"We should be talking about nation building."
"We should be talking about nation building."
First came the rumor. Then the social media post. President Duterte has been airlifted to Singapore for emergency hospitalization. Then, there was the welcome reception for returning OFWs from Lebanon where Foreign Affairs Secretary TeddyBoy Locsin somewhat choked as he thanked all those who made it safely back home and the guys who made the trip possible for their sacrifices. It was punctuated by an emphatic Thank You to President Duterte for being "the only President who has extended all possible assistance to our OFWs."
That "choking" incident went viral with all kinds of speculation, the most insidious being that Locsin knew something about the President's condition. It must be serious, the posts speculated, he was biding his time and keeping it from the public. Well, the speculation turned out to be just that – speculation. And malicious to say the least.
Apparently, what made the Secretary choke as he was delivering his remarks was the sight of an obviously tired OFW carrying her sick baby, trying to find a seat in the audience for the simple sit down. To a decent person, it was simply an unbearable sight – one enough to make him cry.
But the critics could not be mollified. Some demanded yet again that Malacanang come out with the real score about the President's health using that tired formula "Saan Ang Pangulo. Others, emboldened by that Harry Roque statement that the Chief Executive is in "perpetual isolation," came
out with all kinds of "firsthand knowledge from unimpeachable sources in Singapore" that indeed the President was admitted to the Mt. Elizabeth hospital for emergency medical attention. That report, together with pictures of a medevac jet landing at the Davao International Airport, sent social media habitues on a wild chase about Duterte's whereabouts.
Even the post of Senator Bong Go showing the President with his family eating with the latest edition of Manila Bulletin thrust into view by his partner could stop the dire speculation. The Chief Executive was really sick, they said. Not even his appearance in his own press conference to announce the return of GCQ to most of the country could stave off the rumors rising into a crescendo, all meant obviously to get the public so fired up to demand that he go on leave and let Vice President Leni Robredo take over. In fact, his presiding over that meeting was used by the critics to insist that he was not in full control of his faculties.
Then, the post #Protect VPLeni resurfaced coupled with a number of anti-Duterte initiatives including a sorry replication of the ATOM marches of decades ago – one on Ayala at the Ninoy Aquino monument and a proposed Jericho march at the ABS CBN facility.
I would have simply shrugged off all of these developments as a result of months in lockdown were it not for the proddings of a close friend who asked if I could sense a pattern, a kind of organized effort by the various anti-Duterte critics rousing the public out of slumber to the point of marching in defiance of lockdown protocols demanding his resignation or at the very least his taking a leave. I told him that may be kind of conspiratorial but given the train of events over the past three to four weeks amid increased public fear and even hopelessness in the face of the lockdown, I won't be surprised if some sectors would be mounting such an effort. The speculation about the President's condition only makes the planning even more urgent and necessary.
It will be unseemly, even close to irresponsible, for any group involved in or interested in the fate and future of this country to just play along and not even plan for the future. Which is why, instead of planning for one or the other group competing for power in this country, we should plan for the republic. Instead of protecting Leni or suggesting “revgov.”
We should be talking about protecting our democracy, about nation building, about strengthening our institutions and educating our people to choose a way into the future without sacrificing our very existence as a country and a people meriting the support and applause of the community of nations. Not a pariah destined to the dustbin of history.