IT HAS been three months since his State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July that President Marcos Junior opened the can of public outrage regarding the anomalous and criminal plunder of the national budget allocated to solve the country’s flooding woes by corrupt lawmakers and their equally corrupt partners in the public works department and their favored contractors.
While the President’s outrage and demand for accountability for all involved reflect not only his sincerity and honesty and is aligned with the public’s mood, the “political blowback” his tirade has brought to the surface must have caught him unprepared.
Thru the ongoing investigations of the scandal initiated by the Palace and Congress, more details were brought to the surface where more personalities got named— majority, if not all of them, allies of the President– including his first cousin, former Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, the alleged “mastermind” of the whole scheme, along with resigned congressman, Zaldy Co, former chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
In the final analysis, it would be for the court of law and the Ombudsman to establish the guilt or innocence of the accused if ever the whole scandal reaches them.
Pushing for national unity from the start, the bad political decisions made by the administration in its first three years however—all in favor of Romualdez’s ambition– only polarized the nation into mainly two warring camps: the Marcos camp and the Duterte camp.
But one thing is certain, the ambition of Romualdez to succeed his cousin in Malacañang in 2028 and protect the Marcos – Romualdez legacy and family interests, has been swept away by the flood of public anger that would continue to swell for a long time to come.
The history of the last two presidential elections, 2010 and 2016, showed the awful fact that those endorsed by the sitting president got trashed in the polls— Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro endorsed by President Gloria Arroyo in 2010 got trashed by President Noynoy Aquino; Secretary Mar Roxas endorsed by Aquino got trashed by President Rodrigo Duterte.
As for President Marcos Junior, we note that he was endorsed only “indirectly” by President Duterte just days leading to the 2022 polls and only after Vice President Sara Duterte defied her father by agreeing to run as Marcos’ running mate instead seeking the presidency herself.
In the days after, everyone saw the start of the administration’s attacks against the Dutertes culminating in the extraterritorial rendition of the former president to The Hague last March— but which turned into a political bonanza because that ill-thought decision resulted to the election in the Senate of candidates identified with him.
Pushing for national unity from the start, the bad political decisions made by the administration in its first three years however—all in favor of Romualdez’s ambition– only polarized the nation into mainly two warring camps: the Marcos camp and the Duterte camp.
Given the nature of Philippine politics where harm and injuries, especially of personal nature are not easily forgotten or forgiven, the continued persecution of the Dutertes should start giving sleepless nights to the administration as the 2028 race creeps ever so near.
The “political payback” should the Vice President wins the 2028 race has become a dreadful thought to some in Malacañang.
As his credibility cracks who, really, still commands the President’s undying loyalty inside his camp and who is also acceptable to the electorate now that their rank has just been decimated by the flood control scandal.
The search continues for the administration’s “lifeline” in the 2028 presidential race.