Black prop doesn’t stop PAINTING OTHERS BLACK JUST TO APPEAR WHITE

By Manny Piñol

Waking up to a quiet and foggy morning in the farm early today, I wanted to control the urge to open my laptop and check my Facebook account.

I, however, succumbed to the itch to know what’s happening in the rest of the country and the world.

What I saw, however, ruined the beautiful day in front of me.

Cris Ramos, a loyal friend of Mayor Rody Duterte and a former military officer, sent me an image of a post made by a Teddy Y. Montelibano in the social media.

In it, Montelibano wrote one of the most ridiculous lies I ever read.

He said that towards the late afternoon of Friday, Oct. 16, Duterte was actually in the Linden Suites in Manila “waiting for the pledges promised him by certain seriously wealthy major investors in his political campaign.”

Montelibano added “He waited until the last minute but NONE of those who had given him pledges ever made good their promise and that’s why GALIT na GALIT kay Mar Roxas because he believes that those “investors” have decided to support and pledge their resources at the disposal of Roxas, instead. THAT’s the real story behind this guy’s hitting back at Roxas. pathetic damn SORE loser that he is.”

This is, of course, a big lie in its worst form.

Duterte’s decision not to seek the Presidency was not about the money.

There was a huge number of people who wanted to help him financially had he agreed to run.

Whatever the real reasons are, I would never know and I would never attempt to ask him.

I will always respect his decision.

There was indeed confusion as to the whereabouts of Mayor Duterte in the afternoon of Friday.

Even I made a mistake reporting that he was on board a plane en route to Manila because this was the information I got from the small team of Duterte supporters who waited for him at the COMELEC headquarters.

The information was based on text messages received from known sources in Davao City and since everybody was in panic mood, it was never validated and verified.

It was only later when we were able to confirm that Duterte never left Davao and stood pat on his earlier decision not to seek the Presidency.

I searched the name Teddy Y. Montelibano in the search bar of my Facebook page and it led me to a page of a journalist who works for the Rogue Magazine and the Manila Bulletin and, you guessed it right, a supporter of Roxas.

Just like Duterte, I am not saying that Roxas has something to do with this black propaganda against the Davao City Mayor.

However, I believe that this has been the strategy adopted by the Roxas camp in their effort to prop up the candidacy of a Presidential bet who is doing poorly in the surveys.

Backed by money bags bursting in the seams, the Roxas camp strategy is to shoot down everybody else to make sure that their bet is the last man standing by election time in 2016.

They started working on Vice President Jejomar Binay as early as last year with charges of corruption, including filing charges against his son, Makati Mayor Junjun Binay.

The charges certainly have basis but it is the intensity of the attack which leads observers to believe that it is a well-planned and orchestrated attack to destroy Binay.

And they succeeded.

Next came Senator Grace Poe who was flying high in the surveys. Again, it appears like they are succeeding as rumours are rife that she will be disqualified.

Then, they worked on Duterte and now Miriam Defensor-Santiago labelling her as a mental case.

I can understand the strategy of the administration in handling the candidacy of Roxas.

With a candidate who is so unappealing like Roxas, the only way to ensure his victory is to cripple his opponents

They are wrong in hitting Duterte because the guy fights back.

In fact, knowing that the Mar Roxas camp was behind the black propaganda against him, he warned that he would expose “the real Mar Roxas” in due time.

Perhaps, the Roxas camp should be reminded not to kick a sleeping dog.

Expect Duterte to come out swinging.