptible public servant were the testimonies of the members of his inner-circle which were privy to these corruptions and how VP Binay fleeced the treasury of Makati of millions through dummy corporations.

Omni Janitorial And Security Services, which according to his erstwhile henchman, ex-Mayor Ernesto Mercado, is owned by VP Binay and fronted by his dummies.   This company had cornered all the janitorial and security services of Makati City and of late, of the Housing Urban Development Corporation, a government entity which he now heads as a cabinet official.

The contractor of Makati Building/Parking, according to Mercado was Hillmark Corporation, which is said to be the contractor too of the structures and improvements on the Batangas Hacienda. Unable to collect from the Batangas project in millions of pesos, Hillmark vied for the Makati Building/Parking project and won the bid because the Binay people “trapped” the competitor bidder in an elevator that supposedly got stuck midway to the bidding room. Mercado said Hillmark overpriced the building for about a billion pesos to offset its inability to collect from VP Binay from the hacienda construction in Batangas.

Overpriced hospital equipment to Ospital ng Makati were sold through a middleman company which sourced the equipment from a company previously owned by Anthony Tiu, who now conveniently claims he is the owner of the Batangas hacienda through a usufruct agreement with Leonardo Gregorio. Mr. Gregorio,  Senator Cayetano of  the Senate BRC said  could be fronting too for VP Binay. The price of the hacienda was supposed to be P446 Million but Tiu or his company paid only P11 Million but he said he was already the owner of the property.  Tiu’s connection with the Binays goes deep and long according to Mercado and that his being the “new” owner of Hacienda Binay was too coincidental to inspire credence and belief.

The allegations of corruption against VP Binay and his family were made at the halls of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee and they were televised for the entire nation to watch and see.  The witnesses were those of  “mafia-type”  operatives who had fallen from grace and turned to the government for protection in exchange for information.  Their credibility has never been doubted if you were part of the objective public and not the members of the Binay camp or the Binays themselves.

All the public have heard from VP Binay, however was that the allegations of corruptions hurled against him and his family were politically motivated by the rich “mestizos” in the Senate who were out to malign his good name because he was poor and his skin color is dark and he was leading in the survey in the Presidential survey of candidates for  2016.

VP Binay’s explanation was lame and it was meant for the “hoi polloi” class and the members of his own party who will support him and his family regardless of his  tarnished reputation that makes him unworthy of the office he assiduously seek.

VP Binay’s numbers in the polls continue to slide on account of his narrative failing to get traction from the public.  How much distance he would go to prolong this political hemorrhage is a question he himself can answer.  But from the looks of it, he is devoid of any Japanese fortitude that looks at honor as a question of life or death.