“Toby’s song has a refrain: Who’s sorry now? – incidentally a Connie Francis hit” The recent mid-term electoral exercise was historic. The 82 percent
Toby’s song has a refrain: Who’s sorry now? – incidentally a Connie Francis hit”The 82 percent turn-out among the 68 million registered voters was the highest among all mid-term elections, but the results were a big surprise, thwarting almost all of the surveys including the two most experienced and credible ones, newbies trying to be credible, and the usual “table” surveys that come and go with each electoral cycle.
I was finishing an article where I analyzed the numbers and compared these to previous mid-terms, using as benchmarks the votes of Alyansa candidates in previous elections, but those analyses may have been overtaken in political value by the “song” of Navotas Rep. Tobias Tiangco, a member of the Romualdez family by affinity. I also wanted to write about what Academy Award winner George Kennedy’s famously said to another great actor, Paul Newman, in that classic movie, Cool Hand Luke: “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” With four press secretaries in less than three years, and a cantankerous self-appointed spokesperson with daily costume changes manning the communications department of Malacanang, presidential messaging has never been, to put it kindly, so pathetically funny. Toby Tiangco is one of the more decent persons to populate the House of Representa-thieves. I hold him in high regard, not only because he and his brother John Rey have done wonders for their small city, once just an “arrabal” of neighboring Malabon, but because of his sense of loyalty, so rare among legislators in this day and age. Recall that even when VP Jojo Binay was clearly on a freefall in 2016, Toby stayed loyal, never one to desert a sinking ship. Which is why the “Song of Toby” has lyrics more credible than whatever Claire Castro can spew, or Jay-Jay Suarez and Jude Acidre can lamely preen about. Chafing at unfairly placed blame upon him for the disastrous performance of the senatorial slate of Alyansa ng Bagong Pilipinas, that newest iteration of “unity” in the cut-and-dried, outmoded message box of this government, Toby spilled the beans, blaming political power plays prior to the elections that would make Sun Tzu and Machiavelli rise from the grave. He drew dotted lines between the mangling of the current budget, thanks to the House members in the bicameral conference committee who were able to conscript some senators in their nefarious scheme to fund their election, to the signing by 215 members of the HoR of the instant impeachment complaint within less than a day, thereafter rushed to reached SP Chiz Escudero’s office by express delivery before the close of work. But because these were for conditional release depending on the president’s discretion since we are operating in daily billion peso deficits, Toby was able to somehow spare his boss from the blame of concupiscence in the rushed impeachment, if the usual “pundits” will believe him. The singer has a nice voice, but the lyrics of the song will be discredited by the hallelujah chorus in the House who may be likened to Imelda Marcos in her prime describing some legislators as “jukebox” – drop a coin and they will sing whatever you want.Toby’s song could be simplified in this manner: The legislators mangled the President’s budget, officially called the National Expenditure Program, transferred funds here and there, at the expense of Philhealth, DSWD, agriculture and other social services, so as to fatten their pork barrel, hard as in graft-ridden instant projects , or soft as in barrels of ayuda, all in time for the May elections.This conditional release became the “carrot” that enticed 215 congressmen to sign without reading the instant 4th complaint, and railroaded the same for Senate trial. Toby’s song has a line which says that it was ill-timed considering that elections were in the offing, especially after the Iglesia ni Cristo gathered millions against impeaching Sara. Then, though his lyrics are off because Toby described the rendition of a beloved 80-year old former president into the discredited ICC, as an international obligation , that became the straw that broke the camel’s back. They totally lost Mindanao and Central Visayas, which constitutes 34 percent of the national vote. And the blowback sent ripples across the entire country.Toby’s song though could preface that song from Les Miserables, “Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men…”
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