Grim political prospects for 2025 (2)

Cotabato City—Just as the New Year came in, the National Bureau of Investigation nabbed six individuals who claimed to be working at the Office of the President. The group allegedly offered positions in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in exchange for no less than P8 million per position.

Operatives from the Special Task Force and the Cybercrime Division conducted an entrapment operation that led to the arrest of the six after accepting marked money from their would-be victims.

The entrapment operation followed the testimony of one offered a position at the BARMM by a certain Diane who claimed that after paying the P8 million, one was assured of a position in the BARMM that was reserved by no less than First Lady, Liza Araneta-Marcos.

Interestingly, the group’s interlocutor, “Diane” (not her real name) offered a “discount” of P1 million for two positions for the complainant’s son and his nephew. Diane allegedly assured the complainant that the two positions would be “arranged and reserved” by the First Lady.

From my conversations with friends here in the region, the complainant is allegedly a firm Duterte supporter and has strong ties with the regional leadership and a regional political party.

We still have to hear an official statement from the regional leadership here in Cotabato City on this latest “scam” that involves not only the Office of the President and the First Lady, but the BARMM as well.

But in previous years during the time of BARMM’s predecessor, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, reports about people offering government positions for a fee were already rampant. I was then editor in chief of The Mindanao Cross, a Cotabato-based bi-weekly community newspaper owned by the Oblate Media Group. We used to run news stories of appointive positions in the regional government and even at the Philippine National Police being offered to those who did not pass the usual government exams (like the civil service) required of new entrants to government service. At that time, the going rate was allegedly P35,000 for one position, and P100,000 for three positions, a “discount” of P5,000. So news of government positions for sale is nothing new at all.

But this latest incident allegedly invoking the “participation” of Malacañang and the First Lady reeks of the murky smell of politics emanating from the war between political behemoths—the Marcoses and the Dutertes. It could be a countervailing tactic of the Dutertes, whose mass base of support is led by prominent political families and groups in the autonomous region. The latter is part of the Duterte throng of avid supporters who feel a strong sense of gratitude to the former president for having made the BARMM a reality, after he signed the Bangsamoro organic law that created the regional government in 2019.

Several top government officials and functionaries in the region consider former president Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, Vice President Sara, as among their “idols”—including actor and now Sen. Robin Padilla.

Their adulation of the Dutertes is quite palpable, and this has not diminished even after the series of quad comm hearings in both the Senate and the House of Representatives that called out VP Sara’s questionable use of her P125 million confidential funds in 2022 and 2023. In my conversations with them, these supporters have always invoked the quad comm’s allegedly selective questioning of VP Sara, while supposedly ignoring the even larger confidential funds of the Office of the President and how these had been used.

This latest scam may or may not be directly related to the war tactics of the Dutertes against the Marcoses. But exposing the alleged modus of acquiring appointive positions in the regional government and dragging the First Lady in it is quite dubious. This could be a political ploy to mobilize the support of Duterte diehards in the region at the expense of the Marcoses’ reputation.

And this could be just the beginning of more offensives to come, a prospect that could make 2025 grimmer than 2024.

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rcguiam@gmail.com