A portent of things to come?

AS the country is rocked by the revelations made by the wife of Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Andres Bautista regarding multi-billion worth of undeclared bank accounts and properties, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) sneaks in a statement claiming that the Armed Forces of the Philippines through its chief of staff General Eduardo Año and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are out to assassinate Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair Jose Maria Sison in The Netherlands.

The assassination plot, the NDFP claims, is upon the verbal orders of President Rodrigo R. Duterte and Año.

First question: Who benefits most from the assassination of Sison? Definitely not Duterte nor the Philippines. The biggest winner should this ever happen are the hawks in the CPP-NDF-New People's Army triad, who amid the negotiations for peace (before this was finally thrown back at the faces of the rebels), were busy abducting, killing, and staging offensives (including burning the Lapanday factory in Davao).

There could be an assassination plot, we can never discount that considering that Sison has long held that claim that he has power over the CPP-NPA-NDF, but it is doubtful if it is upon the verbal orders of the President. NDFP needs to give a more believable story, otherwise, the blame will be on them.

Apparently, they know they will be blamed because in the same statement, it claimed that "the head and members of the assassinating team will be made to appear as entirely renegades or dropouts from the New People's Army, the armed wing of the communist group, although the fact was that they were handpicked from the AFP's Special Forces."

The assassination plot is intended to "demoralize the revolutionary forces and possibly sow confusion and pandemonium among them," the statement read.

By the way the so-called revolutionaries on the ground have been flouting the peace negotiations, it is no longer believable that the assassination of Sison would even cause demoralization among the ranks. From how the ground commanders have been acting, Sison no longer has the clout.

The claimed assassination plot against the President, however, is more believable. With the way the President has been stepping on big interests, the oligarchs and druglords and even those who want war with China and their ilk have everything to gain if the President is taken out of the picture. Except that, President Duterte has long known there will be those who want to kill him, so this is nothing new.

He is even resigned to such a fate, as he joined the race for the Presidency knowing that there will be multi-billion interests he would be stepping on.

Next story, please. A more believable one, if possible.

Our question now is: Why did the NDFP come out with this statement?

A fish is caught by its mouth, an adage goes.

Not only because the wife, Patricia, made the disclosure but also because of the amount of money Bautista allegedly failed to disclose in his Statement of Assets and Liabilities (SALN). Note, too, Bautista’s position in the Comelec.

President Rodrigo Duterte, whom Patricia approached before he referred the matter to the National bureau of Investigation (NBI), didn’t want no part of the issue, describing it as “away pamilya.”

The Bautistas’ marital problem dates back to 2013 and Andres claimed a third party (on the side of Patricia) is involved. But it looks like Patricia prepared this action well.

In an act that Andres described as treachery, Patricia withdrew money from their joint account in Banco de Oro and “stole” (Andres’s word) from his room some documents and gadgets, as well as money.

Those documents, which apparently included records of his bank accounts, are now being used against him. What we are seeing now is obviously but the beginning of a longdrawn process.

But even this early, there are indications this could go beyond being mere “away-pamilya.”

Allegations of ill-gotten wealth against Bautista would impact on the two sensitive government offices—the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) that he once headed and, currently, the Comelec. This therefore could go beyond mere “away-pamilya” and into politics, like what Andres claimed this is all about.

Interestingly, one family that could be mentioned in relation to the tasks of both the PCGG and the Comelec is the Marcos clan. The PCGG, which the Duterte administration wants abolished, is tasked to go after the Marcoses’ illgotten wealth. Comelec handled the 2016 polls and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is contesting the result of the vicepresidential race.

This early, there are already attempts to link both the Liberal Party (LP) and Smartmatic to the “away pamilya.”

Ma. Leonor “Leni” Robredo, the winner in the vice-presidential race, is with the LP. Smartmatic Philippines Inc. provided the vote counting machines (VCM) used in the 2016 elections. Marcos’s protest that is being heard by the Supreme Court includes questions on the integrity of the VCMs.

This point surfaced when Patricia linked University of Sto. Tomas (UST) Faculty of Civil Law dean Nilo Divina to the issue. She claimed that she found several checks and “commission sheets” that Divina allegedly issued to her husband. Divina, who is Andres’s friend, owns a law firm. In Makati City.

Divina Law reportedly did a small project with Smartmatic. Meanwhile, someone in Patricia’s camp linked Divina to defeated presidential bet Mar Roxas, something that lawyer Abigail Valte denied.

Sen. Vicente Sotto III already proposed to have the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee look into Patricia’s allegations against her husband Andres Bautista. If the senators does dip their fingers into the issue, this could either give clarity to the overload of claims we are hearing or turn the matter into a political circus. When that happens, questions on the integrity of the 2016 polls would be raised, benefiting Marcos’s election protest. SUN.STAR CEBU