Roughly four weeks ago tropical storm Kristine and super typhoon Pepito hit hard Central and Southern Luzon and left quietly with great devastation in their wake.
What happened to the P31 billion spent just this year in flood control projects or the P132 billion
apropriated in the last six years for the Bicol Region alone which suffered enormous loss in lives, crops and properties?
Yet, somebody or everybody is agog with the P73 million disallowance in confidential and intelligence funds in the Office of the Vice-President. What gives?
Party in power
Just as the two weather disturbances were moving away from the “Philippine area of responsibility” (PAR) an equally destructive and malevolent initiative was being undertaken in the House of Representatives by minions of the party in power. This is a far more sinister and dangerous than a vicious natural calamity for it seeks to destroy not only the social cohesion embedded in civil society but erodes the ethical virtues of political decency itself.
In the midst of the torrential rains that followed between Kristine and Pepito, former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (FPRRD) was tricked to submit to a select Committee of Honorable Members of the Lower House packed with pre-selected guests with faceless affidavits whose common talent was their disdain for the former president.
Rules of Order
FPRRD was the sole “resource person” in attendance, in that rainy afternoon, single-handedly confronting more than a dozen tormentors. With the “rules of order” stacked in favor of his antagonists, the only mettle that saved FPRRD was his experience and skill as a lawyer, a prosecutor, a City Mayor, a member of Congress and a President of his beloved country.
FPRRD is being accused principally of committing “extra-judicial killing” (EJK) and for “crimes against humanity.” Anyone who wants to listen to Edgar Matobato, Arturo Lascanas, Eduardo Acierto or Antonio Trillanes, hook line and sinker?
Led by the “Magnificient 7” (Barbers, Dangerous Drugs; Fernandez, Public Order and Safety; Paduano, Public Accounts; Abante, Human Rights; Acop, Vice-Chairman; Gonzales, Deputy Speaker; Suarez, Deputy Speaker) ably assisted by the “Young Guns” (Rodriguez, Luistro, Garin, Adiong, Ortega, Khonghun, Dy) and the “Makabayan Bloc” (Castro, Brosas, Manuel). The Quadcom and their invited witnesses and resource persons took turns in lambasting, embarrassing or cajoling FPRRD alone under such extra-parliamentary rules designed in their favor.
In due time, FPRRD will be linked to the illegal Philippine Offshore Gambling Operations (POGO), illegal drug trade, and murder of police officers. Already, a lady lawmaker has repeatedly manifested that FPRRD’s admissions be considered as extra-judicial confessions.
Sadly, these young lawmakers have the makings of a Miriam Santiago, Raul Roco or Ramon Mitra except that they have succumbed early enough to the politics of patronage and subservience.
Father and Daughter
Decidedly, our young lawmakers are no match to the Duterte “father and daughter” tandem long tried and tested as alternating City Mayor-City Vice Mayor-City Mayor of Davao City and just a few years back, as President (2016) and Vice President of the Philippines (2022).
We have had a “father-and-son” presidency in Marcos Sr. and Marcos Jr.; a “like father like daughter” duo in Diosdado Macapagal & Gloria Macapagal Arroyo or the lineage of a presidential mother Cory Aquino and presidential son Noynoy Aquino.
Afraid of an immediate past President Rodrigo Duterte and incoming President Sara Duterte in 2028?
There is no other reason to explain the assiduous desire to oppose at every turn the emergence of Sara Duterte or the re-emergence of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte whether as Davao City Mayor in 2025 or God willing, as Vice-President in 2028.
There is no extra-ordinary power on earth that can stop them.
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