Democracy, next domino falling
Marcoleta should have reason to feel that his rabid detractors could no longer distinguish between ‘rubbish’ and logic, which is the single powerful desiderata of the legal profession.
Daily TribuneMarcoleta should have reason to feel that his rabid detractors could no longer distinguish between ‘rubbish’ and logic, which is the single powerful desiderata of the legal profession.
Must it raise doubt if a donated aggregate amount of P75 million is fully spent for purely electoral purposes by a senatorial dark horse? If one assumes that the legally authorized election campaign expense is pegged at P3 per voter, P75 million filters down to 25 million voters — assuming P3, in cash or in kind, translates to votes.
In real life, cash doles by politicians range from P3,000 to P5,000 on the eve of election day, flooding the voting scene.
What legal, mathematical, scientific certainty, if any, is there that when fully exhausted, P75 million would safely garner the winning senatorial threshold of at least 11.1 million votes using 2016 metrics or 13.2 million using 2025 election data?
In the 2025 midterm elections, not a few senatorial candidates neared the P1 billion mark (PCIJ monitoring data). As disclosed, the top spenders Bato, Imee, Pia, Lito, Camille scaled the P129 to P180 million range.
One wonders if contributions to all the 11 other senators who won were not similarly sourced as Rodante Marcoleta — now in jail for plunder related to a “gift” — who landed in sixth place with over 15 million votes.
Recall this famous quote from American poet and essayist, James Russell Lowell (1848), who said: “Not what we give, but what we share/For the gift without the giver is bare.” James will rise from his grave to know that despite him highlighting that “true generosity requires personal sacrifice and emotional investment, rather than handing over material wealth,” Marcoleta’s generous donors all landed in prison.
Arguably, there’s this view that the “cash gift” was given solely for an electoral purpose and not by reason of the office as perhaps erroneously postulated by the authority. In fact, being a donation, said amount was comingled with Marcoleta’s personal funds thereby reaching total expenditures of P112 million as purportedly appearing in his Statement of Contributions and Expenses.
Further, being campaign funds and fully spent, said amount could not be reflected in his SALN.
Apparently, this is the simple logic that the authority cannot dig or what it “deliberately fed to the public to boost the plunder case they concocted” to silence responsible dissent.
Moreover, any public cynicism of the cognizant quasi-judicial body has two legs to stand on by simple reference to a prior expressed acquiescence or approval of another senator’s view that “we can bend the law,” articulated during a crucial Senate flood control investigation.
Thus, Marcoleta should have reason to feel that his rabid detractors could no longer distinguish between “rubbish” and logic which is the single powerful desiderata of the legal profession. For poor Marcoleta, there’s a need to disabuse the minds of the “gullibles,” for one “dupe” is too many.
Granting for the sake of argument that plunder is in play whether it involves public funds or private funds, in reality, the latter reflects financial support for the candidacy of an aspiring senator and, mindfully, there’s practically “zero cost” incurred with the former. So what gives?
Between two evils, isn’t it bordering more on criminal intent to source from public funds in any way, shape, or form rather than from private financing voluntarily or even generously donated to pole-vault someone’s unpromising senatorial bid?
When government agencies with prosecutorial authority and courts become weapons in the state apparatus, they should carry an even heavier burden of proof as a precondition against whom they allege to have committed a high crime.
The punishment for an incumbent senator accused of plunder is, for all intents and purposes, akin to a “death sentence” or “capital punishment.” In like vein, an incumbent Vice President being impeached, when convicted, is meted out the highest punishment imaginable, viz., removal from office and perpetual disqualification from holding public office.
All things considered, do we still uphold the maxim, “Vox populi vox Dei”?
