By disclosing her order for the assassination of the first couple and the House speaker and accusing them of corruption without presenting any proof, Vice President Sara Duterte is digging her own grave deeper, so to speak.
Appearing like a woman scorned, Duterte hurled not only expletives but also serious accusations and death threats at President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez in the course of shielding her chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, from questions on the suspicious spending of P612.5 million in confidential funds by her office in 2022 and 2023.
As a lawyer, the vice president should be aware that her disclosure about the “millions [of pesos]” supposedly from the first lady and which she, in turn, gave to the Department of Education (DepEd) makes her a party to the alleged corruption.
“Liza Marcos, naalala mo nagpadala ka sa akin ng video. Sinabihan mo ako saan kukunin ang pera. Pinakita mo ang mukha ng tao doon sa video message mo. … You sent me written instructions about money…. millions a month. Ano’ng nakalagay du’n sa envelope? DepEd. Ano’ng ginawa ko? Binigay ko sa DepEd. P*ina mo ka, wala ka ngang posisyon sa gobyerno namimigay ka ng pera ng gobyerno, eh,” the visibly furious vice president said in a virtual conference with reporters and pro-Duterte vloggers early morning of Saturday.
(Liza Marcos, remember you sent me a video. You told me where to get the money. You showed me the face of the person. In your video message, you sent me written instructions about money… millions a month. What was in the envelope? DepEd. What did I do with it? I gave it to DepEd. [Cuss word], you have no government position, yet you are giving away government money.)
The vice president was insinuating that the P50,000 former undersecretary Gloria Mercado received from February to September 2023 from her through Assistant Secretary Sunshine Fajarda, as well as the “minimal amount” of P25,000 for DepEd Chief Accountant Rhunna Catalan and the P12,500 to P15,000 for Director and lawyer Resty Osias came from the first lady.
With her serious allegations against the Marcos couple and the speaker, Duterte gave more reason for the Congress to summon her and tell all about it and show evidence to prove her claims. Better yet, if she has the goods on them, file appropriate charges in court.
Come out with proof that Romualdez indeed received bribes from the Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs), smugglers and drugs. By doing so, the House quad committee should have reason to investigate him; otherwise, it would lose face.
But if she just keeps saying these before the cameras and in the presence of anti-Marcos vloggers, she will only be proving her critics right that she is merely drawing public attention away from the lingering questions on the disbursement of P612.5 million in confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and DepEd.
Without proof, she can do nothing but scream, rant, yell and curse for hours in a way that could eventually become comical.
Her subordinates would not have been subjected to detention, and all sorts of stressful situations had she answered properly and honestly the questions thrown at her when she appeared last Aug. 27 before the House Committee on Appropriations to defend the originally proposed P2.04 billion budget for the OVP for 2025. She should have agreed to take an oath, as everybody appearing in congressional inquiries does, when she showed up on Sept. 18 before the Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability on its first hearing on the alleged abuses in the budget spending of the OVP and DepEd.
Partisan politics may indeed be behind the congressional inquiries. But it was the Duterte camp that started it all when Jeffrey Celis, a host of broadcast station Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), questioned Romualdez’s travel expenses that allegedly reached P1.8 billion for one year alone.
Celiz admitted later that he failed to validate the information received from his source about Romualdez’s travel expenses and apologized for it.
Or did the rift start when she could no longer use the presidential chopper anytime she wanted to?
The Dutertes, including former president Rodrigo Duterte, have actively participated in what appears like a coordinated effort to destabilize the government and repeatedly called Marcos a drug addict.
In a way, the Duterte-led anti-administration sentiments only make Marcos look good, a better alternative to their brand of leadership. Sometimes I entertain the thought that it works for the country that Marcos’ leadership is perceived to be weak because he is not stopping the congressional hearings, particularly those of the quad committee, which have become the venues for troubling anomalies such as in Duterte’s bloody drug war, the illegal online gaming operators and their links to Chinese-led syndicates, to come out.
In her pre-dawn press conference via Zoom, Duterte repeated her Oct. 18 statement that Marcos “does not know how to be a president.” Had she asked herself if she knew how to be a vice president?
The leadership of a country with at least 110 million population is determined not only by one’s high rating in surveys with 1,200 respondents. Temper tantrums should only be for children. Using tantrums to shift and control the narrative is a negative leadership strategy that can only pull her down.
Duterte should keep her ears open to the suggestion of Senate President Francis Escudero, who said, “If she is struggling, I sincerely hope she seeks and is provided with the help she may need so she can regain calm and composure and properly discharge her duties as vice president.”
Although she has left the UniTeam and severed ties with Marcos, she remains the country’s vice president, the No. 2 top official who has a duty to set an example of good leadership not only to the OVP staff but to all Filipinos, regardless of political beliefs.
She is still very much a part of the government, getting her salaries and enjoying the perks of her office. All these brouhaha resulting from her refusal to respond directly to legitimate questions on her spending of public funds means unnecessary costs that should have gone to more worthy activities.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
This column also appeared in The Manila Times.
