Point of no return

“I really believe we reached the point of no return. It is clear they are going after me. They want to remove me to get the position.”

Vice President Inday Sara Duterte said this during a press briefing at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) Western Mindanao Satellite Office in Zamboanga City last Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. This sentiment probably sums up the breathtaking events that began exactly a week ago, Nov. 23, seen on my Facebook Live and played by almost a million people in just seven days.

My position on the incident in Batasan is clear and unequivocal: I stand solidly behind VP Sara and her chief of staff, Zuleika “Lyka” Lopez. Atty. Lyka, as some of you may already know, is an indigenous people (IP) lawyer. Her father, Jose B. Lopez, is one of the country’s few IPs to become a judge. She served as information officer at the University of the Philippines-Mindanao and graft investigator at the Office of the Ombudsman in Mindanao prior to her entry to the Davao City Hall as city council secretary, and later, city administrator.

She has pretty much led a simple and quiet life until that eventful Wednesday night, Nov. 20, when she was cited in contempt by the House committee on good government and public accountability. The House of Representatives (HOR) has crossed the line and members of Congress have overstepped their bounds and have usurped the role of our courts.

It is, indeed, an OnliInDaPilipins moment when a convict of child abuse allied with the communists sent Atty. Lyka to detention.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the current government, through the HOR under the leadership of the President’s cousin and current Speaker, Martin Romualdez, has been weaponizing the House hearings to pulverize the Dutertes and their allies in the political landscape.

The PBBM administration will not use all its power and resources to destroy one woman if they think VP Sara is “unimportant.” Marcos Jr. officials even tagged the Vice President as “terrorist.”

What the PBBM administration is doing to the Office of the Vice President is a repeat of what they did to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ compound. Use brute force to get the target.

Fortunately, VP Sara courageously stood firm against an order, which she referred as “unlawful,” and did what she knows best: defend and uphold basic human rights, in this case, the rights of Atty. Lopez, which were brazenly violated. She was there in that critical moment and made a blow-by-blow narration of what had transpired.

Never mind the critics who call this latest act as meltdown and drama. What matters is VP Sara was able to stop those who oppress and suppress, who thought they could get away with their evil deeds.

We saw a different VP Sara during her midnight zoom presscon and thousands and thousands of her supporters glued to Facebook Live understood her rage. It was driven by deep frustrations as a result of nonstop political persecution and massive corruption in the halls of power.

To the supporters of VP Sara, the Marcos Jr. administration and Congress under Speaker Romualdez are the number one corrupt. Talks of a First Lady, with no mandate from the people but allegedly controls government funds and has her hands on all of the bureaucracy, have been finally revealed in the open by VP Sara. The same goes with an excessively ambitious Speaker, who is also embroiled in corruption scandals from bribery to ayuda payouts, who would stop at nothing just to be the head of this country.

Only someone living under the rock can’t see this: the House hearings on the alleged misuse of the VP’s confidential funds have become nothing but a media circus. These politicians don’t care about the truth, accountability or justice. The hearings are deliberate ploys to distract our people from issues surrounding the administration headed by a president living in his own fantasyland because of alleged cocaine use, a first lady who is said to be making the decisions and a cousin who reportedly controls the nation’s money. The Philippines is being played, maneuvered and robbed in broad daylight.

On the kill statement, common sense should be enough, according to VP Sara, to understand and accept that a supposed conditional act of revenge does not constitute to an active threat. How can VP Sara benefit when the plot to kill PBBM will only take place after the murder of the second highest official of the land? Common sense is certainly not common these days.

Marcos Jr. officials made an overkill in what I term “an impossible crime,” becoming incredibly reactive, calling the Vice President as a self-confessed mastermind behind an assassination plot. Good thing the ombudsman told them to shut up!

One can sense panic with their warnings and orders regularly revised just to make the father and daughter Duterte fall in line and bow to the powers that be. For instance, former president Rodrigo Duterte never asked the military to launch a coup against the government. Protect the Constitution is what every Filipino should demand. FPPRD simply echoed it.

The paranoia and hallucinations of the Marcos Jr. administration are understandable given the Filipinos’ enduring love for the Dutertes. Love them or hate them, the Duterte name still carries weight. Just look at the numbers on social media every time FPRRD and VP Sara speak.

The PBBM administration should not look at VP Sara as an “active threat.” Filipinos voted for continuity and it would have been so easy for Marcos Jr. and his officials to just continue what already works. Greed and selfish ambition, however, got in the way. The gross incompetence, the rampant corruption and the profligate lifestyle under a spineless leadership are now fueling widespread discontent. Acceptance is the key. Many now realize that they have been scammed (nabudol is the term) and are beginning to make a stand for the nation’s survival.