Opposition smashed to pieces

“Some leaders are not intimidated by opposition; they actually thrive on it. It wakes them up. It energizes them. It calls them to battle. It causes them to mobilize their thoughts and energy.” —John Ortberg

By Alex P. Vidal

THE Germans coined the word “blitzkrieg” or lightning war to describe an intense military campaign that intends to bring about a swift victory.

If the enemy or enemies were defeated overwhelmingly, it can be described as a total annihilation or “they have been smashed to pieces.”

Such is the catastrophic ending that befell the Philippine opposition in the most recent national election.

The fabled Philippine oppositionists weren’t just beaten black and blue, so to speak, they were executed and blown to bits in probably one of the most lopsided and merciless beatings ever-recorded in the history of the country’s democratic election since Manuel L. Quezon (695,332 votes or 67.98 percent) obliterated Emilio Aguinaldo (179,349 votes or 17.53 percent) in the 1935 presidential election.

Even if some of them wanted to dispute the 31 million votes (this is unprecedented and shocking, if not mysterious, in any presidential race, to say the least) garnered by President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., they wouldn’t; they couldn’t; they didn’t.

Damn if they do, damn if they don’t? 

It’s not easy to repulse the enemy’s overpowering might, which resulted in a total destruction courtesy of the combined forces of Duterte (both the father and daughter) and Marcos (the mother, son, and their billions worth of war chest).

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All the war-shocked opposition could mutter was, “Malinis ang pagkayari” or it was done perfectly, referring to a possible breach in the Smartmatic, which implemented the country’s electronic voting system.

True or not, no one could produce any clear-cut evidence; better still, no techie or IT expert could corroborate, or willing to corroborate, any claim of a suspected or imagined “high-level” fraud.

To initiate a case, there’s a need to produce a corpus delicti, which is hard to prove or is next to impossible in the crazy world of technology.

For this reason, those in the opposition whose emotions were bursting like a lava were adamant to make a noise or register their “protest” openly, or make it official, for fear of outright violent resbak—legally and otherwise—if they couldn’t pinpoint with perfect accuracy where the bodies are buried.

They have a sketch and the colored pencils but they lacked the drawing board. 

The dilemma is where to start which skit?   

Even the parsimonious and intrepid among them were caught off-guarded, feeling decapitated, vanquished and routed. 

In silent sorrow and tribulation, they asked themselves, “Shall we or shall we not mount a protest action?”

Can they blame Vice President Leni Robredo if she had flown the coop and elected to sing the lullaby in faraway Washington Square Park instead of storming the Bastille?  

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After six weeks of trial, a courtroom melodrama that transfixed the world of showbiz and the American nation, with millions of people watching it on television or streaming it online, the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard saga was final over.

The Virginia jury awarded Depp $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages, but the judge capped the punitive damages total in accordance with legal limits, resulting in a total of $10.35 million. 

The jury also awarded the now household name Heard $2 million in damages.

These past weeks, we were glued to our seats as the two major Hollywood stars made charges and countercharges of physical abuse against one another in court, sometimes in lurid detail. 

It was one of the highest-profile civil cases of the #MeToo era to go to trial that gave tremendous suspense and entertainment even to the uncouple’s Filipino fans. 

Now, back to the real world for everyone.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)