A candidacy built on lies

Using the UP Bahay Alumni (Alumni House) for a stage, and a clone of Danding Cojuangco’s 1992 “May Bagong Umagang Darating” (A new morn is coming) as her political anthem, the non-UP alumna Grace Poe Llamanzares announced her bid for the 2016 presidency, saying, “I am Grace Poe. A Filipino. A daughter, wife and mother. And with God’s grace, I offer myself for the country’s highest calling as your President.” It was meant to be a tour de force, a major mass media/cinematic event; but it turned out to be the biggest practical joke of the season. The whole thing was built/is built on a lie. On a series of lies. How, in Heaven’s name, can one invoke God’s grace to sanctify a project founded on lies?

Her full name is Mary Grace Natividad Poe Llamanzares, Poe from her adoptive parents, Ronald Allan and Jesusa Sonora Poe, otherwise known to movie fans as Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces; and Llamanzares from her American husband Neil Llamanzares, said to be an employee of the powerful businessman Ramon S. Ang of San Miguel Corporation, and father of her three beautiful American children, Brian, Hanna and Nikka, all surnamed Llamanzares.