Wages of breaking up

If Sara Duterte had not picked a fight with the Marcos-Araneta-Romualdez clan and the UniTeam hadn’t broken up, would her father be in The Hague right now, waiting to be tried by the “white people” in the International Criminal Court?

This question must have crossed the mind of some folks in the VP’s camp after Marcos 2.0 readily handed over Rodrigo Duterte to the Interpol for turnover to the ICC, which issued the long-anticipated arrest warrant for the former Philippine president in the wee hours of March 11.

Sen. Bong Go, his voice breaking, announced that his Tatay Digong had indeed been flown out of the country at past 11 p.m. on March 11.

The DDS – not the Davao death squad, but Duterte’s diehard supporters – are accusing the Marcos administration of “state kidnapping,” political persecution and surrender of national sovereignty to a foreign court.

Their laments are not entirely baseless. If we had a fully functioning legal system, we wouldn’t need the ICC to try a Filipino for an offense that is in our statute books.

And as we all know, the woes of the Dutertes started only after the ugly breakup of the UniTeam, with VP Sara publicly unfriending Bongbong Marcos.

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Since the elder Ferdinand Marcos sent his opponents to prison en masse (with Ninoy Aquino to the grave), we’ve seen a cycle of retributions in nearly all post-EDSA administrations except that of Fidel Ramos. “Steady Eddie” took the opposite tack and explored or made peace with everyone in the name of Team Philippines.

The Marcoses were sent into exile by the revolutionary government of Corazon Aquino, with vast assets believed to be ill-gotten seized or sequestered. Transitional justice in this case is an unfinished business.

Ramos successor Joseph Estrada’s presidency, although short-lived, was long enough to neutralize a publicist linked to FVR, Bubby Dacer, who was allegedly suspected by Erap’s camp to be preparing to drop a bombshell against him. Poor Dacer’s burnt remains at least were found, but justice for him and his slain driver Emmanuel Corbito has not been fully attained.

Erap’s hand was also widely suspected in the unresolved disappearance of casino employee Edgar Bentain, who was believed to have leaked a video during Estrada’s campaign for the presidency, showing him gambling with Atong Ang in a casino VIP pit.

The video caused hardly a ripple in Erap’s popularity at the time; he won by a landslide.

What caused his downfall were not those cases, but the corruption and gambling payola scandal that led to his impeachment and ouster through people power 2, with his constitutional successor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo replacing him.

Erap spent a few years under “resthouse arrest,” playing with his pet mallard ducks while on trial for plunder together with his son Jinggoy. Ironically, Erap’s ordeal ended after his conviction, with GMA granting him absolute pardon and ordering his release before he could ever see the inside of a prison cell.

GMA herself was hounded by a string of corruption scandals almost from Day One of her presidency. In 2004, amid the “Hello Garci” vote rigging scandal, Cory Aquino led calls for GMA’s resignation.

In retaliation, GMA ended the exemption of the Aquino-owned Hacienda Luisita from agrarian reform coverage – a loophole inserted in the law by the landowners in Congress – and commuted the sentence of all the soldiers convicted of assassinating Ninoy Aquino and Rolando Galman.

When Cory’s son Noynoy became president, GMA spent four years under “hospital arrest” for corruption, appearing periodically in public with a neck brace and in a wheelchair.

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Depending on the way the political winds blow in 2028, the nation might yet see justice in the ill-gotten wealth cases against the Marcos estate – if there is any case left after the ongoing mass dismissal of the charges by justices angling for a promotion.

The Marcoses might finally be compelled to pay the estimated P2 billion in estate taxes when BBM was the estate administrator. And we might see someone – anyone – getting punished for the institutionalized plunder of the national budget.

At this point, only the Duterte camp has the kind of grudge that could prompt such retaliatory moves against the Marcoses after noon of June 30, 2028.

The next change of leadership is just three years away. That’s enough time to permanently bar Inday Sara from ever holding public office, either through conviction by an impeachment court, or fast-tracked final conviction by the judicial courts.

If she is eliminated, the person emerging (based on the latest surveys) is her father’s anak-anakan, Bong Go.

In the wake of the latest Pulse Asia survey on Senate bets, and Go’s starring role in the DDS welcoming contingent for Duterte at the NAIA last Tuesday, Go might soon be parted from his virtual ownership of the Malasakit centers, which are under the AICS or Assistance for Individuals in Crisis Situations. His flood of campaign posters nationwide may soon disappear except in Duterte bailiwicks. He might find the government subjecting his family’s considerable assets to minute scrutiny. And Go himself might end up with an ICC arrest warrant.

If the Duterte camp returns to power, the remains of the dictator could actually be dug up – perhaps not tossed into the West Philippine Sea, as VP Sara had threatened, but at least relocated out of the cemetery for heroes.

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With Duterte finally in a detention cell, at least Filipinos know that a day of reckoning is possible even for those who once held the power of life and death.

The frequent reversals of fortune from one administration to the next should warn government workers against blindly following wrongful orders of those who are in power.

It should also encourage government employees to keep records of criminal and other wrongful activities by their superiors or conniving fellow workers. Recording illegal acts has become much easier with advances in digital technology. This is not only to promote good governance, but also to protect oneself and prove innocence in case one gets inadvertently implicated in wrongdoing.

A court in Hawaii, where the Marcoses were flown to exile, ordered the Marcos estate to compensate human rights victims of the dictatorship. Now another foreign court is set to try a former Philippine president.

Because of structural weaknesses in our legal system, justice is often made possible only when political warfare erupts. It’s not an ideal situation, but we don’t have the luxury of being picky in the paths to accountability. We take what we can.