Imagine you’re the president. You’ve decided to open a Pandora’s Box, and all these scandals and atrocities and vile deeds have engulfed the nation. It was a good idea at that time. Typhoons were buffeting the nation, and floods had overwhelmed the system and stoked public anger. Let’s go after those crooked engineers and their conspirator-contractors in the Department of Public Works (DPWH), shall we?
Along the way, minor corrupt officials, then bigger crocodiles, and finally, mammoth crooks who would have helped you chomp away at the coffers of the nation were exposed, reviled, and then disposed of.
But that’s not all. The uproar has engulfed political allies. Perhaps, they were only ever expedient to begin with. But they have been sacrificed at the altar of purity, and now you have less-friendly faces to surround yourself with.
It doesn’t stop just there though. Steadfast alliances are also being shaken, until eventually, those who held the helm of the Senate and the House of Representatives (your cousin!) are swiftly dispatched by events that were, for sure, unpredicted. That’s not even taking into consideration the alliance that propelled you to the presidency –the Duterte family– which left the chat group a long time ago.
What would you be thinking now? What would you be strategizing about? What’s the next move going to be?
Is the only agenda at this point ‘damage control’? Or did you bring us to this point which you had planned all along, ever since you gave that State of the Nation address and opened the corruption-gate?
Did you really intend to sacrifice these allies and friends and cronies (and cousin)? Or do you now find yourself along a slippery slope, trying to find brakes to hit?
What would be the next strategic move for a president who purports to be with the people and for the people in condemning corruption, and declaiming that he will root it out? His attack dogs from the Justice and DPWH departments are producing fantastic television sound bites, and the general sense is that they are sincere and doing their jobs. Would these two be enough to stave off the rage and frustration from bubbling over to the very top? Or is something or someone else needed?
Already, former Senate president Chiz Escudero is facing, in an age when Senatorial campaigns reach the billions, an ethics complaint for a measly ?30-million donation. Who would have thought that a frontal assault could ever be brought against the mild-mannered legislator with the popular celebrity-wife?
In the same vein, former speaker Martin Romualdez, whose negative publicity has thus-far been limited to the sporadic attacks by Vice President Sara Duterte (hence making the negativity disputable) has suddenly been in the papers pretty much every day for his control over the budget insertions that enabled the ghost project schemes. That quickly descended to very public exposés on his mansions, complete with addresses, and details on the Swiss private boarding schools where his sons went.
Were all these intended consequences? And what are those two thinking now?
Oh, newsflash. Chiz just threw a punch at Martin. Martin ducked, and has yet to throw a counter-punch. But something from his quarter must surely be in the works.
Et tu, Mr. President? What next after the hastily-convened Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI)? That might have appeased critics –but then they decided to hold closed-door sessions. That’s not going to do you any good. Was the plan then for the ICI to hold aloft some sacrificial cows (bigger than lambs) and then wrap it up and move on to the next scandal?
Political theater at its finest. But let’s check back in 10 years and see what developments were actually made. Politicians know how to dribble, and boy, right now, they need to play for their very lives. Are we going to get played? Or are all the bit players, all the nameless victims numbering in the millions, who have suffered and are suffering from the plunder of their national wealth, walking out and staging their own spectacle?
The stage is set.