Conspiracy cesspool

Conspiracy cesspool | Daily Tribune

A badly cooked chop suey of demoniacal smears, addled conspiracy theories, and brazen hypocrisies spewed in the news cycle of the past few days makes one want to throw up.

Paradoxically, despite the indigestion, it leaves something instructive, especially in trying to see what other lies are waiting around the corner.

Anyway, the best immediate instructive point of these contrived conspiracies is they’re only to ensure that the unscrupulous denizens of our politics survive, particularly the tarnished pro-Duterte variety.

(Members of the pro-Duterte camp recently found themselves at their wits’ end following the spectacular crash of the “skin and bones” drama of the former strongman’s health condition in the face of the far more populist missing sabungeros story.)

At any rate, the latest slime vomited by this conspiracy-addled cesspool was the dragging of First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos into the recent accidental death by drug overdose of a Filipino retail executive in Los Angeles.

More than the usual social media titillation, many were told, with the usual aid of paid baying fascist trolls, that there was an underlying conspiracy to cover up the contrived controversy.

By the by, this spreading conspiracy theory elicited a strong reaction from the First Couple, whom the Palace says are considering filing charges against those spreading an altered Beverly Hills police report linking the First Lady to the death of Paolo Tantoco.

In this, we wish the First Couple and the Palace information bureaucrats the best of luck. More so since an already conspiracy-twisted sector of our blighted political landscape had been primed to disbelieve anything the Palace says.

So much so that whatever proven fakeries are presented that shatter the coverup theory, prominent figures of the Duterte fandom — like presidential sister Imee Marcos and tiresome fugitive Harry Roque — are more than likely to take each proof as further evidence of a still grander coverup.

In short, the conspiracy-addled pro-Duterte fringe won’t let matters go away, leaving Palace functionaries no other real remedy than to either change the subject or try to shrink the conspiracy to a less politically damaging size.

But if it’s any consolation to the Palace bureaucrats, as an aide of former US President Barack Obama recently put it when they were dealing with a conspiracy theory of their own, they should “take the win” once “the vast majority of rational people” are satisfied with their explanation.

In the meantime, aside from the smear on the First Lady, a smear reportedly peddled by the pro-China bloc targeted the competent Defense boss Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro, who is being made to answer for once holding a Maltese passport.

Teodoro has made the case that he had surrendered his Maltese passport and that he had disclosed the fact to the relevant bodies, including Congress’ powerful confirmation committee.

But many are still pontificating nonsensical asides on the passport issue and obviously want independent-minded Teodoro out of the defense portfolio, probably at the bidding of China.

As for the aforementioned brazen hypocrisies, flaming pious born-again Christian Sen. Allan Cayetano has become even more blazing by the day, including notably recently in this newspaper.

Cayetano lately has been righteously sermonizing compassion and human rights after he was grilled over his quixotic quest to bring the former strongman back from his comfortable dotage in The Hague.

Cayetano’s sermonizing is particularly hypocritical to many. But it is really just the latest reminder of corruptive political elites taking care of themselves.