‘Gift from God’

Former president Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte said people who want to become president are “crazy,” given the enormous burden of the office.

“I have no more problems. I’ll live a little longer with all the problems (of the presidency) gone,” he said.

Digong and this columnist met Monday on the sidelines of a conference of the Partido Demokratiko ng Pilipinas-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) that he presided over at the East Ocean Palace complex off Macapagal Avenue in Parañaque.

Digong looked hale and hearty and well rested. This was unlike the time when he was the country’s chief of state, when he looked pale and haggard.

His improved state of health, Citizen Duterte said, is due to the burdens of the presidency being taken off his back.

In a short meeting with him in one of the rooms in the restaurant complex, Digong said he is now free to go anywhere he wants, with little security.

Does he have any regrets about being president?

“I shouldn’t have listened to you and my other friends who prodded me to run,” he said.

As usual, Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go was beside him during my meeting with Digong.

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The presidency is a gift from God, according to Mr. Duterte himself when he was at the helm of the country.

The “gift from God” mantra was repeated by the populist president several times in his speeches during his six-year stint in Malacañang.

There were many reasons it was impossible for Digong to become president. It was like reaching for the moon.

He himself said he was an average student. “I only got 75 percent (a passing mark),” he said, in high school and college.

Digong was expelled from Ateneo de Davao when he was in his second year in high school for misbehavior.

Using a .38 caliber revolver, he shot a classmate when he was in law school at San Beda College, for allegedly bullying him. For that, he was prevented from marching at the school graduation and from taking the examinations for would-be lawyers later.

Digong was finally allowed to take the Bar exams only because of his mother Soledad Duterte’s plea for mercy with authorities then.

Digong was the mayor of a provincial city in Mindanao before he trained his sights on the presidency; he was an unknown entity.

Mayor Duterte didn’t have enough funds to sustain a super expensive presidential campaign.

During the deadline for the filing of the certificate of candidacy for the presidency at the Commission on Elections, somebody else stood for him because he had expressed disinterest in running for the highest office.

Mr. Duterte instead filed his certificate of candidacy for mayor of Davao City because his daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio was heavy with child, and the campaign for mayoralty might take a toll on her pregnancy.

Digong agreed to run for president only after Sara said she would run for mayor.

During the campaign, Candidate Duterte’s close supporters gave up hope that he would win because he constantly cussed in his campaign speeches. But nobody could prevent him from swearing.

The worst situation Digong got himself into was when he cussed Pope Francis for creating a huge traffic jam in Manila while on a state visit.

Before he announced his presidential candidacy, Duterte was in fourth place in the surveys. The other strong contenders ahead of him were Grace Poe, Mar Roxas and Jojo Binay.

Who would have thought that Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte, once a bad boy in high school and an average student in college and law school, would become the country’s 16th president?

Indeed, the presidency is a gift from God.

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Unless they have espionage or surveillance functions, government agencies should not be allotted funds for “confidential expenses.”

Confidential expenses, according to the Commission on Audit (COA), are “expenses pertaining/related to surveillance activities in civilian government agencies that are intended to support the mandate or operations of the agency.”

Examples for the use of confidential expenses:

• Purchasing of information for peace and order.

• Renting of transport vehicles for confidential activities.

• Renting of safehouses.

• Purchasing of supplies needed for confidential operations that can’t be done through “regular procedures” without it being compromised.

• Payment of rewards to informants.

• Prevention of illegal activities considered dangerous to the agency.

Without the reasons cited above, can a government office request funds for confidential expenses? Go figure.

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Why, oh why did the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) have a P3-billion high-yield investment in government banks?

Investing funds entrusted to it by the government is outside the mandate of the PS-DBM.

The irregularity was exposed by the Commission on Audit.

The official who authorized the PS-DBM to invest that huge amount of money in government banks, in the form of high-yield savings accounts, was apparently eyeing the big interest from the fund.

The apparently illegal investment was made five years ago, meaning it was during the administration of president Digong.

A thorough investigation should be conducted to flush out the culprit or culprits who plundered government coffers.

Whoever they are, they should be made to answer for their misdeeds. Methinks some of them are still in government.

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I express my sympathy for fellow journalist Oswaldo “Waldy” Carbonell, who was arrested and detained for cyberlibel recently.

An Ilocos Norte mayor filed six counts of cyberlibel against Carbonell, after he exposed the official’s graft case on his YouTube page.

I understand what Waldy went (is going) through while in detention, because I was in the same plight three months ago when I was also arrested and detained for libel and cyberlibel charges.

Just hang in there, Waldy!