Inday Sara, The Bratinella

Some political circles have been wondering why my recent articles have been critical of personalities aligned with former president Rodrigo Duterte.

I have recently criticized former spokesperson Harry Roque for his association with cyber fraud hub operators in Porac, Pampanga and Sun Liming, a transnational fugitive from China who was arrested in his house in Baguio.

I have also written about the penchant of Vice President Sara Duterte for confidential funds and her allergy to accountability.

During the incumbency of President Duterte I served him well. I followed his instructions and never placed him in precarious situations. Before the end of his term, I even supported the continuity of his peace and order and infrastructure programs.

The Constitution gives the president six years to serve the country and serve it well. There is no second term and no second chances. The sitting president, for the sake of political and economic stability, needs our support.

In the 2022 national elections, I was with PDP Laban and stayed with it even though we didn’t have our own candidates. The party didn’t want to go head to head with Sara Duterte and the UniTeam. We instead supported them. It was Sara Duterte and Harry Roque who were on stage with then candidate Bongbong Marcos. PDP was relegated to the sidelines.

When Sara Duterte didn’t get the positions she wanted to control, she acted like the spoiled brat that she is. She announced to the public that she preferred the national defense portfolio, but she didn’t get it. She wanted her preferred candidate as Speaker of the House, she didn’t get it. So she went on a rampage — cyberbullying, name-calling and, now, announcing to all that she regretted asking people to vote for President Marcos Jr.

This is because Inday Sara is a real Bratinella. She is used to getting what she wants. For the six years of her father’s incumbency she was spoiled with confidential funds as mayor of Davao. While her father, in his last year as mayor of Davao, got only P130 million in confidential funds, Sara was averaging P450 million during the pandemic years.

A few years back, she maneuvered the ouster of her father’s own party mate, Davao Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez, as Speaker of the House in favor of then Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It was no less than President Duterte himself who admitted it.

“Talagang ano yan si Inday, so be careful with that woman. She can oust even a Speaker, she operated in Davao,” he said.

It was last year that they attempted another coup, this time against Speaker Martin Romualdez. When she and her political allies didn’t get the numbers to make it happen, she resigned from the Lakas Party where she was chairman because she claimed she “cannot be poisoned by political toxicity.”

This is exactly the pattern of behavior of a bratinella. Blame others for your own incompetence. In her poorly scripted interview to defend her budget of more than P2 billion, she pointed to the Speaker and the appropriations committee head as the two persons who controlled the budget. Well, tell that to others who don’t already know.

Of course, Congress has the power of the purse. This is in the Constitution. That is why she salivates to control the Speaker the same way she controlled the speakership in the persons of GMA and Lord Allan Velasco when she was the First Daughter.

After realizing her power plays have been ineffective in the Marcos administration, she resorted to the narrative of political instability to destroy the incumbent President by questioning his fitness to rule.

Obviously, the leaders of Congress want to scrutinize her budget and how she might spend it since she is fanning political instability.

Only recently we found her on social media giving polvoron to a school kid, saying that polvoron is tasty and addictive. “Masarap yan, nakaka adik,” she quipped. This is the kind of thing she is good at.

Her allies — the likes of Harry Roque, Maharlika, Jonathan Morales, Cathy Binag et al. — will stop at nothing, to the extent of manufacturing forgeries such as “polvoron” deepfake videos, to create chaos.

Inday Sara, Harry and their unruly fanatics are now claiming that we have been duped. “Nabudol tayo!” they shout. Well, indeed we were duped by this bratinella, Inday Sara.