(Eagle News)–The Palace on Wednesday, May 15, slammed militant group Bayan for its claims the results of the 2019 elections were due to President Rodrigo Duterte’s “dark magic.”
In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said that while these were expected given the “crushing defeat” of “many” left-leaning party-list groups and Neri Colmenares, their senatorial bet, they have “not been backed by any semblance of evidence and can easily be fact-checked.”
In the first place, he said half of the Commission on Elections commissioners were appointees of then-President Benigno Aquino III and supporters of the administration candidates are vigilant because they want their votes to be protected.
He said the loss of left-leaning groups was a “clear indictment” that the people do not believe in their “advocacies” against the President especially the war on drugs, extrajudicial killings, South China Sea and one-man rule.
The electorate, he said, has seen through the “sophistry of espousing their feigned brand of nationalism for many decades, taking advantage of the poor man’s plight.”
According to Panelo, their strategy of attacking a popular president was “simply wrong” because it caused a backlash against the opposition candidates.
Instead, he said “they should have presented an alternative platform of governance and discussed how their brand of politics would be much better than the kind that the administration candidates would provide.”
“Our people’s rejection should have been a wake-up call to re-assess their actions,” Panelo said.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Reyes — instead of throwing in the towel and yield to the resounding voice of the electorate — opts to throw his false and malicious narratives at the Duterte administration,” Panelo added.
Panelo said Duterte himself will also never interfere with the election process, “as well as frustrate the sovereign will of the people, for such is the very process which propelled him to the presidency.”
“By ‘Duterte magic,’ we mean the total package of sterling performance and good governance the President delivers to the people,” Panelo said.
He added it was also Duterte’s “empathy towards the ordinary Filipino as against those who, until now after the elections, cannot comprehend the voice of the majority opting to turn a blind eye to it,” and his “decisive actions” in resolving various local and national issues, and in creating solutions.
“These, among others, comprise the ‘Duterte magic’ which carried his candidates to a resounding victory,” he said.
