IS IT a clear case of political harassment, as Vice President Sara Duterte claims it is?
Or is it simply because, as part of the Duterte political dynasty that has monopolized political power in Davao for decades, she believes she is inherently entitled to a huge security detail second only to the Presidential Security Group?
In other words, she believes she’s not just a VIP or Very Important Person, but the next in line to the Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief no less who deserves to be assigned a security detail numbering more than 400 or a battalion of policemen and soldiers armed to the teeth who will protect her from any harm.
After her election as Vice President, Duterte was appointed as Education Secretary rather than as Defense Secretary she had earlier said she wanted.
She headed the Department of Education or DepEd despite her utter lack of experience in the field of education.
And in her two-year stint in DepEd, did we hear her expound on her philosophy of education or the key reforms she wanted to implement to improve our basic education system?
We ask now: Did she leave the DepEd a better and more capable institution seriously implementing basic education that encourages respect for human rights, inculcates patriotism and nationalism, strengthens critical and creative thinking, develops moral character and personal discipline as the fundamental law mandates the DepEd to do?
Now that she is out of DepEd, Sara Duterte has all the time in the world to basically twiddle her thumbs and do nothing but wait to take over the presidency as the 1987 Constitution provides that the Vice President assumes the highest elective position in case of death, permanent disability, removal from office or resignation of the President.
Can the incumbent Vice President be relied upon to serve the public interest and welfare at all times good and bad?
That question has been raised after she decided to leave for a vacation abroad with her family while the country was being battered by a strong typhoon that spawned deep floods in many places and forced to flee their homes for safer ground.
Earlier, Duterte reaped public scorn for demanding confidential and intelligence funds for the DepEd, an agency without any mandate to undertake programs properly belonging to the police and the military.
No wonder therefore that the Vice-President’s approval rating based on the latest surveys indicate a steep drop from 91 percent in 2022 to below 50 percent at present.
What’s alarming and divisive is that the Vice President has declared open war and intensified tirades against the Marcos Jr. administration in what appears to be an effort to recover lost political ground and prettify her image with an eye toward a presidential bid in 2028.
But are Filipinos willing to reinstate a member of the Duterte dynasty in the Philippine presidency after her lackluster performance at DepEd and the bloody war on drugs of her father Rodrigo Duterte as Chief Executive from 2016 to 2022 that the International Criminal Court believes now merits prosecution for crimes against humanity?
