IT is astonishing how the opposition — the Pinks and their apparently estranged allies, the Reds — keep on making blunder after blunder, even before the official campaign period starts next year.

The other day a group filed a case asking the Commission on Elections to disqualify Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. from running for president in the elections next year. The group, mostly identified with Red fronts, claimed that the frontrunner is a “convicted criminal,” banned from running for any electoral post.

It was a dumb suit for several reasons: that kind of disqualification conviction (over Marcos’ failure to file his income tax returns for 1995) is lifted after five years from the serving of the sentence; the law imposes a penalty (for failure to file income tax returns for one year) of a mere fine; and the conviction did not involve “moral turpitude,” a requirement for disqualification from holding public office.

Those who filed the case obviously are people — okay, let’s call a spade a spade — formerly or presently involved in the communist movement, aka, “national democratic movement,” who are never interested in law, much less electoral law, as they have devoted their lives to overthrowing through violence a democratic state. One of them is the wife of Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Politburo member, who was arrested last June.

BASED on events solely in the past 30 days, it is incontestably US shadowy entities and their principal agent here, Rappler and Maria Ressa, who are inarguably suppressing Filipinos’ right to express their sentiments. We should be outraged.

Case No. 1: Rappler takes down its own polls

Ressa’s US-funded propaganda site, Rappler, launched on October 7 an online poll for viewers to vote whom they want to be president in May 2022. It said that the poll would run for three days and would be done monthly. Although Robredo was winning in the first several hours, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. subsequently overtook her the next day with huge margins.

This was despite the fact that Robredo’s camp, or Rappler itself, deployed a thousand trolls to vote for her; so stupidly obvious as the voters had Arabic or Indian names and many having their identities written in Sanskrit or Arabic.

By the second day, Marcos was winning nearly by a landslide, with 72 percent of netizens voting for him, and only 24 percent for Robredo.

CONTRARY to what most people think, the way we practice All Souls’ Day, which has come to be called “Undas” only in recent years, wasn’t a creation of Catholicism nor is it a practice among Catholics all over the world.

Only Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil — and in less intense forms, a few other Latin American countries — celebrate the Day of the Dead in the way we know it; that is, one day of the year when people go to the cemeteries to honor their dead. “Todos Los Santos” to us, this was an import from Hispanic Mexico, the reproduction here of its Dia de los Muertos.

Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter in the privacy of their homes with their families. Why would they commemorate their dead, who obviously passed away at different days of the year on one particular day when everyone does so and undertake this in one crowded place with strangers — crowds — all around them; thus, diminishing the solemnity of commemorating their loved ones?

The absurdity of the practice has become so obvious as our population has swelled, and more and more die, so more and more people visit their dear departed in cemeteries, which obviously have not grown in size, creating mammoth crowds in these places on November 1 that risk people’s safety.

THE national elections next year could be the worst timing ever for the opposition to the current administration. The pandemic will be ending by that time, while an economic boom is highly likely, following the usual bounce-back phenomenon of economies in the doldrums.

Based on figures in the past few days, the pandemic is easing, with cases dropping gradually in the past month, yesterday to around 3,000 from its peak of 26,000 in September.

This isn’t a fluke, with OCTA Research recently reporting the reproduction rate to be 0.4, below 1, which means Covid-19 is, theoretically, at least not even reproducing 100 percent of itself. It is also the same trend in most other countries such as among our neighbors like Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The pandemic is running its course, its spread slowed down by increasing numbers of people being vaccinated. The third and last wave is ending. It appears to be mimicking the second deadly pandemic in modern times, the Spanish flu which “officially” started February 1918 and ended April 1920, or a period of roughly two years. If the Covid-19 pandemic mimics that life span, it will be ending March 2022, or just about two months before the May elections.

Do not insult Philippine Media!

AWARDING Maria Ressa the Senate Medal of Excellence for her being conferred the Nobel Peace Prize is an insult to us professional Philippine journalists, and to all Filipinos.

The peace prize (and not for journalism) was given by a five-man panel of Norwegians — most likely because of US maneuvering or pressure — who don’t know anything about the Philippines, like most of the other US media outfits that similarly praised her “work.” The Norwegians probably thought, because of Ressa’s claims, that we are a country somewhere in Africa barely out of the Stone Age.

Please read the Nobel committee’s sole justification for giving the award: “Ressa’s Rappler has focused critical attention on the Duterte regime’s controversial, murderous anti-drug campaign. The number of deaths is so high that the campaign resembles a war waged against the country’s own population.”

But it is not just President Duterte that the Nobel insulted through that award to an American Filipino; it is all of us.

A FACEBOOK-based poll by Rappler, a US-funded, anti-Marcos news website, showed Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. taking 54 percent of votes, and Leni Robredo, 42 percent. The poll was initially scheduled to run for three days from October 7 to 9. It was abruptly shut down on the second day though, when a Marcos win was obviously irreversible.

The poll results were deleted from the website, but fortunately, not a few patriotic netizens took “screengrabs,” even videos of these.

The Manila Bulletin undertook an exactly similar Facebook poll from October 15 up to yesterday at 12 noon, and its results would likely have also been similar to that of Rappler’s if it had continued its poll. The Bulletin was obviously taking a potshot at Rappler when it said in its announcement, “The survey will not be taken down and will be archived as we do this once a month.”

The Bulletin poll showed Marcos winning by a landslide, getting 72 percent of votes with Robredo just 24 percent. Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso was a far third with just 2 percent of the votes. Senators Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao and Panfilo “Ping” Lacson each got less than 1 percent. They should just quit.

If you have doubts that the Manila Bulletin rigged its polls, note that its publisher is Herminio “Sonny” Coloma, who was the late president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino 3rd’s very loyal occasional spokesman and the head of his Presidential Communications Operations Office throughout his term. The Bulletin has had a tradition and a track record for being boringly nonpartisan to a fault.