“The Philippine Deep State is terrified at the prospect of yet another Duterte presidency”
“Tale as old as time, tune as old as song…” starts the theme from Beauty and the Beast.
That is where the similarity ends, for while beauty found later that beast was a prince, and a love story was developed in scenic Riquewihr and Eguisheim in Alsace, the latest tale unveiled in the HoR fandango has become another epic battle between the Diehard Duterte Haters (DDH) and the Diehard Duterte Supporters (DDS).
For now, we are witnessing with glee the antics of the DDH, like the display of Mary Grace shopping bags and legislators munching on Piattos, versus the way the DDS are ripping apart the tale of the crying jailbird who was given his five hours of national fame by the Bitrics committee.
It’s a tale as old as time, spun out of whole cloth, originally scripted for the Senate of the 19th Congress, had not then SP Chiz Escudero defined “forthwith” as “for later release.” Now the script has a supplement, updated for the one-year gap.
I’ve seen this before, I thought, while watching the recitation of the supplemental affidavit of Ramil Madriaga y Lagonoy, the detained kidnapper who claimed to be chummy-chummy with (wow, ha!) Rodrigo Roa Duterte in his prime and Inday Sara Zimmerman Duterte.
I remembered the “crying lady,” Rebecca Quijano, who gave the lie to the tale spread by the generals of the dictator that Ninoy Aquino was shot by Rolando Galman on Aug. 21, 1983. She saw with her own eyes from the China Airlines plane window that the bullet which killed Ninoy came from a soldier on the staircase and told the truth.
So different was the script prepared for Madriaga, now amplified over media by his lawyer Palad who happens to be the cousin of a shady PR practitioner hired by various high-profile but failed politicians.
I recall how a coterie of “witnesses” like Ador Mawanay and Kit Mateo, Rosebud and other characters were able to hoodwink Victor Corpus, in a grand conspiracy to demolish one Panfilo Lacson, then suspected of harboring presidential ambitions for 2004, against the acting president “coronated” (yes, it’s wrong grammar, but many politicians still use it) by CJ Hilario Davide in 2001.
Serendipitously, Lacson, now Senate President Pro-tempore, will sit as one of the judges in the trial of Vice-President Sara, if the HoR is able to gather 106 signatures in the articles of impeachment that the Justice Committee is trying mighty hard to make believable.
The circumstances in the Feb. 5, 2025 articles signed within a few hours by 215 congressmen no longer obtain. The most criminal budget in history had just been passed, and the promises of projects made signing easy.
But the 2026 budget is supposedly lean and mean, and under the prevailing economic dislocation, promises of pork are no longer as believable.
I wonder how Sen. Lacson would have treated the supplemental affidavit and the dramatic tale-telling of Madriaga if the HoR star witness was presented before his Blue Ribbon.
Would he have recalled how he was once the victim of like characters from 2001 to 2004?
Simple-minded “utaw” from the “naked” alleys of Tondo now ask: Why do our legislators ignore ex-Marines who were eyewitnesses to the plunder of the century as “kargadores” of “basura,” while they regale the tale of this detained “kidnapper” who claims to have hobnobbed with the high and mighty not as spectator, but as “trusted lieutenant”?
Tell you what, I suspect (and my suspicions have been proven right many times in our au courant political milieu), that the same hotshot lawyers who framed Lacson’s demolition 24 years ago are at it again.
They provided the script (complete with “rehearsals”) for the 2024 HoR committee inquisitions in aid of pre-planned Duterte demolition. They are the same scriptwriters and directors behind the resurrection of Madriaga from the bowels of jail.
Aided and abetted by collaborating certified DDH and the Left, these hotshot lawyers have always fancied themselves as the ultimate Philippine “kingmakers” in service to the Philippine version of America’s “Deep State.”
The Philippine Deep State is terrified at the prospect of yet another Duterte presidency. Still more terrifying to them is that they have yet to discover a “winnable” challenger for 2028.
So the only way is to destroy Inday Sara, now na! The magic 16 in the Senate is hard to get by.
But just as whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad, the plotters trotted out testimony shot full with holes, with ordinary citizens belying Madriaga’s tale by first person accounts.
And now comes Zaldy from the cold. But that’s another story.
