#Lenileaks Saga: “Doesn’t have to be true. Just needs to look like that.”

Below is a screenshot of a publicly set email from a billionaire based in the US to her circle about the Philippines and its President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. This screenshot has been posted and reposted in many pages on Facebook.

After the picture, below, is the entire transcript of the email of Loida Nicolas Lewis.

As written by Loida Nicolas Lewis: “TAKE TIME to READ: Just arrived San Francisco. Still Sunday night. The money, equity and commodity markets are closed. In 3 hours, investors, fund managers and traders will open their newspapers. And read about a Philippine Presidential candidate who is starting to look completely inept at an ability called Uniting the Country.

They will think, oh shit, which country is this?? Philippines? Maybe this country MIGHT lose investor confidence this week?? (Doesn’t have to be true. Just needs to LOOK like that.)

Because they are stewards of millions of dollars of other people’s money — retirees’ life savings, pension funds — these fund managers are sensitive to any news that MIGHT affect their clients’ investments. So they check their exposure. They have bought a lot of Philippine stocks, a lot of Philippine pesos. It was a growing economy, after all, second highest GDP growth in tiger Asia.

Nobody really thought about this country recently. As they Google it, they learn more about the Presidential candidate who has angered the Australian, Mexican, American and Chinese authorities, and the Philippine military, all in a matter of a few days. Parang malabo yata itong bayan na ito. (Doesn’t have to be TRUE, just needs to LOOK like that.)

So the nervous fund managers start selling their Pesos. Other fund managers notice. “They sold sixty million Philippine Pesos? Oh yeah, that crazy country where people laughed along with this rapist candidate.” (Doesn’t have to be TRUE, just needs to LOOK like that.)

In the absence of first-hand experience, perception becomes reality. Hindi naman sila taga Pilipinas, so kung ano ‘yung nasa CNN, ‘yun ang totoo.

By Tuesday, traders everywhere are selling Pesos for Dollars or Euro. All they know about the Philippines, they got from the news. By Wednesday nobody wants Pesos, for the moment. You can no longer buy a dollar for 46 Pesos. You have to tempt them by offering more — 47, 48 or 49 Pesos to the dollar.

At close on Wednesday the exchange rate is 49:1, or even north of that. I know, that’s just a 6% devaluation, nothing really bad.

In the Philippines it is Thursday morning. You need more Pesos to buy a barrel of oil, a liter of milk, a tanker of aviation fuel, all imported. Power companies, gas stations, ice cream makers and airlines need to increase their Peso prices by 6% just to buy the same raw materials.

Your P46,000 savings can’t buy $1,000 anymore. You have to postpone that vacation. That car, that house. That baby.

Your Dad was hoping to retire this year with a P460,000 pension. On Thursday that isn’t worth $10,000 anymore. He has to work another 2-3 years. He thinks about the recent pain in his chest.

Everything imported goes up by 6%. Millions and tens of millions of pesos of needless costs.

That worldwide BBC article will do us damage. The Sydney Morning Herald, Le Monde and the Straits Times picked it up too, but BBC is worldwide. Which came from an original wire story like, “Perverted Philippine Presidential hopeful wanted first slot in a prison gangbang, entertains laughing crowd at rally.”

More traders Google “Philippines Duterte” pa more. They see the pictures… . Cringing women getting kissed, sitting on his lap, YouTube clips studded with words like ‘putang ina ka Pope.’ Geez, they think, this guy talks like that in public?!

In the absence of first-hand experience, perception becomes reality.

Nobody likes RISK. Other fund managers look at Peso-based equities. Philippine stocks, if valued in dollars, are now worth lower. They own a lot of PHILIPPINE Long Distance Tele… . Hey, isn’t that the country where this candidate regretted missing out on a gang rape?? Look, Microsoft shares are going up, why don’t we dump PLDT for now and buy Microsoft? It’s just prudence. They short 2 million shares… . You know, “just for a while,” until they can see whether the Filipinos can elect a ‘REAL’ President.

In the absence of first-hand experience, perception becomes reality.

So maybe PLDT has to postpone that internet upgrade.

That’s the impact of ‘statesmanship.’ Or the lack of it. Shit doesn’t have to happen, it just needs to LOOK like it will. And there will be consequences.

Guess who made it look like that? A clueless supporter who guffawed and posted a 2-minute video on YouTube. A crowd laughing along with an unthinking Mayor who stuffed his entire foot into his mouth. A day after he inadvertently signalled to China that he can give up claims to 100,000 square kilometers of Economic Exclusion Zone in exchange for trains. A week after he told people that Mexico was a stupid country to visit, in the presence of the Mexican ambassador.

It’s a global economy. A President also REPRESENTS the country in the eyes of the world. Obama is the US, Putin is Russia, Trudeau is Canada.

The Philippines? For now to the world, the Philippines is those people laughing about a dead woman missionary that their Presidential candidate wished he could have raped first.

Can we see now how AWFUL that was?”

God’s blessings,
Loida

The Infamous #Lenileaks

#Lenileaks by Lorraine Marie T. Badoy

[This is reposted here with permission from the author, Dr. Lorraine Marie T. Badoy]

For one, the hashtag for Lenileaks is something phenomenal in the present Philippine political milieu. It is akin to a rising crescendo of a song that has started playing the moment President Rodrigo Roa Duterte won in the May 2016 Presidential Elections in the Philippines. The melodious song is sang by a group of singers from varying genre united as one in concerted efforts to continuously support the elected president in his daily leadership journey. It’s like that group of singers led by Michael Jackson singing We are the World for the Haiti victims.  For another, the listeners of that song are millions of Filipinos from all walks of life in various parts of the world, eager to listen to each unfolding lyrics that come out of the singers’ mouths. Each is intently listening, finding purposeful meanings to each line of the song, happily connecting it to the realities of the Philippine Republic. For still another, I would like to re-read this piece here whenever I wish to put my country in a context of someone who wants what’s best for the common Filipino, and not for the few elites. This way, I do not need to browse doc Badoy’s page for it. So, below is the author’s piece. Enjoy and learn.

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 Reading through some of the Lenileaks emails, there was one thing that made cold chills run up and down my spine and felt like a cold hard rock in the pit of my stomach.

And it is this: how utterly convinced they are of their righteousness, their nobility.

To quote:

“Thanks for fighting a genuinely good and sacred fight. God bless you all.”

“Every decent Filipino should be involved in this sacred fight between good and evil—and we shall encourage them to be brave with our example, be part of the good side and play an important part in the history of the Philippines.”

“I admire your commitment in doing what’s right and good.”

And on and on. You get the drift.

Kangilabot.

Makes me remember the famous Adolf Hitler quote:

“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”

And he went on to exterminate 6 million Jews.

This is at the heart of elitism: a galling display of hypocrisy, arrogance and sickening sense of self-entitlement.

A small group of people think themselves on a higher plane than the rest of us and therefore it is their God-given right and DUTY even to bend rules this way and that because they know what is best for all of us.

They ignore the wisdom of the majority that have spoken loud and clear because they think they know better.

So Loida, ABS CBN, GMA, Inquirer, etc and most of all, front and center in this controversy, the VP herself, Leni Robredo want the President out of the picture because our country’s democracy needs to be saved.

And they do this by plotting to oust a democratically elected President with a resounding mandate from the Filipino people and who continues to enjoy high marks of approval from the overwhelming majority of us.

So in the sick minds of these bastards, in order to preserve our democracy, they need to smash it first.

Do the elites worry their pretty noses over these little inconsistencies? Do they give a fuck about this democracy they say they are fighting for while plotting its takedown and while chipping at this same democracy a million and one ways with the puppet of a VP who does whatever these clowns demand of her?

You can bet your sweet tootsies they don’t.

So that one of the biggest obstacles to our progress these days is the VP Leni Robredo herself because on top of the million and one challenges we need to hurdle to get our country back from the mud it’s been stuck in for forever, Leni Robredo and her gang of billionaires need to add just one more challenge: political instability.

Gee thanks, Leni.

And these bunch of clowns who, while I do not underestimate, I do not overestimate either. There’s just something about the inability to even remember proper Yahoo settings that doesn’t inspire confidence, ya know?

Such a painful sight these bumbling fools make that really, you almost want to help them. (“See that little wheel on the right? Right click it. See ‘settings’? Click on it. Goooood.”)

Aysosginoo.

They can barely manage their Yahoo groups setting that any grade school teen can be on top of and yet they think they can manage an entire country of over a hundred million highly opinionated, passionate Pinoys.

If, for argument’s sake, they win this one (a giant IF), what then? Are we to go back to the usual highly incompetent, bumbling, indifferent management of the country that we’ve known ALL our life?

Sorry, I don’t see this happening. At all.

The Filipino is awake now.

The abused will no longer go back to her tormentor.

We’ve been treated to one lightbulb moment after another by this hard working, highly competent President that we keep saying in astonishment, “PWEDE PALA!” and we keep muttering in wild amazement, “Wow…just like that..”

Pwede pala matanggal ang laglag bala, just like that!
Pwede pala iuwi ang mga stranded na OFW..just like that.
Pwede palang magka modo ang mga lecheng imperyalismong Amerikano…just like that.
Pwede palang pauwiin na ang mga Lumad ..just like that.
At yung mga skwela nila, pwede palang wag sunugin at pwede palang tayuan sila ng mga skwela nila…just like that.
Pwede palang sabihan ang HK na wag nyong ipaglinis ang mga kababayan naming DH ng mga bintana ng high rise nyo na kung saan sila nagkakandahulog sa kamatayan nila…just like that.

Pwede palang magka mabilis at libreng wi fi sa airport and just like that!
Pwede palang walang lecheng mga linta sa airport and just like that!

Pwede pala ang relief efforts umabot ng maayos sa mga nangangailangan…just like that.
At pwede palang hindi limos nang limos ng tulong sa ibang bansa at pwede palang umasa sa sarili lang natin…just like that.
At pwede palang i-prioritize ang mga magsasaka..just like that.
At pwede palang libreng gamot..just like that.
At pwede palang free hospitalization para sa mahihirap..just like that.
At pwede palang hindi kurakot, tangangot, kasmot ang Pangulo ng Plipinas.
At pwede palang mahal nya talaga ang bayan nya na bawat galaw nya, tayo ang nasa isip nya.
At pwede palang mahal natin ang Pangulo natin. (eh yung mga haters, trapped sila sa impyerno ng suklam nila. Choice nyo yan, guys. Enjoy!)
At pwede palang maging astig ang Pilipinas sa mata ng mundo.

So kung ako pa sila Loida at ang barkada nyang elitista na walang magawang maayos sa oras nila, magform na lang sila ng Gantsilyo Club, meet MWF, discuss ng challenging gantsilyo projects. Or mag Zumba sila. Or mag Tai Chi sa Greenhills. (Sorry yun lang ang abot ng non-billionaire imagination ko.)

just get the fuck of our hair, Loida and company. Your grand, grand dreams of relevance and making your mark in Philippine history are over. That ship has sailed. Sail off into oblivion now. Away from us please. Get the fuck out of our lives, you fucking loony bin American.

As for the VP.

Madam VP, please be a VP.

There’s power enough there for you to get drunk on. You’re a heartbeat away from the presidency. Be a heartbeat away. Don’t be that heartbeat. You’re not there yet. Don’t try to take this man away from us. He is beloved. He is appreciated by a whole lot of us.

Blend with the walls for now. As all good VPs do.

Stop being part of what brings our country down.

The President, our President, just-as-duly elected as you—is having a hard enough time.

If you can’t help him, just please get out of his way. This dangerous game you play puts millions of lives on the line. Millions of lives, may I add, that are getting their best shot at being taken out of the severe poverty they are in by a President whose heart, mind and soul are for them.

This is not mere rhetoric, Madam VP. You only need look at the sky high approval ratings of the president to see what a whole lot of us think of him.

And you might want to check out your dismal ratings—that one that’s been slip sliding away to know that there are far too many of us who think you are putting our country back on the road to perdition with this dangerous game of politics you play.

You’ve aligned yourself with haters, with the power hungry, with the elitists, the galling US-based half assed, arrogant Pinoys who have given nothing of worth to their country of birth and now suddenly, think it is their God given right to tell us, sovereign Filipinos, where our country ought to be headed.

And how so many of us think your sleeping with the enemy makes you the enemy.

Make yourself known, Madam VP. Is this who you truly are?

(OO nasa denial stage pa ako. I need a moment. 😀)

Or is there still inside you a smidgen of that Leni Robredo that we campaigned and raised funds for and voted and cheered for when she won? The one we thought was champion of the poor.

How is it you now not only hobnob with the elite but have become their lapdog?

Ah Madam VP, what a thorough and complete betrayal of the trust given you.

Our country’s new day has been ushered in. So many of us see it. And I am sorry for you and those who choose to see gloom and doom everywhere. This, in the end, is the choice you make.

As for so many of us, we have rolled up our sleeves and we are taking our place in that huge chain of Pinoy humanity that gets our country out of the muck that it’s been stuck in for as far back as we can remember. We are heaving and hoing with this man, our President.

And if you can’t roll up your sleeves and do your part like the rest of ache to do, please just get yourself out of our way. (Oh I dunno. Join Loida when she Zumbas, I guess.)

Our Country’s destiny is greatness. Not the smallness forced on it by the elites and all those who would benefit from us remaining small and shackled.

We hear our Country call to us.

And this time around, we are heeding her call.