STATEMENT OF PINOY AKSYON FOR GOVERNANCE AND THE ENVIRONMENT, INC. (PINOY AKSYON)
SOMETHING’s terribly weird about Vice President Sara Duterte.
Her fury about the recall of 75 policemen in her security detail doesn’t pass muster the standards for deflection as it did not make a dent on the public perception that she prefers to watch a Taylor Swift concert in Germany than look into the dire straits of flood victims as Typhoon Carina swamped Metro Manila, Central Luzon and other parts of Luzon.
Sara and her family were seen departing at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on July 24, 2024, the same day the typhoon struck, two days after the third State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and just five days after she relinquished the education portfolio.
Sara raised hell after Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Rommel Marbil transferred the 75 policemen from her 433-member security detail, arguing that those policemen have been with her through thick and thin and that they have doctorates in protecting her, her husband and her kids.
The vice president apparently does not recognize the fact, set in stone, that those policemen are under the PNP, which is charged to enforce the law, and their allegiance is to the Republic of the Philippines and not to the Republic of Sara Duterte.
Her hissy fits actually fall flat since the Marcos Jr. administration has been overprotecting her and that 31 cops are still with her oversized protective unit.
How much does the republic spend for Sara’s bodyguards?
And why did suddenly the Presidential Security Command (PSC) have a secondary unit called the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group (VPSPG)?
Was there such an animal during the terms of Vice Presidents Leni Robredo, Jejomar C. Binay and Noli de Castro?
Critics have labelled as obscene the fact that an entire battalion of bodyguards protect Sara and her family while many cities and towns have undermanned police units just as many fire departments have no fire trucks, and yet she has the gall to condemn the reassignment as “political harassment” by Marbil, whose status actually is that of a mere bureau chief.
People have yet to hear Sara accuse the President of ordering the recall of the 75 policemen and she has been slow in condemning Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez for the reassignment.
The least she could is to attack Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos for the “dastardly recall” but not a murmur about this is heard.
One pundit surmised that authoritarians are wont to surround themselves with Praetorian guards, the more the merrier, as fascists see their political power is directly proportional to the gunmen they have at their disposal.
As the scholar Ruth Ben Ghiat stressed, the larger the ego, the bigger the number of bodyguards to keep it massaged.
If Sara calculated that her four-page hysterical letter would summon thousands of her supporters to wade through floodwaters and declare she has been wronged, then she made another huge mistake.
The deflection couldn’t hack it.
It made her more miserable complaining about an administrative matter.
It didn’t move the needle on her popularity of favorability ratings.
The response to her wailing was simply: where were you when we needed you?
Sara’s father, the unlamented former president Rodrigo Duterte, said that his daughter was a “drama queen” just as he is the country’s “drama king.”
They both belong to a “drama family.” Digong blasts Marcos Jr. for his “laziness” and “incompetence” but his four fingers point to himself.
Son and Davao City Rep. Pulong also condemned the scrapping of P5-billion appropriated for Davao City while the other son, Baste, currently Davao City mayor, also stewed over the revamp of the entire Davao City police force and their replacement by the PNP’s Special Action Force (SAF.)
The Dutertes only have themselves to blame for their current woes.
As Americans say, the juice is not worth the squeeze.
They are a bunch of overgrown brats who believe they are entitled to special treatment and have a franchise to battalions of bodyguards.
That they have to answer for the abuse of Davao City’s kitty is a fact, but both the Commission on Audit (COA) and the Office of the Ombudsman have yet to initiate proceedings against them.
They have yet to answer for the more than 3,000 DDS killings in Davao City, the more than 30,000 murdered in the course of the Duterte “anti-drug” war and the more than 10,000 people killed, abducted and thrown into unmarked graves in the course of the bloody campaign against the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), New People’s Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF.)
Sara should go see an expert on deflection in order to escape from her amateurish performance.
The people at large, conscious that she flees to parts unknown at the earliest sign of disaster, has already found her to be unfit even as a “drama queen.”
As the aphorism says, “tinimbang ka, ngunit kulang.”
After the illusion of 2022 evaporated, Sara has proven true her quip that honesty is not needed in politics.
But the public deems the presence of national leaders is required when disasters strike.
Empathy is needed in politics.
But malignant narcissists don’t have it.
“Sinukat na at siya ay kulang.”
Sara has been measured and she doesn’t quality. Her political size has shrunk.
(Pinoy Aksyon is a non-profit, non partisan volunteer organization that serves governance and environment watchdog and think-tank.)
