Not just Freudian slip but malevolence

In an FB post that I saw the other day, Vice President Sara Duterte Carpio, during her appearance in the congressional hearing on the budgetary proposal for the Office of the Vice President, was a revelation. Her facial expression, her body language, and her spoken disposition somehow revealed a distinct kind of personality. Many viewers of the FB post were quick to label the vice president as a complete package of arrogance. To most representatives attending the budget hearing, Carpio was grossly disrespectful.

I must admit that I am not a good judge of character and I, in all candidness, may not be a fan of the vice president. Still I am not prepared to be in chorus with her detractors on her actions in the Congressional hearing. I would rather look at Inday Sara objectively from a way she answered the question on who edited the book “Isang Kaibigan”.

For a backgrounder, the Office of the Vice President is seeking ?10 million in the 2025 budget to buy the book. I raised a quizzical eyebrow when I heard in the earlier budget hearing that the book is already printed. Carpio herself revealed that information when she committed to send a copy of the book the following day (in the middle of August 2024) to everyone who attended the hearing. The vice president apparently authored the book and presumably she paid for its printing. So, it appeared to me that Carpio wants ?10 million from our taxes to buy her own book. What a red flag!

In the continuation of the budget hearing, the vice president answered the question on who edited the book in a discomforting manner. After a deliberate pause, probably to make sure that no one would miss the name, she said that the editor was Raoul Manuel. And everybody was stunned. The deafening silence in the halls of the Batasang Pambansa that followed the revelation unmistakably showed the jaw-dropping surprise. They did not expect that the editor of “Isang Kaibigan” was one among them. Certainly the editor was not a friend of the author. Congressman Raoul Manuel was the legislator who asked Vice President Carpio who edited the book and it was his name that was uttered!

When I said above that I would look at Inday Sara’s way of answering the question on the editorship of the book objectively, I had to describe her mentioning of the name Raoul Manuel, immediately as a Freudian slip. My unintended reaction. It was shown by the smirk on her face seconds after uttering the name of the lawmaker. The internet explains the term thus: “In psychoanalysis, a Freudian slip, also called parapraxis, is an error in speech that occurs due to the interference of an unconscious subdued wish or internal train of thought.” Most probably, it was a train of Carpio’s thought (or her subdued wish) to engage the brilliant mind of the young legislator to edit the book.

In any case, when Congressman Manuel pointed out several errors in the book written by the vice president, he in effect, drove into the minds of the legislators attending the hearing that spending ?10 million to buy “Isang Kaibigan”, is an utter waste of our taxes. Manuel added that aside from the mistakes, the book cannot be a useful tool in educating the youth. Of course, he also functioned as the book’s editor making a reality out of Carpio’s subdued wish.

There was something worse than the Freudian slip though. It became evident when Carpio said that mentioning Raoul Manuel was only a joke. To me, her utterance was not a jest. Without her knowing, her malevolent mind surfaced instead. The viciousness of the vice president’s ill will towards the lawmaker done in the hallowed halls of Congress disgraced her high position.