The ten-mil reason

Ten million pesos matters, apparently. Or does it?

This was the amount proposed by Vice President Sara Duterte Carpio to publish her 16-page children’s book. The Senate couldn’t help but wonder what the book was about, and sought a few clarifications. But what might have been a casual, preliminary inquiry into the specifics of said book quickly became a hissy-pussy encounter.

Sara seems unused to being probed. No cool cat here --she was unable to control her impulses, and unleashed a tirade against Senator Risa Hontiveros. Where was this cornered-rat reaction coming from? Was it because Senator Hontiveros led the extremely successful inquiry against Mayor Alice Guo, a probe that ultimately led to Mayor Guo being unceremoniously dumped from her post and fleeing the country for fear of imprisonment? Did Sara think she was going to be next?

Because surely, ?10 million, in the trillion-peso-budget scheme of things, is a paltry amount. Unlike everyone else now hooting and quacking indignantly about the cost of an owl and duck relationship booklet, I think ?10 million is a pitiful drop in the proverbial salakot compared to what were at the disposal of the mayoress of Davao and the vice president of the republic. This scioness is used to gazillions passing through her ham-fisted fingers.

In 2023, it was no big deal for her to burn through ?125 million in confidential funds over the breezy span of 19 days. That averaged ?7 million a day, something that would be hard to contemplate until we start fantasizing about buying condominiums for our loved ones, in which case she wasn’t even able to purchase a whole high-rise tower. What’s ?125 mil when one needs a bil to make an impact?

Then, there is her reported security detail, which numbered 433 in 2022, and was decreased to 320 this year. I would think the amount of cash being used to feed the hundreds of beefy bodyguards that she surrounds herself with easily surpasses ten mil (having no experience with beefy bodyguards, I’m just speculating here).

Under her queendom, Davao City had a budget of ?10 billion-ish in 2020. Those kinds of amounts, she is therefore used to deploying to her satisfaction. That budget has now increased to ?12 billion in 2024, safely guarded by the watchful eyes of her brother Basti Duterte. Their other brother Congressman Pulong Duterte was allocated nearly ?52 billion from 2020 to 2022 to spend in Davao.

So come on. It’s only ?10 million. If there has to be any indignation or calls for probing or the casting of aspersions --shouldn’t we be focusing on the larger amounts? The billions that were given to her family to play? The potential trillions that were borrowed from the World Bank for COVID-relief purposes, for example?

Carpio losing her cool over ?10 million isn’t about the money. As she herself recognizes, and verbalizes, she is being quizzed about it because someone wants to make political capital out of it. As she said, it’s about the politicization of the budget.

With the dissolution of her family’s alliance with the Marcoses, Sara Duterte recognizes that every penny is going to be scrutinized henceforth, and this piddling ?10 million was just the start of it. So she may have jumped the gun and called out the real score as soon as she could --because what is ?10 million compared to, say, a probe on the other amounts in the proposed budget? Or the billions that whooshed through Davao City coffers? Was this then a smart move by a family known for shrewd strategy?

If our indignation is roused for ?10 million, and we have become rabid socmed screamers, will that indignation still be there when the probe on the bigger amounts are initiated by the probers? Or will our fury be exhausted, and our rage be spent? Will we be bored when that time comes, because what the heck, it’s nothing new? Smart move indeed, girl!

From where she was sitting, it looked like Sara was calling out the hypocrisy of Senator Hontiveros, who supposedly sought the Duterte Family’s help for her senatorial run, while being unprepared to scratch their backs when the time came. Sara is used to that world, where politicians scratch each other in various parts of the body. Senator Hontiveros, I would surmise, comes from a different world, a world of respect and politesse, where courtesy calls to sitting politicians are de rigeur, and are not meant to be taken as invitations to lie in each other’s beds.

Call it a miscommunication. But with Sara Duterte admitting she never intended to help Senator Hontiveros anyway, she just revealed her two-faced self (a parrot on one side, and an owl on the other?). Perhaps, that’s her own textbook definition of a friend.