THREE candidates who have been at the bottom of the presidential contest in a press conference they called yesterday blasted Leonor Robredo, the runner-up who, however, has been getting only…

Swiss deposits part of Marcos estate

Retired Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio has made several big lies in his discussions over our South China Sea claims, many of which are being repeated even by otherwise intelligent people.

Now in the homestretch to the May elections, he’s created another Big Lie: presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. owes government P203 billion in estate or inheritance taxes. Carpio is hoping this Big Lie can stop Marcos from winning the presidency 31 days from now.

It’s a classic case of a Big Lie which an unscrupulous politician spreads for his electoral ambitions and which biased, or plain stupid media disseminates. The gullible candidate Isko Moreno has gone on to say silly things, such as that the “P203 billion” will feed 59 million Filipinos for a year. He has practically made it his platform of government, that if he wins the presidency, he will make it his priority to collect those unpaid estate taxes.

The forever anti-Marcos Philippine Daily Inquirer jumped on the fake issue, claiming in an editorial that the BIR isn’t doing its job if it doesn’t collect the P203 billion. That paper got that idea from Carpio who said: “What is the BIR waiting for? “

I find it astonishing that he forgets that when that tax deficiency was first issued in 1991 and when the Supreme Court allegedly made it “final and unappealable” in a decision in 1997, the administration in power was that of Fidel Ramos, in which Carpio was one of the most powerful Cabinet members, being the presidential legal counsel. He recommended for Bureau of Internal Revenue head Liwayway Vinzons-Chato, a colleague in the law profession. Why couldn’t they get the “tax” paid?

THE presidential-preference poll by the Pedro Laylo Jr. outfit, undertaken from March 15 to 22 and leaked to media last week, was another nail on the coffin of Leni Robredo’s presidential bid.

The survey’s findings, that Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s lead of 59-63 percent to Robredo’s 17-21 percent — basically, unchanged since October — means he is unstoppable at this time. As a result, potential funders, even the stridently anti-Marcos elites like the Lopez clan and the leftist wife of a Hong Kong-based tycoon have decided to stop funding the loser’s campaign.

Sources said that several of “Pinklawan’s” campaign headquarters have been shut down, salaried staff have not been paid, and a major worry for them now is that Robredo won’t have any campaigners on the ground on May 9.

That would send the message that she has given up, with her supporters deciding just to stay home and not vote at all, or even to vote for Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. because of the bandwagon effect (uso-uso would be the translation) Filipinos are so prone to.

No wonder, the Pink Party in the past week has been desperately calling for “volunteers” — with little success. So shameful though has been the posts of Diwa Guinigundo, a fanatic Robredo supporter, asking God to “intercede” so “He remains in control.” It didn’t occur to him that, well, God might be preferring Marcos, and that he would be better off not mistaking the deity’s preferences by praying for instance for Russia to end its ruthless invasion of Ukraine, and save thousands of lives and relieve millions of Ukrainians from misery.

A FRIEND’s niece — studying at UP Diliman — asked incredulously why I wasn’t voting for the university’s choice, Leonor Robredo. I didn’t want to ruin my friendship with her uncle by insulting her intelligence. So, I restrained myself and later Vibered to her the link to my column entitled “Robredo: Our worst and most useless vice president ever,” written in October 2019. Actually, she’s gotten much, much worse than my portrayal of her in that piece:

To very clearly see why Leonor Robredo — the Yellow cult’s last pathetic attempt to create a false idol — has been the republic’s worst vice president, one just has to remember our past vice presidents.

In comparison to these, she is an intellectual and political pygmy.

Let’s start with the most recent one. Jejomar Binay had been Makati mayor for six terms and, despite the Yellows’ intense campaign to paint him as corrupt in the last presidential elections, his role in Makati’s growth as the country’s premier financial district is incontestable.

Even as he won the vice-presidential post in 2010 against the Yellows, he helped President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino 3rd as chairman of the Housing Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC). He was also presidential adviser for OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) concerns and head of the Task Force OFW, which assisted OFWs who were maltreated by their employers to return to the Philippines with the assistance of the government.

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CHECK out presidential candidate Isko Moreno Domagoso’s recent statements, his recent screams on the campaign trail:

– “If I become president, I promise I will collect the P203 billion unpaid estate tax of the Marcos family”;

– “The P203-billion estate tax could feed rice to 59.7 million Filipinos daily for a year if the Bureau of Internal Revenue is able to collect it.”

Obviously on the same intellectual level as Isko is another candidate, Panfilo Lacson, who became was his echo chamber, pontificating that the “P203 billion estate taxes” won’t be collected if Marcos Jr. wins the presidency.

There is no P203 billion unpaid estate tax. A single scheming devious person, retired justice Antonio Carpio, invented that astronomical “unpaid tax” number. This is another proof of that adage attributed to Mark Twain: “A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots.”