Woe unto the people of the benighted land, when toxic politics trumps wobbly economics this early in the day
As ludicrous as Apollo Quiboloy’s claim the President and his first lady are actively complicit with a foreign power to “kidnap” him by way of “rendition” to answer multiple charges including human trafficking and rape, are the accusations being levelled against the vice-president, Inday Sara Z. Duterte.
It all started with the revelation she applied for, and got confidential funds in 2022, released by DBM upon approval of Malacanang before the holidays, and spent before year-end.
This was followed by intense House scrutiny on the NEP allocation of P500 million for the DepEd and P150 million for the OVP in the 2024 budget, again proposed by the Office of the President, DBM, and the economic managers.
The budget, called the “economic program expressed in numbers,” emanates from the Office of the President, reason the National Expenditure Program submitted to Congress after the annual SONA is referred to as “the President’s budget.”
Now, if the process was endowed with Machiavellian thinking, one can say that a trap was laid, in conspiracy with the HoR, but that is not likely as the economic team was neither Machiavellian nor anti-Duterte.
As stated in this space several months ago when the controversy over confidential funds was hot topic, Inday Sara would have done well by immediately refusing to receive the allocation, something she did belatedly.
As riposte, she could have pointed out that the second highest official in the land and head of the department with the Constitutionally-mandated most important cabinet position, was being allocated “loose change” compared to the bonanza in pork barrel entitlements inserted in the line budgets of DPWH, DSWD, DOLE, DA, DOH, and GOCCs by our legislators.
P650 million is lower than what an ordinary member of the HoR gets in the 2024 budget, picayune compared to ordinary senators, and almost infinitesimal compared to what the more “powerful” members of both houses will get in the budget, crafted in aid of re-election.
But now, the systematic demolition has gone into high gear.
Whistleblower Arturo Lascanas, now in the safe embrace of the ICC in the Netherlands, recently modified his testimony against the former president by including Inday Sara, then mayor of Davao City, as having herself been complicit in human rights violations and summary killings.
Conveniently, Lascanas included the vice-president, knowing the amended charges will not prosper whether under our judicial system nor the ICC, but serves publicity in aid of demolition.
Then, in the Senate investigations on the queerly named “Kingdom Nation of the Appointed Son of God,” a witness with face blocked out, claims to have seen the president and his daughter going to the mountain lair of the “appointed” son to receive gifts of arms and ammunition, virtually “gun-running” in a gun store owned by the “king of the kingdom above all else..
He he he, such infantile twist by highly creative imaginations that would beat “Love the Philippines” in its “ingenuity,” peddled in the Senate at the same time that the befuddled because asinine progenitors of PIRMA were caught in various disingenuous prevarications.
The planned demolition of the vice-president who would be president has begun a tad too early.
I recall how the demolition of VP Binay began after the mid-term elections, in 2014, after several senatorial candidates, his then unknown daughter Nancy included, won with his endorsement, and his survey ratings miles above all other known pretenders to PNoy’s throne.
The obvious intent is to damage the Duterte brand this early to boost the chances of the “blessed” candidates for 2025, whose candidacies will be registered by October this year, a scant seven months away.
If early demolition succeeds, the Duterte candidates would fare poorly in May next year and the VP’s chances for the 2028 presidential derby would have been severely damaged.
Of course, the other ace in the demolition sleeve is revising the Constitution to suit political designs.
The vice-president shrugged off the latest demolition efforts. Trabaho lang, she says, as if telling the conspirators to ‘bring them on.’
As we commemorate the “people power” revolt in EDSA which threw out the dictatorship 38 years ago with a “little help from our friendly” Americans, the political brands have shifted from Aquino versus Marcos to Marcos versus Duterte.
The holiday is no longer official, less important to Malacanang than Chinese New Year.
Even President Cory Aquino, a Cojuangco of Chinese descent, did not deign the Lunar New Year worthy of an official holiday.
Meanwhile, woe unto the people of the benighted land, when toxic politics trumps wobbly economics this early in the day.
