Infantile outbursts, murderous intents

Never in the political history of the Philippines have there been behavioral displays unbecoming of elected officials occupying national leadership positions such as what we have witnessed in the recent days and the not-so-distant past. These were not only verbal in nature (curses, expletives, threats, etc.) expressed publicly, but physical, too, such as stubborn refusal to physically appear when summoned to hearings, refusal to answer questions, blocking persons of authority from doing their jobs, even inflicting bodily harm on a subordinate and in public at that.

But the verbal could be just as blood-curdling especially when a former president of the republic would admit in a Senate hearing and elsewhere that he had personally killed not one but more than one, and had ordered the murder of countless others. The murders of the countless others were carried out by both civilians and persons in uniform whom he had amply rewarded.

Former president Rodrigo Duterte was never shy in boasting about his murderous achievements, hyperbole or not, like throwing someone into the sea from aboard a helicopter, shooting them himself when he was city mayor, not to mention his lustful intent and envy when he said he should have been first in line in raping a foreign missionary.

Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, exhibits similar behavioral proclivities—breaking into rants and tantrums unbecoming of someone occupying the second highest position in the country. Infantile outbursts, one could call them. What was it that got her goat and made her say in public—eyes flashing and exhibiting a sinister grin—that she visualized cutting off the head of President Marcos, the presidential candidate with whom she ran in tandem in the 2022 elections with a “unity” battle cry? That unity has all but splattered like a bag of sh*t that hit a ceiling fan.

Invited to a House of Representatives budget hearing for 2025, the VP refused to answer questions but delivered her “shiminet” lines that became grist for memes, puns, jokes, gag lines, and TikTok videos. A fellow journalist has collected many nicknames for the VP, the mildest of which is “Bratinella” (spoiled brat). The VP denied she is. But the quad comm hearings on the P125 million intelligence fund of the Department of Education, which was spent in 11 days when she was education secretary, was another story. Members of her staff were grilled so thoroughly they much preferred the hospital, the place of choice of those pinned against the wall. Where was their boss who could have provided the answers?

But her assassination threat against the incumbent president, Mr. Marcos, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Speaker Martin Romualdez takes the cake. She already hired an assassin, she said, an assassin who would make the three bite the dust in case she got assassinated first. “A revenge from the grave,” she called it. But what if she got killed in an earthquake? Or by a meteorite hurtling from outer space? Deus ex machina.

The VP’s “if” threat sent those in charge of protecting the President falling all over themselves to seek ways to make the VP, if not answerable for her utterances, explain. But what is there to explain?

The National Bureau of Investigation has issued an invitation. The Department of Justice is looking into the legal aspects. Lawyers and non-lawyers are wondering if the VP should be disbarred. And should the anti-terrorism law be invoked?

What the VP said was as clear as day, even made clearer with her “No joke. No joke.” It was straight from the horse’s mouth, not from the grave. To use security jargon, it was “clear and present danger” and for her hired assassin, “armed and dangerous.” Her assassination threat was carried by the international media and went far and wide. They read better than sworn statements.

A couple of days ago, out of the blue, the VP brought up the 1983 assassination of former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. and laid it at the feet of the strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr. as if to buttress her paranoidal assassination scenario where she, too, ends up in a body bag. Expectedly, on the eve of Ninoy’s birthday two days ago, the Aquino family issued a brief statement recalling his sufferings during the 14-year Marcos dictatorship and its excesses that caused the people to rise and oust the dictator in 1986. BUT, the end of the statement was clear and unequivocal, a reminder to those who hire assassins and the would-be assassins: “Mariin naming tinututulan ang anumang bantang karahasan o pagpaslang (We strongly denounce any threat of violence or assassination.) Ninoy died a hero’s death.”

Speaking of assassins, in the 1990s, I interviewed a retired real-life assassin who had carried out so many kills. He turned out to be a long-lost half-brother of a top brass general in the Armed Forces of the Philippines. His story is in one of my books.

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