Grand conspiracy

WHILE the government is busy transforming plans to pulsating projects the President is being pilloried by a grand conspiracy of Filipino-Americans and their local partners in crime who connive to discredit, destabilize and finally unseat a popularly elected Rodrigo Duterte from the totem pole of power.

The discovery of the plot was not much of an ingenious tack of a technical probe team but in fact must have been accidental. While the conspiracy seemed to have mastered the language of how to demonize their penchant, in this case President Duterte, they failed to shield their dubious caper.

They set up a group in Yahoo and their exchanges to include instructions of how to carry out the plot revealed that their operation base is in the US of A. In the vortex of the conspiracy is multi-billionaire Fil-Am Loida Lewis and other Fil-ams who appeared to have greased members of mainstream media in the Philippines and a number of local politicians and the religious community to join the ouster plot.

Loida Lewis mounted her campaign to oust Duterte in US-based television networks and had posted her bellicose anti-Duterte campaign in the social media. Like her oust-Duterte plot however, which unmasked her paid hacks in the Philippine media, she too failed to hide the conspiracy's goal to install VP Leni Robredo as President should they succeed. No wonder that the bus-riding Leni flies so very often to the USA. For a while I thought it was merely the joy of riding in a plane as she does with the bus and motorcycle. For a while I thought that she really cannot get a seat on a plane to come back to the Philippines to succor her badly battered political constituents in Bicol. There was something more important in America than we ever can imagine.

No wonder there is an orchestration of critical opinions and stories that come out like it's a grand ensemble. I can only surmise that for each note the baton welder must have shelled out millions of dollars. Lewis is dealing with characters we thought were paragons of virtues. Their first names cropped up now and then and individually looked innocuous. But, line them up one after the other and you will get to know who the personalities are especially when you read them either in their column items or posts on FB.

Their proposition to unseat Duterte is seditious. Elected with a huge majority over his four opponents unprecedented in the past, those who did not vote for him during the polls had in fact realized he is the man they wanted to be president. The recent surveys done by pollsters show he is now trusted by 83 percent of Filipinos. Try to unseat a duly elected President who is now embraced by the vast population of Pinoys and you have a prospect of a bloody revolution. Pursue it now, and we will see seditious characters lining up the wall. They are no better than drug lords and pushers.

Which brings to mind why those who denigrate Duterte would rather focus on the casualty of the drug war waged by the President than almost a million who had voluntarily gave themselves up to be rehabilitated. Imagine what would have happened to them had they continued peddling and using drugs in the streets and in school campuses. We will have a situation not long from now when zombie-like street walkers and hawkers and one of them happened to be your daughter or son. And yet the Catholic Bishops of the Philippines, Leni Robredo, Leila De Lima and the cabal of Loida Lewis cannot figure this out for they are salivating for power and are so preoccupied with their oust-Duterte plot.

Leni, the willing marionette of the conspiracy, denies her involvement in the plot and yet she is so enmeshed in it and one need not be a Sherlock Holmes to determine how deep is she in the caper's shit. When Lewis goes on TV to badmouthed Duterte on a litany of absurdities, Leni, as if on cue, would come out with her own critical barrage against the President. Her public statements and participation in many occasions where she can implicate Duterte to tarnish his image and credibility follows the cadence of US-based plotters. The local jukeboxes in the mainstream media come alive singing the same tune.

Lewis wish to help Leni realize her own devoutly desired post is nothing now but a pipe-dream turning out to be her nightmare.

For allowing herself to be used and perceptibly participated in the grand conspiracy to oust Duterte from the Presidency, Leni has proven herself to be in the same mold with the new group of political animals called the 'Yellowtards'. He or she whom the gods wish to ascertain how much she values patriotism make her vice president first.

(Mr. Jun Ledesma is a community journalist who writes from Davao City comments from the perspective of a Mindanaoan)