Bringing it on

Vice presidents, according to the incumbent, are often targeted by the administration because they are perceived to be next in line for the presidency in the next elections.

Sara Duterte would know this well. Her father, during his presidency, constantly subjected his vice president Leni Robredo to sexist remarks and insults about her capabilities as a public official.

Rodrigo Duterte unceremoniously kicked out Robredo as his housing secretary less than six months into their term, sending word to the VP to “desist from attending all Cabinet meetings starting this Monday, Dec. 5.”

Robredo said Duterte’s instruction was relayed to her by then Cabinet secretary Jun Evasco through Duterte’s then executive assistant Bong Go.

At the time, Robredo said there were indications that “a plot to steal the vice presidency… is now being set into motion.”

In a statement announcing her resignation from the Cabinet effective Dec. 5, 2016, Robredo said: “I will not allow the will of the people to be thwarted… as your duly elected Vice President, I will not allow the Vice Presidency to be stolen.”

Now it’s Duterte’s daughter issuing similar statements. Last Wednesday, VP Sara accused key members of the House of Representatives – a chamber led by her perceived rival for the 2028 presidential race, Speaker Martin Romualdez – of plotting to remove her by impeachment.

What goes around comes around.

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The difference is that Rodrigo Duterte and Leni Robredo won their posts under rival political parties, which is not unusual in this country. And Robredo belonged to a party that Duterte accused of actively working to sabotage his presidential bid.

On the other hand, Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte were portrayed to be as thick as thieves, or as BFFs under the formidable UniTeam. Inday Sara, according to the Marites grapevine, even graciously slid down to the VP race (to the disappointment of her father) even if she was rating higher in the surveys, under what must have been an age-before-beauty arrangement.

It didn’t take long, however, before it became obvious that one party didn’t think there was such an arrangement. Instead of moving to promote the VP as the shoo-in successor of BBM in 2028, the Dutertes quickly saw the President’s preference for his favorite cousin, Martin Romualdez.

This has to be among the reasons for the bitter enmity shown by VP Sara toward her former allies. She feels (with basis) that she played a major role in sending Ferdinand Marcos Junior to Malacañang. She even defied her father’s wish.

And this is the thanks she gets?

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She must be belatedly, ruefully realizing that blood is truly thicker than water.

The VP lacks her father’s natural charisma and humor that allow him to get away with his kanto-boy manner of communication and unabashedly un-PC jokes.

She also suffers from an upbringing that made her accustomed to entitlements based solely on her surname. The attitude is what shows when she throws tantrums over the loss of 75 police bodyguards (she still has 389 left), P650 million in secret funds whose use she refuses to disclose, P10 million that she wants taxpayers to bankroll for her unoriginal children’s book, and her positions in the Cabinet and anti-communist task force.

According to her brothers, they have also lost considerable state funding for Davao City. Mayor Sebastian, who has openly called for the ouster of BBM, has effectively lost supervision over the city’s police.

Even Duterte loyalists are feeling the heat. Apollo Quiboloy seems to have lost the mandate of Heaven and is under police detention. His Sonshine Media International Network has been stripped of its franchise – a congressional move surely inspired by the shutdown of ABS-CBN under Duterte.

Several pro-Duterte local officials have been suspended in this crucial pre-election period. Former Duterte officials who were recycled under Marcos 2.0 are losing their posts.

Rodrigo Duterte himself, along with his two top loyalists, Senators Bato dela Rosa and Bong Go, could soon be in Interpol custody (the mechanics are still being finessed) upon the request of the International Criminal Court.

There are reports that the VP herself could be implicated, since the period covered by the ICC probe of drug deaths includes the time when she was Davao City mayor.

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What else can VP Sara do but tell her foes, in effect, to bring it on. She can function, she said, even with a “zero budget.”

Yesterday the House appropriations committee called her bluff. The Office of the Vice President didn’t see its annual funding cut to P1, but that P1.3-billion reduction in the OVP’s P2.037-billion budget proposal for 2025 surely hurts.

Rather than making her anti-administration crusade all about her, which makes her look like a whiny brat bawling over a lost lollipop, it would be more effective if VP Sara would raise valid issues against Marcos 2.0.

There are a number of them: the diversion of P89.9 billion to the congressional pork barrel when public health care remains woefully inadequate; BBM’s costly jet-setting (so unlike the VP’s father); the drop in net foreign direct investments to the lowest since the first year of the COVID pandemic, showing that the jet-setting economic “roadshows” have been useless; the Marcos family’s still unpaid P203 billion in estate tax.

The VP and her relatives should learn to pick the issues they would hurl against the administration. Foreign policy is BBM’s strong suit; the world (except China) likes this Ferdinand Marcos, as well as his kinder approach to the illegal drug problem.

Harping on his substance abuse, whether or not it’s true, no longer has traction when politicians are using their support for the legalization of medical marijuana as a campaign pitch for the 2025 elections.

The VP can mobilize her father’s network to expose corruption and other anomalies in government agencies. The problem, of course, is if these folks are themselves involved in the corruption. Or if the former Duterte officials have already been replaced – as the administration is apparently doing these days.

The OVP budget might still increase during the bicameral conference, where miracles happen such as the snatching of PhilHealth funds.

But even if this doesn’t happen, there’s still a lot that the nation’s “spare tire” can do with a P733-million budget in 2025. VP Sara can make full use of it, with transparency and without profligacy.