Kath-Niel, 11 years; Sara, 11 days

By Herbert Vego

IT boggles one’s imagination that the break-up of movie stars Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla has gone viral in the social media. They have been sweethearts for 11 years. Why so much fuss when they have not married each other for so long?

Incidentally, I had been an entertainment journalist in Metro Manila for 11 years until I decided to transfer to Iloilo City in 1981 to edit a local newspaper. In all those years, breaks-up among married and unmarried movie stars were already frequent.

I wonder if the Kath-Niel brouhaha is meant to deaden the controversy hounding the Sara-BBM “uniteam,” which is all about the “unconstitutionality” of an alleged ₱125 million in “confidential funds” that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. had passed on to Vice President Sara Duterte in December 2022. Inday Sara was reported to have received and spent the money in the last 11 days of that year.

Because of this, she is now being asked by the Supreme Court (SC) to justify the fund transfer along with co-respondents Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin and Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman.

While Bongbong has been spared the SC probe because of his presidential immunity from suit, there have been allegations that his cousin, Speaker Martin Romualdez, had encouraged the majority of congressmen to question the fund transfer. You see, both the Speaker and the VP are said to be aiming for the presidency in 2028.

As a consequence, petitioners led by former Commission on Elections chairman Christian Monsod and retired SC associate justice Antonio Carpio questioned the decision of the Department of Budget and Management to release ₱125 million to her for being a “clear usurpation” of the legislative power of Congress, which has the sole authority to decide how the budget would be spent through the annual General Appropriations Act.

The Vice-President and her co-respondents have 10 days to answer the SC’s order to comment on the petition.

It is hard to guess how the SC would decide.  We can only wonder whether Inday Sara would  be asked to return the money to the National Treasury.

Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

-oOo-

‘AN AGREEMENT WITH THE DEVIL’

FOR the first time, VP Sara Duterte has made public her disagreement with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. over the latter’s decision to grant amnesty to rebel groups – notably the New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) and the Rebolusyonaryong Partido Manggagawa ng Pilipinas/ Revolutionary Proletarian Army/Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPMP-RPA-ABB) – and to restart peace negotiations with them.

“Agreement with the devil,” she called the peace proposal on the occasion of the 5th founding anniversary of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), of which she is a co-vice chairperson.

Why is she saying that when the position of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is that insurgency is a dying threat that will finally end in the next two years under the Marcos administration?

“In fact, their recruits and supporters are continuously decreasing,” said AFP spokesman Col. Medel Aguila, citing the death of top communist leaders Benito and Wilma Tiamzon in August and Jose Maria Sison in December 2022.

Of the insurgency, Jonathan Malaya — the assistant director general of the National Security Council (NSC) — said in a TV program, “It is in a dying stage. The latest data shows that of the 89 guerrilla fronts of the CPP-NPA, 67 have been dismantled since 2018. We only have four active guerrilla fronts in the country today.”

So, what’s Inday Sara worried about?  That the NTF-ELCAC, of which she is vice-chairman (with Pres. Marcos as chairman), would be abolished?

The NTF-ELCAC has a Congress-allocated ₱10 billion budget for the current year.

The 5-year-old agency has gained notoriety for “red-tagging” activists, including party-list representatives critical of the national government.