Enemy of the state

Among the last movies that I watched in a theater, a very long time ago, had a plot that can be woven in a present day happening. It centered on a high government official who obsessed on having an expansive surveillance legislation passed. Jon Voight played that character Superbly (with capital S) and for the purpose of this article, let us just refer to him as S. When a legislator opposed the plan of S, the latter had the former assassinated. The riveting plot thickened when S threw a plethora of maneuvers and a throng of spinners to camouflage his obsession. By the way, in the world of propaganda, spinners are those who knowingly provide biased interpretations of an event to influence public opinion.

Being a septuagenarian, I do not recall exactly the action-filled twists of the decades-old movie but I vaguely remember that S even accused those who disfavored his plan as enemies of the state. That, in fact, was the title of the movie, “Enemy of the State”, with Will Smith and Jon Voight starring. In the movie, S was cunning, manipulative, yet adorable as well as furtively ambitious. I surmise that Vice President Sara Duterte Carpio is not the personification of the role of S.

Using a combined figment of fiction and fact, I opine though that the plot of that Jon Voight starrer can be paralleled to what was recently unraveled by the budget hearing in the Philippine legislature. Of course, I exclude the murder of the lawmaker in the film because it is not happening here (yet!). I refer to the budgetary submission of Confidential and Intelligence Funds for the Office of the Vice President.

What was lost in the Congressional debates is the constitutional nature of the position of the vice president. I mischievously cited in previous columns the thoughts of constitutional law scholars that the vice president is only a spare tire in our government whose only arguable function is to pray that the presidency gets vacant. Well, the vice president maybe appointed to any department and becomes a part of the Cabinet but really there is no substantive provision written in the Constitution defining his powers, duties, and responsibilities.

If our incumbent vice president is indeed a spare tire, what does she need confidential and intelligence funds for? A national paper, quoting a joint memorandum of government agencies, reports that confidential funds are for confidential expenses related to surveillance activities in civilian government agencies that are intended to support their mandate or operations. Similarly, intelligence funds are for intelligence expenses related to the information-gathering activities of uniformed and military personnel and intelligence practitioners that have direct impact on national security. Given that characterization of such funds, the vice president has no need for the same. Neither is she entitled to such kind of allocation.

Where does the movie “Enemy of the State” weave itself in present events in our country? Vice President S, in a publicized statement, consider those opposed to allocating CIF for her as “enemies of the nation”. Chillingly identical! Those who do not favor granting her CIF are, to her, communists. If that is her view of those people arrayed against CIF, then Senator Hontiveros and representatives Manuel, Castro, and Lagman are communists. I am an ordinary tax-paying citizen and because I am against the idea of the OVP’s unconstitutional CIF, then I too, can be S’s communist.