
The entry of the “man from the boondocks” of Mindanao, as Jim Paredes described Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, in the presidential race ended the notion of egotistical politicians that the presidency was reserved only for Metro Manilans.
The fear that another “probinsyano” and yet another Duterte will likely be elected president has haunted not only those with presidential ambitions but those whose ideological proclivities have been threatened to the point of extinction.
The midterm election is vital to the presidential race in 2028. It is obvious that the present leadership is panicking that 2025 will be rough sailing for them. Thus, the endless sleuthing and magma of cases filed against the Dutertes. But surveys have shown that the congressional trials and black propaganda do not alter their fates.
This anxiety is best exemplified by the childish pronouncements of Sen. Risa Hontiveros who cannot hide her tantrums which explains her unabated diatribes against Vice President Sara Duterte.
She rallies those who, like her, could face extinction and thereby warns: “While VP Sara is in power, the threat of a full-blown Duterte comeback is still a very real and present danger.”
How pathetic was her mien as she aired her dread. Why should she think that a Duterte comeback is a threat and dangerous? What was it before and after Duterte’s presidency that Senator Hontiveros wants restored?
Actually, Risa is not alone in this paranoiac state. In the House of Romualdez, the Makabayan party-lists representatives and those who dub themselves the “Young Guns” have joined forces with the Bagong Pilipinas political coalition spearheaded by President Bongbong Marcos and Speaker Romualdez.
Outside the halls of Congress, Bagong Pilipinas resurrected the politically dead Antonio Trillanes to file cases in court against the Duterte family.
Like the “Ang Totoong Narcolist” which the masked “alias Bikoy” came out with in a series of video recordings, the drug accusations have essentially the same content. “Bikoy” whose true name is Joemel Advincula was declared a perjured witness.
And now comes another character, Jimmy Guban, a convict with a life sentence offering himself as a “state witness” against the Duterte family, including VP Sara’s husband, Mans Carpio, again on issues involving drugs.
The rehashed accusations and allegations are all derived from decided cases and the witnesses they present are convicts. Any which way you look at these, these are an affront to the Judiciary.
They are out on a recruiting spree for characters who can parrot the subterfuge they conjure up to demonize VP Sara and citizen Rodrigo Duterte. In the process, they end up with convicted criminals.
Yesterday, the House of Romualdez moved to invite FPRRD after another convict, a certain Leopoldo Tan, claimed that Duterte was the one who ordered the killing of three Chinese drug lords at the Davao Penal Colony in 2016.
I suspect they are up to another fairy tale using another convict to indict Duterte. This makes Congress a laughingstock many times over.
If I remember right, this involved a gang war inside the national penitentiary where notorious Chinese drug lords were killed and several others seriously injured.
The credibility of congressional probes suffers in substance on account of the possibility that the convicted witness might either be under pressure or suspected to be bidding for parole or a shortened prison term.
Anything can happen in the present dispensation which is unraveling before us.
On the other hand, what I know is that then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte personally led an assault on a suspected drug laboratory in Dumoy, Davao City where three drug lords fought it out with the raiding team and were killed in the encounter.
The Bagong Pilipinas cabal will not stop mounting more cases against VP Sara and the Dutertes.
These political characters have been haunting her but, in the process, just like what is happening with Risa Hontiveros, they will end up being haunted.