"What did we Filipinos do to deserve this toxic duo being rammed down our throats?"
"What did we Filipinos do to deserve this toxic duo being rammed down our throats?"
The faction of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP) led by its president, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, reported that the political party had “endorsed” the Bong Go-Rodrigo Duterte tandem for the May 2022 elections.
If this is the winning combination that the coup plotters in the once-venerable political party can offer the Filipino electorate, aren’t they really scraping the bottom of the barrel?
Why so? Go had been the loyal gofer of then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte for decades. Until now, he still does the same job even if he is already a senator. He managed to get his name plastered in posters throughout the country as early as mid-2016 in preparation for his senatorial bid in 2019. Who paid for his early campaign? We don’t know. What we know is that, thinking that hubris can very well make up for shortage of intellectual heft, as a member of the Senate he does not even want to be interpellated by former Senate President and now Senate Minority Floor Leader Franklin Drilon after delivering privilege speeches.
Duterte has openly admitted he wants to run for vice-president in 2022 to keep his adversaries from filing criminal cases against him when he leaves the presidency on June 30, 2022. The International Criminal Court in The Hague wants to conduct a full-dress probe of alleged crimes against humanity for the thousands of deaths under his bloody war on drugs.
If the Go-Duterte tandem comes to pass and wins in 2022, then we will know for certain that our democracy has really reached its lowest point, and undoing the damage they can do to this nation for the next six years if they win would take a Herculean effort.
Our question is this: What did we Filipinos do to deserve this toxic duo being rammed down our throats by a faction in the PDP?
According to PDP Secretary General Melvin Matibag, Go and Duterte were picked as the presidential and vice presidential candidates, respectively, of the PDP during an online meeting of the national executive council and officers last August 4. The official nomination and voting will take place during the party’s national convention on September 8.
If Matibag is to be believed, the endorsement of the Go-Duterte tandem was “unanimous—every member of the national executive committee and its officers.”
“Everybody was ecstatic and everybody was excited” when the endorsement was made, Matibag reported. “They really applauded. They seemed to be waiting for something to happen,” he added.
But what he conveniently ignored is that the PDP is now divided into two factions. There’s the Cusi-Matibag faction, on the one hand, and on the other, the faction headed by Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III and Sen. Manny Pacquiao.
Pacquiao, who was ousted as PDP President by the Cusi faction, is widely believed to be seriously considering running for president in May 2022. He remains a member of the PDP, according to the Cusi faction, but we’ll have to wait until Pacquiao arrives from the US to tell us what he has to say on this.
Both Go and Duterte have yet to decide on whether or not they would run as the party’s candidates for the 2022 elections. Go said in February this year that he should be “counted out” in talks about election, particularly on seeking a higher post in the 2022 elections.
Given this development, where do we situate the supposed clamor for Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio to run for the presidency? She is not a member of the PDP, but heads a regional party, the Hugpong ng Pagbabago. Could she be the real presidential candidate of the PDP when the time comes?
Another development worth watching is the recent announcement by the Cusi faction that they are willing to have former Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. as a new party member if he embraces its principles.
That the political party that once stood in the forefront of the popular resistance against the martial law regime in the early 1980s should even consider admitting into its fold the former senator and defeated vice presidential candidate in 2016, and the only son of the late deposed strongman dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, speaks volumes about its complete and shameless abandonment of democratic principles.
As we’ve said in this space before, the PDP should drop the Laban moniker as the latter party was founded by the late opposition leader Ninoy Aquino at the height of martial law.
The faction that usurped power and declared themselves the legitimate leaders of the PDP does not appear committed to fighting for democracy at all as Ninoy’s Laban party did in the late 1970s. In fact, they appear intent on working very hard to undermine Philippine democracy by any means necessary, including transforming the party into a battering ram against the very democracy Filipinos have won at the cost of so much blood, sweat and tears both in the barricades and through the ballot.
Where’s the best and the brightest among our people when we need them to assume the mantle of genuine leadership at this crucial juncture in our nation’s history?
ernhil@yahoo.com