Detained Senator Leila de Lima lashed back at President Rodrigo Duterte as the one who’s guilty of betrayal of public trust for selling the country to China.
Claiming President Duterte had sold the country’s sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea and agreed to allow Chinese warships in Benham Rise, De Lima said accepting huge amounts of development assistance funds from China does not justify sacrificing territorial integrity. China is getting its fair share of trade when it sold millions of pesos worth of train carriages from the Chinese company Dalian to augment the short handed Metro Rail Transit. It could make more money with its offer to build two bridges across the Pasig River to ease traffic congestion on Edsa. The funding for two more bridges across the Pasig River is anidea whose time has come. The government, however, need not be too dependent on China. Funding could be sourced from other foreign governments, or from the P73-billion annual revenue from mining if the industry is managed well, instead of closed down, by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
De Lima, a former Justice Secretary who’s facing drug-related charges, said Duterte’s verbal attacks against her is only a cover-up for his own inadequacies and even more serious crimes. The President had called her “Satan’s Queen” but the senator has yet to turn the table on her tormentor on this latest tirade.
Did I hear someone say “I did not know Digong himself had crowned her as his queen?” Or De Lima saying “better to sleep with a driver than the devil himself?”
This piece is not in defense of De Lima. We leave to the proper court to decide her guilt or innocence in the serious drug-related cases during her watch as justice secretary. But until the court verdict is out, De Lima is still a senator of the realm. What she says cannot be taken lightly and dismissed by House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez as the “ranting of someone who belongs in a mental institution.”
There’s much to be said of those who give free psychiatric diagnosis particularly if they are not qualified to do so. There’s a thin line between those calling others as crazy and those really needing professional help themselves.
There’s much to be done by government to move this country forward instead of politicians fanning the toxic air of trash talk. At no time in the country’s political history has so much bad-mouthing, led by the President, been so pervasive. We did not hear or witness such vitriolic verbal exchange during the time of the Aquinos, Macapagal Arroyo, and Ramos. These past presidents conducted themselves in a demeanor that was at least civil. Even Erap with his colorful one-liners was never heard to say a single expletive during his short-lived presidency.
Nothing is sacred anymore as far as name-calling is concern. Pope Francis and former President Barack Obama were not spared from the expletives of a foul-mouthed president. Nearly every presidential press conference was laced with the “P…..i and kill” words. The result is that the intent and the message the President wants to convey to the citizenry gets lost in the torrent of cuss words. The worst part is that the people get used to such unpresidential and crude language.
How then can parents and teachers admonish children to watch their language when the country’s leader talks like a common street thug? In the old days, parents wash the mouth of kids with soap when they utter even just a single obscene word. So much for good manners and right conduct they have been thrown out of the window.
For his expletive-laden tirade against the European Union, the EU summoned Philippine Charge d’ Affaires Alan Deniega of the Philippine Embassy in Brussels to explain President Duterte’s foul language. Our CDA must be in a bind on how to explain his president’s conduct. No one, not even a competent diplomat like Deniega, can explain how this President behaves.
NYT editorial
The New York Times in a recent editorial also took Duterte to task for his brutal war on drugs. The NYT suggested to hold Duterte accountable “where it hurts most” by suspending trade incentives and imposing tariffs on Philippine products.
That, however, would only drive Duterte even closer into the embrace of China and even farther away from the Philippines’ long and traditional allies like the US and the UK.
