Survival mode

In case you missed it, there has been a shift in President Marcos’ view on the impeachment of his estranged UniTeam partner, Vice President Sara Duterte.

According to Malacañang, the President, without prejudging the case, will view any VP impeachment 2.0 in the same way as the flood control corruption scandal: anyone accountable should be held accountable.

Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro announced BBM’s position at a Palace press briefing last week, and has been saying it in subsequent interviews including with “Storycon” on One News last Thursday.

Contrast this with what BBM himself told journalists in a chance interview in Lucena, Quezon on Nov. 29, 2024, during which he confirmed a “private communication” he relayed to the House of Representatives, that the chamber should not waste time with the VP’s impeachment.

“That’s really my opinion,” he said in confirming the message to the House, and described the brewing impeachment as “a storm in a teacup.”

“This is not important. This does not make any difference to even one single Filipino life. So why waste time on it? What will happen if somebody files an impeachment? It will tie down the House. It will tie down the Senate,” he said.

“In the larger scheme of things, Sara is unimportant. So please do not file impeachment complaints. It will only distract us from the real work of governance, which is to improve the (lives) of all Filipinos,” BBM said.

And more: “None of this will help improve a single Filipino life. It will just take up all our time. And for naught. For what? For nothing. For nothing.”

Asked if he had reached the point of no return with VP Sara after her rant on putting out a contract to kill him in case she herself is assassinated, BBM replied, “Never say never.”

At the time, his favorite cousin was still the House speaker, accused by the DDS of maneuvering to eliminate VP Sara as rival for the presidency in 2028.

The President’s public position on the issue was consistent and (according to Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco) genuine, even if BBM’s son Ilocos Norte Rep. Sandro Marcos was the first to sign the impeachment complaint.

All this could have sent mixed signals to the House, whose members sat on the Articles of Impeachment for two months, until the eleventh hour of filing, when a miracle must have happened and the articles finally arrived at the Senate just minutes before the chamber adjourned sine die for the election campaign.

The miracle, according to both Tiangco and Caloocan 2nd District Rep. Edgar Erice, included the use of budgetary carrots.

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This time, with BBM no longer posing objections, and no personal motives ascribed to the current Speaker, will the second attempt to impeach the VP – widely expected next month – move faster in the House?

Equally important, will the Senate under a new majority go along with it?

Maybe that’s why this year’s “cleanest budget ever” still contains unprogrammed appropriations (“hard pork”) and a much-expanded pile of “soft pork” ayuda for every need that politicians can endorse for patronage.

Erice, a member of the traditional opposition Liberal Party, and ML party-list Rep. Leila de Lima have challenged before the Supreme Court the constitutionality of the unprogrammed funds in the 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA).

Specifically, they cite Section 25(2), Article VI of the Constitution, covering the legislative branch, which states: “No provision or enactment shall be embraced in the general appropriations bill unless it relates specifically to some particular appropriation therein. Any such provision or enactment shall be limited in its operation to the appropriation to which it relates.”

And yet unprogrammed funds in the past years have ballooned. Malacañang has expressed confidence that the unprogrammed appropriations will withstand SC scrutiny.

Even if the funds are struck down by the SC, the Palace will still have the rest of what BBM’s non-sister Sen. Imee Marcos has described as “pork giniling” to get congressional support – for legislation and, ahem, for holding public officials accountable.

Last Friday, Erice told The STAR’s online show “Truth on the Line” that if the VP would be impeached over confidential fund misuse, so should BBM, for signing the past three “pork”-laden GAAs in which the standby funds were used for anomalous flood control projects.

Claire Castro, a lawyer, says the difference is that BBM did not use the questioned appropriations for himself or his office.

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Over the holidays, BBM must have had an epiphany and realized the nightmare that he and his family would face in case VP Sara wins the presidency in 2028.

With Rodrigo Duterte likely to rot till his last breath in Scheveningen Prison, the Dutch detention facility used by the  International Criminal Court in The Hague, and the Duterte siblings in government losing much of their funding and other perks, brutal retribution can be expected in case the Dutertes regain power.

In January 2023 in Davos, Switzerland, BBM had said that he was initially “determined not to go into politics.”

But he and his family “had to defend ourselves politically,” he told World Economic Forum President Borge Brende during a dialogue.

BBM added: “Not only the legacy of my father, but even our own survival required that somebody go into politics.”

These days, with his arch foe seen as the strongest contender for the 2028 presidency, and none of his relatives and supporters looming as a credible challenger, BBM is again on survival mode. (So is his arch foe, but surely BBM knows this.)

If BBM wants to cement his legacy and remake the Marcos name, what he does to survive should redound to the benefit of the nation, and not just his clan.