Beautiful disaster

By Artchil B. Fernandez

The administration of Bongbong Marcos (BBM) turned out to be a beautiful disaster for the Dutertes. The Dutertes’ elevation of BBM to the presidency has become their dreamy nightmare or a “nightmare dressed like a daydream.”

At the twilight of his presidency, how to protect himself from possible prosecution was the chief concern of Rodrigo Duterte. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is investigating him and his top officials for crimes against humanity, and the resurgent opposition vowed to hold him accountable for his questionable actions while in office. He yearns for a quiet retirement, but the “pinklawans” or the rebranded “dilawans” will likely deny him of his wish should they win the 2022 election.

Victory of the pinklawans in the 2022 election was the Duterte patriarch’s biggest nightmare. He was losing sleep over their possible victory. Once in power, the pinklawans will dig up the dirt from his administration. Only a win of his chosen successor or a friendly administration was Du30’s insurance that the secrets of his administration were buried for good. He must prevent the opposition from winning the 2022 election at all costs.

Fielding his daughter was Du30’s succession plan. However, the wily Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA), who was equally worried about a pinklawan victory, subverted Du30’s succession design. She convinced Sara Duterte to unite with Bongbong Marcos (BBM) and be his vice president instead. GMA feared a divided Marcos and Duterte camps would only ensure the pinklawans’ success.

Thus, the UniTeam was forged as a formidable political alliance.

The massive win of the UniTeam in the 2022 election was beyond its architects’ imagination. It captured the majority of the votes, a dream come true. BBM and Sara Duterte’s historic triumph was a fantasy becoming a reality.

The Dutertes were elated.  Their wish had come true – slaying the pinklawans in the polls. They are safe and are positioned to return to power in 2028, with Sara Duterte only a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Alas, the future is open-ended, unpredictable, and opaque. Who would have thought that in less than two years, the daydream of the Dutertes would become a beautiful disaster? The nightmare they tried to banish became real, and now they are fighting for their political survival courtesy of their erstwhile ally, the Marcoses.

UniTeam unraveled and ultimately collapsed. House Duterte and House Marcos today are in a cut-throat struggle for political survival. As their relationship deteriorates, the Marcoses are furiously digging into the secrets and dirt of the previous administration. Instead of protection, the Dutertes found themselves facing prosecution.

The House of Representatives, controlled by the Marcoses through their kin Speaker Martin Romualdez, formed the quad committee – a super committee especially created to investigate the connection between the war on illegal drugs, illegal gambling, and extra-judicial killings under the previous administration. Dark secrets of Duterte’s authoritarian rule are being unearthed at quad committee hearings.

Police Col. Gerardo Padilla, former officer in charge of the DPPF in Panabo City, Davao del Norte testified that Royina Garma, then a police colonel heading the Central Visayas regional command of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) of the Philippine National Police (PNP) subjected him to intense pressure to “not question (the operation) ‘whether you like it or not'” and to “cooperate or you will be sorry” to have three Chinese inmates killed – convicted drug lords Chu Kin Tung, Li Lang Yang, and Wong Meng Pin. Garma is among those charged before the ICC.

The poster boy of Duterte’s war on drugs, Police Col. Jovie Espenido, revealed at quad hearings that closest associates of former President Rodrigo Duterte, Senators Christopher “Bong” Go and Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, ordered police officers to use “all means necessary” to eradicate drug suspects — including killing them. Among the prominent killings under Espenido’s watch were those of Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. and 14 others, as well as that of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr.

Espenido also admitted that there was a “quota and reward system” in Duterte’s drugs war. The money was arranged by the then-Special Assistant to the President, Christopher “Bong” Go, which was collected from small-town lottery and “jueteng” lords, intelligence funds, and Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos).

The testimonies of PNP officers involved in Duterte’s war on drugs gave a glimpse of the inner workings of the pet project of the previous administration. The information provided by these police officers fills in many gaps in the execution of the drug war. They are crucial and valuable to the ongoing investigation of the ICC.

As the quad committee investigation on the dirt and dark secrets of the Duterte administration unfolds, many more macabre and gory details of the drug war will come to light. What the elder Duterte desperately wants to conceal is being brought out into the open. His worst nightmare is coming true.

What hurt the Dutertes the most is the bile realization that it is not the hated pinklawans who are hounding them and digging up their dirt but the family they helped install to power; this is the cruelest joke played on the Dutertes by fate. The betrayal is a bitter pill for them to swallow.

Should the Dutertes return to power, their vengeance will be brutal and bloody. Hell hath no fury than the Dutertes scorned and betrayed, which has placed the Marcoses at a point of no return. House Marcos has created their worst nightmare.

The current predicament of the Dutertes is the best example of fantasy gone wrong. It is their happy horror story.