Three obvious losers unite against Robredo, demand she withdraw

THREE candidates who have been at the bottom of the presidential contest in a press conference they called yesterday blasted Leonor Robredo, the runner-up who, however, has been getting only a third of leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s 60-percent presidential preference ratings, for pressuring them to withdraw from the race and support her.

The three, apparently, were irked by what they felt as Robredo’s presumptuousness that they had no chance of winning and should just support her.

Robredo probably underestimated these three candidates’ bloated egos. “She treated us as garbage,” candidate Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso said.

A statement by Moreno’s camp last night said that the press conference would be attended by two other presidential candidates, Sen. Manny Pacquiao and Ernesto Abella. Abella, however, yesterday texted me saying he was not attending it. Pacquiao turned out to be smarter than the three, and was a no-show, telling Moreno he had an “emergency” at General Santos.

While none of the three initially named Robredo as the candidate who asked them to withdraw, candidate Panfilo Lacson identified her early in the press conference when he claimed that it was also the same politician responsible for getting his party Reporma to junk him as its candidate last month and support Robredo.

Candidate Moreno would later be more virulently critical of Robredo. “She can’t be trusted: She told me a thousand times before that she won’t run for the presidency. But she did.”

The three — Lacson, Moreno and Norberto Gonzales — claimed none of them would withdraw from the contest, although they would help the administration of the one who wins.

The three candidates only proved that melding their three minds has created as small a mind as Robredo’s, even competing with her in stupidity, that it won’t be so unfair to dub them now the three stooges. No wonder their ratings after a dozen surveys by different outfits have always been so low that only an irrational person would think they have the slightest chances of winning. In the latest March 2022 survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS), Moreno got 6 percent; Lacson, 2 percent; and Gonzales, 0.1 percent. Pacquiao, who proved to be smarter than them in boycotting the press conference, was even ahead of Moreno, with 7 percent.

Not just two

“After this press conference, voters will realize there aren’t just two candidates (Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Robredo), there are also us,” Moreno said. What? What has this guy been smoking?

After many months, scientific surveys have shown 92 percent of Filipinos have already judged — the combined votes of the three total only 8 in the SWS poll — that they aren’t voting for any one of them. For purportedly veteran politicians, they all surprisingly claimed the surveys are rigged and don’t reflect Filipinos’ sentiments.

Gonzales, who had been Defense secretary and national security adviser in the Arroyo administration, demonstrated a high-school student’s awareness of the scientific discipline of opinion polls. He rhetorically asked: “How can a small sample of respondents reflect the views of hundreds of millions of Filipinos?” With that kind of belief, Gonzales likely refused to be vaccinated against Covid, since the vaccines were tested on only a few thousand samples, and then given to billions of people.

Gonzales made a claim that made me fall off my seat: “Isn’t it obvious that Robredo’s only No. 2 in the surveys because people don’t want her? If it wasn’t her, she wouldn’t be No. 2.” What? Mull how absurd, what a tautology that statement is.

Loyalists

Domagoso repeated several times his belief that the surveys are fake. First, he says oligarchs have taken control of these surveys and are manipulating their findings. He even claimed he would release his proof in a few days. Second, Domagso as well as Lacson in a classic case of reality-denial claimed that they “can never believe” that there are 50 percent of Filipinos who are “Marcos loyalists,” by which he meant those supporting Bongbong Marcos are those who are loyal to the former president.

They totally are mistaken on why Marcos Jr. has been getting nearly 60 percent in voters’ presidential preference. For candidates aspiring to lead us, the two are so intellectually lazy.

According to a detailed survey by Laylo Strategic Reports that was leaked early April, out of the 61 percent who said they will vote for Marcos, only 6 percent said they will do so because he is the son of the late strongman. Instead, 45 to 15 percent gave as their reason their perception on the candidate’s personal qualifications, including being a public servant for decades, that he will continue the good things Duterte has started, and his being intelligent and knowledgeable.

The three’s press conference turned out to be hilariously disastrous for them. In their attempt to try to miraculously improve their numbers, they’ve proven to be in the same lightest weight class as Robredo, and I bow to Filipinos’ discernment in putting them at the absolute bottom of opinion surveys.

Anti-Leni

Lacson realized how bad the press conference was turning out to be, that toward its end, he angrily said: “This press conference is not an anti-Leni press conference. Why are your questions making it that?”

It is ironic that it may turn out that Robredo had not actually asked them to withdraw. Lacson says it was former Quezon City mayor Brigido “Jun” Simon who asked him to withdraw. But why would Lacson take him seriously when Simon has long been a has-been in the Philippines, after losing the mayoralty race in 1992, and more importantly, reported recently to be a supporter of Marcos now?

Guess who Gonzales, who has consistently rated 0.1 percent in polls, claimed had asked him to withdraw? The retired Comelec commissioner Rowena Guanzon, who is not known to be anywhere in Robredo’s inner circle, despite videos of her dancing like a mental patient in Robredo rallies. How could this purported intelligence not see that Guanzon could never make it in any politician’s inner circle.

Robredo must be pulling hair and wailing in frustration at this latest turn of events.

The Bongbong camp must be uncorking the champagne and celebrating tonight, even rolling over their stomachs in laughter.

These three anti-Marcos candidates have proven to be so dumb as to torpedo Robredo’s already sinking ship, either because they think they’ll get better numbers — three weeks to elections — by pulling her down. Or maybe it’s all about their macho egos being pricked by a woman who had the gall to ask them to surrender in this fight?

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Three obvious losers unite against Robredo, demand she withdraw
Source: Breaking News PH