Pushed against the wall, the Duterte camp is getting more aggressive in pressuring President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to disprove his alleged abuse of illegal drugs.
On Saturday, Harry Roque, the former spokesman for former president Rodrigo Duterte, dared Marcos to “prove to every Filipino that he is in the right frame of mind to continue leading the nation.”
“If indeed he is saddled by a chronic illness or health disorder, I respectfully suggest that he allows the constitutional successor to take over in an acting capacity,” he continued in an opinion article published on philstar.com.
Roque, a former law professor and party-list representative, is besieged with issues related to the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), which Marcos said he wanted to be completely out of the country by December this year.
Senators and congressmen have been investigating Roque’s supposed links and involvement in the operations of some POGOs allegedly engaged in illegal activities such as human trafficking, prostitution, torture, online scams and other crimes.
The Dutertes, particularly the former president, are troubled by the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigation of the bloody drug war while the Philippines was still a treaty member of the ICC.
The Dutertes and their rabid followers on social media have long been peddling the story about Marcos’ addiction to cocaine. Even during the campaign for the 2022 presidential elections, Duterte made an indirect reference to Marcos being a “drug addict.”
In a “prayer rally” in Davao City against the Charter change initiative by Marcos allies last January, Duterte said: “Si Bongbong Marcos bangag noon, ngayong presidente na, bangag [ang ating] presidente.”
The next day, Marcos shot back, grinning, “I think it’s the fentanyl,” referring to the drug which Duterte has admitted to taking in the past for pain relief after a motorbike accident. Marcos said the opioid drug would have impaired Duterte’s judgment, noting that the former president “has been taking the drug for a very long time now … after five, six years, it has to affect him.”
Duterte claimed that Marcos was included in the narco-list of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA). Pro-Duterte vloggers later feasted on a supposed pre-operation report of the PDEA for a botched raid in a condominium unit in Makati owned by actress Maricel Soriano where Marcos was allegedly using illegal drugs. The PDEA has denied the existence of the supposed report and list.
Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa, Duterte’s police chief in Davao City when he was mayor and his first appointed chief of the Philippine National Police who implemented his bloody drug war from 2016 to 2018, conducted a legislative inquiry on an allegedly leaked PDEA report spread online by pro-Duterte vloggers. PDEA Director Gen. Moro Virgilio Lazo told the Senate committee that the circulating documents were fake.
Duterte’s allies in the Senate pursued the probe on Marcos’ alleged illegal drug use just as the committee on foreign relations was preparing to investigate the former president’s so-called secret deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping over the South China Sea dispute.
Determined to push their narrative on Marcos’ drug addiction, the Duterte camp released an unclear video of a man resembling the president shown to be snorting a white powder said to be cocaine, a few hours before the president delivered his State of the Nation Address before a joint session of Congress on July 22.
As if on cue, Duterte denied having anything to do with the showing of the video during Hakbang ng Maisug rallies in Vancouver, Canada, and in Los Angeles, California. At the same time, he urged Marcos to undergo a hair follicle drug test, claiming the president’s refusal to do so was “the best proof not only of the video’s authenticity but, worse, his drug addiction.”
Their latest card is Cathy Binag, ex-partner of former Davao Del Norte representative Antonio “Tonyboy” Floirendo, who claimed to have witnessed Marcos using illegal drugs and that she was even offered the drug by first lady Liza Marcos.
After a series of failed attempts to push Marcos to the wall on his alleged drug addiction, Roque’s suggestion for the designation of the vice president as acting president is obviously a desperate move to get them out of trouble from their apparent shenanigans involving the POGOs, the country’s claim over the West Philippine Sea and the drug war that claimed the lives of thousands of suspected drug users.
Roque’s description of the vice president as someone who “stands out as a public servant focused on solving the problems of the people” makes me wonder if he is in his right frame of mind.
Can someone please remind Roque that the vice president left for a pleasure trip to Germany with her family in the early morning of July 24 when most of Metro Manila and nearby areas in Luzon were submerged in floodwaters. She also has yet to itemize how she spent P125 million from her contingent fund in the last 11 days of 2022. Then, she threw a tantrum when Congress realigned the P550 million confidential funds she had asked for 2024.
Providing medical assistance to 119,234 individuals, burial assistance to 30,120 families, relief goods to 205,692 families, Pansarap program buns to 14,472 students and Libreng Sakay to some 1 million commuters does not make the vice president a “public servant focused on solving the problems” of 110 million Filipinos.
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.
