“There is no other way to take her statement but at face value.”
Never in my years of observing our politics have I seen a Vice President publicly announce that he or she has spoken with someone to kill the President if anything happens to her. Our political discourse has not only become toxic but could also become deadly. Clearly, her threat has to be taken seriously by the administration. In the United States or elsewhere, this kind of a threat would have resulted in criminal charges already. Being a lawyer herself, she should have known better than to utter those words and expect the government not to react. In a way, she herself may have forced the administration to confront the situation in the manner that PBBM announced. Otherwise, the public will think that the government is afraid or helpless.
Last Monday however, the VP said that what she said was “maliciously and logically taken out of context”. But it is difficult to see how her explicit statement could be taken out of context except to take it at face value. From her point of view, there was nothing wrong with what she said because it was conditional. Her threat will only be executed if she dies. Not being a lawyer, I do not know if there is such a thing as a conditional threat.
In the past several months, the VP has also given three puzzling and rambling interviews which could only be termed as bizarre. As Vice President, she is just a heartbeat away from the presidency and must act in a manner commensurate with her high government position. As Senate President Francis Escudero stated, it was very unbecoming of the Vice President to have done what she did.
I do hope that she is all right and that this last outburst of hers was just a result of all her frustrations related to the ongoing House hearings regarding how her confidential funds were spent. The hearings may indeed be all politics as she is claiming. Still, Congress, due to the nature of our political system of checks and balances, does have the right to conduct the hearings. And if the confidential funds were spent without any irregularities, it should be easy to prove it and get it over with. Now if she continues to resist and stonewall the investigation, that will be her own lookout. In the last two surveys, her trust and approval ratings have plummeted and this was mainly because of her actuations related to the hearings. A simple change in attitude could reverse this trend if she wants.
Perhaps, she could also take a page from the way her predecessor handled how she was treated by her father’s administration. When FVP Leni Robredo’s office budget was reduced to the barest minimum, she simply continued working stoically, with the public never hearing a complaint from her. Her office was further commended by the Commission on Audit as a model on how to liquidate public funds.
The presidential election is still more than three years away and that is considered a lifetime in politics. But time flies so fast that before we know it, it is already being played out right now and this coming midterm elections may just show us a glimpse of how the 2028 election is likely to go. VP Duterte, instead of creating a tempest, should concentrate on marshalling her political forces to prepare for the May 2025 midterm elections.
But since a big problem is already upon us, the public will have to see how this situation created by the VP unfolds. The PNP and the National Bureau of Investigation have already stated that the threat will be investigated. Will it be simply treated as a criminal investigation or a political one? If politics intrudes into the issue, we are talking impeachment which will derail the attention of the country away from government recovery efforts due to the recent six typhoons. If it will be primarily a criminal investigation, then the trajectory would be different. Let’s wait and see what happens next and hope that it will not go out of hand for the sake of the country which is already experiencing so many problems.
