As the Supreme Court winds up today its first week of hearings in Baguio on the quo warranto petition filed against its chief, the beleaguered Ms. Sereno must be feeling the full weight of a Friday the 13th, a day traditionally regarded as unlucky.
It couldn’t have helped her equanimity to hear the President come out openly against her at the start of the hearings. Before leaving to attend the Boao Forum in China last Monday, Duterte declared that Sereno is “bad” for the country, adding that “I am putting on notice that you are now my enemy…I already told you I did not meddle. [But] if you are insisting, count me in.”
Normally I would have counseled a little more presidential patience. But the man has his limits like everyone else, and Sereno alone is to blame for continually goading Duterte to admit that he was the unseen hand behind her alleged persecution.
It might appear that way to some, true, but mere appearances don’t count as evidence. Contrast Duterte’s earlier circumspection with the behavior of PNoy, who famously turned his back on a handshake from the late CJ Corona at a public event, egged on the impeachment witch hunt every chance he could get, and finished off Corona by arranging for the payment of P50 million in PDAF funds to each of the senators save three.
Likewise contrast the dignified comportment of Corona throughout his ordeal with the public behavior of Sereno, who can’t seem to decide if she will play the pitiable victim of persecution, the vengeful defender of feminism, or the legal statesman aloof from it all. Whatever her persona of the moment may be, one thing is sure: Her mouth is rarely closed.
This is why it was laughable for PNoy’s solicitor general Florin Hilbay to describe Duterte’s outburst as “executive overreach.” It’s like the pot calling the kettle black—or, in this case, the toilet bowl calling the urinal yellow.
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Also feeling unlucky must be the large developers whose mega-projects planned for Boracay have now been put on hold—perhaps permanently—by Duterte’s decision to close down the island for six months of “preventive maintenance.”
Both Duterte and his DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu have put the kibosh on a $500-million integrated casino-hotel planned by Leisure & Resorts World with Chinese co-investors, which had already received a provisional license from Pagcor.
But there are other projects that may also be affected, such as Double Dragon’s 1,001-room beachfront hotel, the country’s biggest; Andrew Tan’s 559-room casino-hotel; and the Boracay-Caticlan bridge proposed by Ramon Ang, who already operates the Caticlan airport and is now planning to build a resort complex in Nabas, Aklan.
At the same time, Duterte has been making noises about placing the island under land reform and agricultural development. Prior land claims will now be subjected to audit, while government decides whether giving the island over to farming is both legally and technically feasible at this point.
What’s missing so far is a grand new vision for Boracay—one that decides once and for all if the island will go large or go small. If large, let’s bring in those mega-projects and build all the support infrastructure to make sure they operate cleanly. If small, let’s scrap the bridge to Caticlan and look to make up the foregone tourism revenues from elsewhere.
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We’re most encouraged by the statements coming from incoming PNP chief P/SD Oscar Albayalde, who seems to be already running even before hitting the ground. Just a week after announcement of his promotion, before he even had the chance to warm his new seat, the redoubtable Metro Manila PNP head already opened up several new fronts:
• Agreed to comply with the Supreme Court’s order to disclose information about the PNP’s drug war—There’s no way you can get away with defying the SC (unless you’re a PNoy preventing GMA from seeking medical treatment abroad). Albayalde showed that he respects our court system.
• Recommended drug tests for candidates in the upcoming barangay and SK elections—These may have to be done voluntarily, since the SC has already ruled that such mandatory tests are unconstitutional. But the new chief clearly isn’t afraid of pushing the envelope.
• Will adapt the SAF training program for the entire PNP—His intent isn’t to convert every cop into trained commandos, but rather to instill better discipline. The PNP clearly needs this in order to avoid the temptations raised by its frequent brushes with the criminal underworld.
• Promised to help the PCSO fight illegal gambling—Illegal gambling goes together with illegal drugs like peas in an evil pod. Perhaps the PNP and PCSO could form a joint initiative that could be dubbed “Task Force Ipitin ang Jueteng.”
The marching orders to Albayalde from DILG’s Secretary Ed Año, himself a former AFP chief of staff, are “to go after PNP personnel who are a disgrace to their uniform, especially those who are AWOL, sleeping, non-performing, and drinking on the job. All of them should be dismissed.”
These are tough new military-grade standards indeed. All those rogues and scalawags in police uniform must be feeling pretty unlucky these days.
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Luckily for Año and Albayalde, the new “double-A team” has the wind at their backs.
Online database Numbeo reports that five Philippine cities—Valenzuela, Davao, Makati, Baguio and Cebu—rank among the 10 safest cities in Southeast Asia, according to netizens who visited their website. “Double-A” performance could mean doubling that number from five to 10.
Doable? Under this can-do presidency, anything can happen.
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