VILLAROYO PROOF IS PURE GOSSIP
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When Gibo Teodoro says he quitted from party chairmanship to concentrate on his campaign, Toto Causing
did not believe him. But he was silent when Serge Osmena quitted the Liberal Party allegedly because he
also wanted to concentrate on his own campaign.
When the Lakas-Kampi party members defected to the Liberal Party, they were hailed by Noynoy Aquino as
having a renaissance of reform orientation. But when they defect to the Nacionalista party, Toto Causing
says it is because Villar is the secret candidate of Gloria Arroyo.
Toto further hallucinates that Mike Arroyo has been very busy calling people from his hospital room where he
was just transferred from the intensive care unit (ICU) after a close shave with death.
Where did the information he chose to highlight come from? Read the article again from reporter Gil
Cabacungan - from a second source, a party official who requested anonymity. Whoaaa!
Even Mike Arroyo's lawyer calls this pure gossip. And I am inclined to believe him because he is
corroborated by Reggie Velasco, the Lakas party deputy secretary general.
Reggie and I were together in the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC for six years (1986-92) where he
served as Second Secretary in the economic section and i as Press Attache. Eventually, he faded from
foreign affairs and asked transfer to the Office of the President when Erap left Malacanang and I went into
private consulting.
Reggie says they have money, and I believe that too because Gloria has been using the national treasury
like her own personal cashier for the past nine years. And even if we grant for the sake of argument that
Lakas has no funds, the sitting president still has access to a wide range of sources in this matter. Why has
Gloria been plundering government funds anyway but raising her political insurance policy. This is often
called "rule of the incumbent".
The chairmanship of the party that used to belong to Gibo Teodoro, albeit titular, can indeed be
cumbersome when he is also running for an elective position. It was coumbersome for Serge, afortiori (or
with more reason) it is doubly cumbersome for Gibo because Serge is not running for president but Gibo is.
Why cumbersome? Because no local canidate perceives the chairmanship as sheer titular. So with the
opening of the campaign for the local positions, every congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral candidate,
to say the least, has started jockeying for funding. This is when the polls and surveys start to become
superfluous and the machine politics start to grind.
The one who is controlling the purse strings of Lakas is Ronnie Puno, concurrent secretary of interior and
local government. Nowadays Ronnie and Reggie are inseparable twins. So when Reggie says they have
"money", he doesn't at all mean Manny Villar, but the wherewithal to fund their party's campaign to the finish.
It's that elementary, dear Watson!
So let us stop this paranoia among Noynoy supporters who often cry wolf and act wanting in veracity and
accuracy when the wind starts blowing away from them.
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