OVP, DepEd most deserving of snoop funds

Today, September 8, is the birthday of Mary, the blessed virgin. I heard Fr. Randy Raagas describe her once as the holder of the greatest human title ever: "Mother of God". Yes indeed, no king or president, or CEO, or general, or doctor, or engineer can match the power, dignity, grace, and simple sweetness of being mother to God. Salve Regina!

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Shorn of politics and its twin hypocrisy, all the brickbats thrown the way of Sara Duterte as both vice president and secretary of Education, for being given hundreds of millions of "undeserved" intelligence funds, are misdirected. On the contrary, and excepting the real intelligence services, no agencies deserve spy funds more truly than OVP and DepEd.

The simple-mindedness of critics of the intel funds for OVP and Deped shows in their oversimplification of the issue: OVP is an executive spare tire. No need for snooping or anything. DepEd is about teaching. No spies there either. What the critics in their shallow knee-jerk resistance miss completely are at least two things.

In the case of OVP, they forgot that Sara Duterte is a heartbeat away from the presidency. Her political enemies want to scuttle any plans she may have about running for president in 2028, hence the brickbats this early in 2023. What the nincompoops overlooked completely is that she could be president tomorrow.

Now, if you are someone who could be president tomorrow, Saturday, when must you be given intelligence funds, the day after tomorrow, Sunday? Sunday is a no-banking day. And if as president you are also the commander-in-chief, the enemies of state might already be at the gates. Monday would already be too late.

Hence, Vice President Sara needed her snoop funds the day before yesterday to prime her for any eventuality. It is an eventuality we cannot temper with a "simbako" on behalf and out of respect for the sitting president, H.E. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. Preparedness is a virtue. Those who deny VP Sara are unpatriotic, traitors.

In the case of the DepEd, the critics of Secretary Sara are merely paying lip service to education, romanticizing it with crocodilian tear-jerking terminologies like "academic freedom" or "hope for the future" in the case of students, and "unsung heroes" and "overworked and underpaid" in the case of teachers.

Well, Secretary Sara has just been in office for a little over a year but the problems besetting education, including the lack of everything needed to educate (classrooms, teachers, qualified teachers, quality education) as well as massive corruption, have seen many secretaries under many presidents, including two Aquinos.

And here is what no one wants to talk about. This may have nothing to do with Sara's DepEd but certainly within the ambit of education: Many of those who became communists and terrorists, all avowed enemies of the state have been recruited from the country's top educational institutions. And you think intel funds are inapropos for education?

The real reason for the inordinate focus on Sara is not intel funds. Such funds are everywhere since way back when. They are as common as pork barrel. But because of 2028, the focus is on Sara because she has consistently been the runaway topnotcher in poll after poll, not to mention her unprecedented numbers in the last election.