THE Philippine government under the presidency of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., son and namesake of the country’s OG kleptocrat, is — surprise, surprise — caught in the middle of a multitrillion-peso corruption scandal. How does his administration react to this?
Impeach the vice president who under the 1987 Constitution has no clear functions. Article VII, Section 3 of the said constitution provides:
“There shall be a Vice-President who shall have the same qualifications and term of office and be elected with and in the same manner as the President. He may be removed from office in the same manner as the President.
“The Vice-President may be appointed as a Member of the Cabinet. Such appointment requires no confirmation.”
For a time Vice President Sara Duterte was Marcos Jr.’s secretary of education. Sara, however, resigned on June 19, 2024, the birth anniversary of Jose Rizal.
The Marcos administration — let us not kid one another here — is impeaching the vice president who has no official role in the government except, with reference to Article VII, Section 8 of the 1987 Constitution, to wait for the death, permanent disability, removal from office or resignation of the president. I am neither the first nor the last person to say this: the vice president is an often “unused spare tire.”
Impeaching the spare tire is the response to the rather unsurprising — given the Marcos family history — wholesale corruption plaguing the Marcos presidency. Bongbong is a Marcos after all.
I am reminded here of a situation where the family chauffeur has been involved in accident after accident, week after week, so the cook must be fired. Admittedly, it is a terrible analogy because at least the cook has specific and regular tasks. The vice president has no official tasks or functions — until the president dies, becomes incapacitated, is removed or resigns from office. Forced resignation, to be clear, because nobody really voluntarily resigns from the presidency. Joseph Estrada certainly did not in 2001. Neither did Marcos Sr. in 1986. Even after all the controversies, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo also did not resign.
Congress is impeaching the vice president. For accountability and good governance, they say. Legislators are certainly going to put real comedians out of a job soon with their brand of comedy.
Only fools will believe that Malacañang is not behind these impeachment proceedings in the Senate. Whether anybody will concede it or not, the impeachment of Sara Duterte is part of a calculated and orchestrated move to eliminate the consistent and runaway front-runner for the 2028 presidential elections from the picture and give the mystery Malacañang-backed standard-bearer a chance for victory.
Sara Duterte’s undeniable popularity with the Filipino voters has forced Marcos and his family’s bitterest of enemies to become giggly bedfellows for some time now. Not only that, Sara has also forced advocates to forsake and destroy the very advocacies they have championed for years.
Take for instance party-list congressman and House prosecution panel member Chel Diokno, who is self-consciously continuing the human rights advocate legacy of his father, Jose Diokno, the co-founder of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), who was appointed by President Cory Aquino after EDSA 1986 as the founding chairman of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights (forerunner of the Commission on Human Rights, CHR); a statue of Jose Diokno stands just outside the CHR building in Quezon City. Chel requested the impeachment court to subpoena Sara Duterte’s and husband Mans Carpio’s financial records covering the period before incumbency as vice president, a clear violation of their human rights and civil liberties. Diokno had the audacity to claim it as a rousing legal victory in the vice president’s impeachment case. Here is a self-proclaimed human rights advocate leading the charge in trampling all over human rights.
Senators Jose Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada and Joker Arroyo, and Justice J.B.L. Reyes, the founders of FLAG in 1974, are turning in their graves right now.
The logical explanation is that Chel Diokno has fully embraced his preferred role as partisan political attack dog (with gnarly teeth and all) — to hell with human rights! — seeking the elimination of a rival of his party/coalition in the 2028 presidential elections. Chel is probably praying his antics will finally earn him a seat in the Senate after the 2028 elections, hopefully ending years of futility as perennial minnow.
Very lofty aspirations, Mr. Diokno! I admire your resilience!
Apologists are saying that Sara’s impeachment does not mean abandoning accountability for Marcos Jr., who they are not at all calling a plunderer. Judging by the corybantic attacks against Sara vis-a-vis the colossal duds hurled toward Marcos Jr., the real agenda is plain for anyone to see: Allow Bongbong to end his term unscathed but destroy Sara at all costs.
Nothing about the country’s situation right now screams dogged pursuit of accountability, given that while Marcos Jr. is undeniably the central figure in a multitrillion-peso corruption scandal, he is ostensibly going to see his term end in 2028 without even a whiff of an impeachment trial. There was a brief charade where a complaint was filed against him at the House of Representatives. That has since been expeditiously thrown out.
The feral dogs are instead trained on Sara Duterte the glorified spare tire. Ironically, these pitbulls have always claimed to be rabidly anti-Marcos. Well, maybe against Marcos Sr., but obviously not toward Marcos Jr., not after the 2022 elections to be sure.
For all their years of shouting “Never Forget” (what the Marcos family has done to the Philippines and the Filipinos), they have conveniently developed an irreversible case of amnesia.
For all the vociferous chants of “Never Again” to the Marcoses, everyone is essentially “kain-suka” canoodling with Marcos Jr. now.
Nowadays “Never Forget” and “Never Again” are directed solely toward the Dutertes: Rodrigo the patriarch in the custody of the International Criminal Court, Sara the heir apparent and the rest of the family waiting in the wings.
The Dutertes are miracle workers because this kind of reconciliation among bitter enemies is the mother of all miracles.
Marcos who? Plunder what?
“The Vice-President may be appointed as a Member of the Cabinet. Such appointment requires no confirmation.”
For a time Vice President Sara Duterte was Marcos Jr.’s secretary of education. Sara, however, resigned on June 19, 2024, the birth anniversary of Jose Rizal.
The Marcos administration — let us not kid one another here — is impeaching the vice president who has no official role in the government except, with reference to Article VII, Section 8 of the 1987 Constitution, to wait for the death, permanent disability, removal from office or resignation of the president. I am neither the first nor the last person to say this: the vice president is an often “unused spare tire.”
Impeaching the spare tire is the response to the rather unsurprising — given the Marcos family history — wholesale corruption plaguing the Marcos presidency. Bongbong is a Marcos after all.
I am reminded here of a situation where the family chauffeur has been involved in accident after accident, week after week, so the cook must be fired. Admittedly, it is a terrible analogy because at least the cook has specific and regular tasks. The vice president has no official tasks or functions — until the president dies, becomes incapacitated, is removed or resigns from office. Forced resignation, to be clear, because nobody really voluntarily resigns from the presidency. Joseph Estrada certainly did not in 2001. Neither did Marcos Sr. in 1986. Even after all the controversies, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo also did not resign.
Congress is impeaching the vice president. For accountability and good governance, they say. Legislators are certainly going to put real comedians out of a job soon with their brand of comedy.
Only fools will believe that Malacañang is not behind these impeachment proceedings in the Senate. Whether anybody will concede it or not, the impeachment of Sara Duterte is part of a calculated and orchestrated move to eliminate the consistent and runaway front-runner for the 2028 presidential elections from the picture and give the mystery Malacañang-backed standard-bearer a chance for victory.
Sara Duterte’s undeniable popularity with the Filipino voters has forced Marcos and his family’s bitterest of enemies to become giggly bedfellows for some time now. Not only that, Sara has also forced advocates to forsake and destroy the very advocacies they have championed for years.
Take for instance party-list congressman and House prosecution panel member Chel Diokno, who is self-consciously continuing the human rights advocate legacy of his father, Jose Diokno, the co-founder of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), who was appointed by President Cory Aquino after EDSA 1986 as the founding chairman of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights (forerunner of the Commission on Human Rights, CHR); a statue of Jose Diokno stands just outside the CHR building in Quezon City. Chel requested the impeachment court to subpoena Sara Duterte’s and husband Mans Carpio’s financial records covering the period before incumbency as vice president, a clear violation of their human rights and civil liberties. Diokno had the audacity to claim it as a rousing legal victory in the vice president’s impeachment case. Here is a self-proclaimed human rights advocate leading the charge in trampling all over human rights.
Senators Jose Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada and Joker Arroyo, and Justice J.B.L. Reyes, the founders of FLAG in 1974, are turning in their graves right now.
The logical explanation is that Chel Diokno has fully embraced his preferred role as partisan political attack dog (with gnarly teeth and all) — to hell with human rights! — seeking the elimination of a rival of his party/coalition in the 2028 presidential elections. Chel is probably praying his antics will finally earn him a seat in the Senate after the 2028 elections, hopefully ending years of futility as perennial minnow.
Very lofty aspirations, Mr. Diokno! I admire your resilience!
Apologists are saying that Sara’s impeachment does not mean abandoning accountability for Marcos Jr., who they are not at all calling a plunderer. Judging by the corybantic attacks against Sara vis-a-vis the colossal duds hurled toward Marcos Jr., the real agenda is plain for anyone to see: Allow Bongbong to end his term unscathed but destroy Sara at all costs.
Nothing about the country’s situation right now screams dogged pursuit of accountability, given that while Marcos Jr. is undeniably the central figure in a multitrillion-peso corruption scandal, he is ostensibly going to see his term end in 2028 without even a whiff of an impeachment trial. There was a brief charade where a complaint was filed against him at the House of Representatives. That has since been expeditiously thrown out.
The feral dogs are instead trained on Sara Duterte the glorified spare tire. Ironically, these pitbulls have always claimed to be rabidly anti-Marcos. Well, maybe against Marcos Sr., but obviously not toward Marcos Jr., not after the 2022 elections to be sure.
For all their years of shouting “Never Forget” (what the Marcos family has done to the Philippines and the Filipinos), they have conveniently developed an irreversible case of amnesia.
For all the vociferous chants of “Never Again” to the Marcoses, everyone is essentially “kain-suka” canoodling with Marcos Jr. now.
Nowadays “Never Forget” and “Never Again” are directed solely toward the Dutertes: Rodrigo the patriarch in the custody of the International Criminal Court, Sara the heir apparent and the rest of the family waiting in the wings.
The Dutertes are miracle workers because this kind of reconciliation among bitter enemies is the mother of all miracles.
Marcos who? Plunder what?
