It looks like the chickens in the previous administration are coming home to roost.
Victims of extrajudicial killings might yet get justice. The country may not be rejoining the International Criminal Court any time soon, but the Interpol can carry out ICC arrest warrants if requested by the court, and the Philippines (according to the justice secretary) is bound by its international commitments not to stand in the way.
Taxpayers may yet see accountability in the multibillion-peso sweetheart deal bagged by uber-lucky startup Pharmally Pharmaceuticals at a time when patients were dying of COVID outside packed hospital emergency rooms. And taxpayers are getting a glimpse of how billions in secret funds have been utilized by civilian agencies with no business in national security.
The once untouchable son of God, Apollo Quiboloy, has lost his invincibility and is being hunted down.
All these developments would have been impossible in the previous administration.
The street-smart Joseph Estrada and those in his inner circle, whose fortunes shifted with the ups and downs in his political life, often said: “Weather-weather lang yan.”
This is an accurate assessment of Philippine society. It is also a sad commentary on the structural weaknesses in our dysfunctional republic, where justice and public accountability are subject to the vagaries of politics.
It shouldn’t be so. But because reforms move at glacial pace in this country, people take whatever can be offered up by our flawed institutions.
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If the worsening feud between the Marcos-Romualdez clan and the Dutertes will reveal the whole truth in the war on drugs, the Pharmally scandal and the misuse of public funds for personal purposes, people hope the feud will become more bitter.
The Dutertes don’t run away from a fight. But the main issue they are raising against Bongbong Marcos – his rumored substance abuse – suffers from the fact that Sara Duterte was silent about it when she agreed to become his UniTeam running mate. Also, even if he might have been a cokehead as Rodrigo Duterte claims, BBM has been looking and acting clean, at least in public, since the 2022 campaign.
Accusing BBM of being a known drug abuser also inevitably raises the question: why did Oplans Tokhang and Double Barrel spare him? It reinforces perceptions that the brutal war on drugs was waged selectively, targeting mostly the hampaslupa, political foes and the competitors of Duterte cronies in the illegal drug trade.
Officials of the administration that shut down ABS-CBN are also in no position to complain about suppression of freedom of expression under Marcos 2.0.
There are valid issues that the Dutertes can raise against the current administration. Among these is the impounding of P89.9 billion in “unused” funds of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. to finance the unprogrammed appropriations (a.k.a. the new congressional pork barrel) inserted during the bicameral conference on the 2024 national budget.
If the government is so cash-strapped the Department of Finance must impound funds from all government-owned and controlled corporations including PhilHealth, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto should demand payment of the estimated P203 billion owed by Ferdinand Marcos’ family in estate taxes.
BBM was the estate’s administrator when he ran for president – an issue raised by those who sought his disqualification from the race. But he got a free pass thanks to the Duterte administration, at the time still his (grudging) ally. VP Sara does have reason to publicly regret endorsing BBM for president.
Perhaps her father is also regretting his grant of one of the most fervent wishes of the Marcos clan: the burial of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the heroes’ cemetery.
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These days, ongoing congressional investigations are shining a harsh light on the abuses widely believed to have been committed during the previous administration.
The abuses being raised in the parallel probes being conducted at the Senate and the House of Representatives include profligacy in the utilization of public funds, and the gross human rights violations, allegedly financed with dirty money, committed in the murderous drug crackdown.
Alongside the congressional probes, the Office of the Ombudsman has filed charges in court against two former top officials in connection with the Pharmally mess.
Former president Duterte, however, has been spared by his appointee, Ombudsman Samuel Martires, from the indictment – just as senators refused to sign the Pharmally investigation report that was presented by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee and its chair, Richard Gordon, because it recommended charges against Duterte.
Still, the developments in the ongoing congressional probes would have been unthinkable in the previous administration.
Duterte’s former chief enforcer, Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, suspects that the probes are meant to bolster the ICC case. Dela Rosa and the former super alalay ng pangulo who also bagged a Senate seat, Bong Go, could be headed for The Hague, home of the ICC, or a life term in the New Bilibid Prison.
Meanwhile, VP Sara is being accused of an impeachable offense – betrayal of public trust – for the alleged misuse of her massive confidential funds.
According to the Marites grapevine, the VP had a meltdown at last week’s budget hearing of the House appropriations committee because she suspected that the issue about her secret funds would be used for her impeachment.
House officials have said that no impeachment complaint has been filed against the VP… so far. But she has lost her massive secret funds along with the trusted police bodyguards in her private army. She will likely not get the P10 million in people’s money that she wants for her moonlighting as children’s book author.
She and her relatives and allies should hope that the political winds would be blowing in their favor by the time her six-year term is up. Over the weekend, their former chief legal counsel suggested a Duterte-Duterte tandem in 2028, with VP Sara as the standard bearer and dad Digong her running mate.
The VP had previously released a trial balloon about her father and two brothers all running for the Senate next year, with Davao Mayor Baste the family’s presidential bet in 2028. But the idea failed to gain traction, with the former president himself shooting it down.
And at the rate the VP is exhibiting meltdowns in public, Duterte weather isn’t going to be restored in 2028.