The country is in shambles. Except for the Judiciary branch, the Executive and Legislative branches are busy doing nothing, and their penchant for power-tripping is pushing us to the edge.

President Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos is busy with his agenda, so convoluted the foreign investors he tries to woo cannot read where the economic route is heading. In a classic contradiction, he offered US President Joe Biden five more EDCA bases, now perceived to be launching pads for war against China should the incendiary condition in Taiwan get out of hand. Who would then place his capital in such a volatile situation?

This has become even more complicated with his resolve to recover a shoal that former President Noynoy Aquino, during his administration, had given up when he ordered the Philippine Coast Guard to pull out its vessels. 

Former President Rodrigo Duterte engaged China in bilateral talks, which allowed Filipino fishermen to fish freely in the area. Talks for joint exploration for oil in the West Philippine Sea under a 60-40 sharing agreement in favor of the Philippines were in the works but were overtaken by time as the term of PRRD ended. 

The Marcos foreign policy ended the otherwise harmonious relationship between China and the Philippines. Historically, it did not matter to Marcos Jr. that his late father and mother used all the means and art to establish a diplomatic relationship with China.  

But the supreme contradiction is that while he purports to invite investors and ink military ties with the West, EU, and recently Australia, he is successfully eroding ties with China, which, combined with Hong Kong, is uncontestably the Philippines’ biggest investor and trading partner. 

The enemy of the country is within its confines, so there is no reason for this government to waste time making enemies from outside. But what do we see? 

The Armed Forces of the Philippines and NTF-ELCAC, its vital arm against the decades-old armed insurgency, have practically routed the CPP-NPA-NDF. Instead of wiping out the terror group completely, Marcos Jr. resumed peace negotiations with the terrorists and even went further by offering them amnesty. 

It was a deal with the devil, Vice President Inday Sara Duterte said as she sought PBBM’s reconsideration. Strong and stirring words came from the formidable pillar in the UniTeam, which catapulted Marcos to the top of the totem pole of power and an insignificant other as Speaker of the House. 

But Marcos was not listening to Sara. Instead, he sidled closer to cousin Martin Romualdez, whose coterie of legal fronts of the CPP-NPA-NDF they used to the hilt to defame the woman they owe their political fortunes to.  

Subsuming the power of the Judiciary, they put Lorraine Badoy and Ka Eric Celis behind bars for their anti-communist commentaries and for raising the issue about the P1.8-billion travel budget of the Speaker. The difference is that, unlike the Supreme Court, they acted like the kangaroo court of the NPAs and imprisoned the duo without trial. How fast have they learned from the NPAs? 

In an orchestrated move, the MTRCB, which is directly under the Office of the President, issued its concurrence with the suspension of the SMNI programs by the House of Romualdez, which then delivered the coup de grace by scrapping the franchise. 

In a furtive move, they then embarked on their plot to alter the Constitution via a people’s initiative, buying signatures wholesale and promising infinite “ayuda.” The Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines branded it a “grand deception.”

But they could not fight the CBCP. To ward off condemnation, they turned their turrets on Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, this time launching a magma of black propaganda. Sen. Risa Hontiveros presented masked witnesses who read their information against Pastor Apollo from prepared scripts. 

Recently, she raised another issue against the beleaguered pastor, claiming that an OFW from Singapore was “forced” to “donate” 90 percent of her salary to the Kingdom of Jesus Ministry! It is, of course, a preposterous allegation. 

Hontiveros heaped invectives on Pastor Apollo with venom in her tongue. She believed the lies that the fugitives from justice told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and, believing, proceeded to condemn the pastor, virtually rendering a guilty verdict in the charges she leveled against him. She calls her acts in aid of legislation. VP Sara calls it a trial by publicity.

Mr. President, what is happening to our country? Malacañang is a snake pit, Congress a house of fools.