It’s make or break

The 12 May midterm election is one of the most crucial and highly politicized events facing this country. The outcome will spell what’s up for the country’s future.

As a predicate, it is an indisputable fact that Speaker Martin Romualdez is running for president in 2028 against Vice President Sara Duterte. Unless there are intervening events, the encounter of the two is certain as the sun rises in the east.

Romualdez has been preparing for this from Day One when he replaced with his people all the congressmen who held committee chairmanships and were identified with VP Sara. That was the first fracture, a product of toxic politics, in the Unity Ticket. Sadly, PBBM was looking the other way.

Sara thereafter was subjected to a congressional witch hunt. Realizing that everything was being plotted in Malacañang she resigned from the Cabinet. This time the communist front in Congress connived and participated in denigrating Sara. The peace talks with the terrorist group was revived at a time when even the Armed Forces of the Philippines had announced the CPP/NPA had been routed.

The communist front served as the main attack dogs that hounded VP Sara in the House of Representatives. Pleased with what they were doing, the House leadership conducted endless probes, jailing witnesses for answers they detested to hear. They questioned the VP’s confidential and intelligence funds and questioned other expenditures which the Commission on Audit had cleared, but they proceeded to impeach her anyway.

VP Sara’s popularity, however, never diminished. She is consistently on top of trust and approval surveys while Marcos is plummeting and Romualdez is nowhere on the horizon.

Apprehensive that former President Rodrigo Duterte will lead the campaign of the PDP Laban senatorial slate, a plot was hatched to have him arrested and quickly flown to The Hague, Netherlands and handed over to the International Criminal Court.

But the backlash was a nightmare for President Marcos and his cousin, Romualdez. Even presidential sister Sen. Imee Marcos detested what she dubbed the “kidnapping” of Duterte.

She called for a Senate probe that found the arrest was replete with irregularities and she brought the committee report personally to the Office of the Ombudsman where she criminally and administratively charged the Cabinet and PNP officials involved in the plot to arrest Duterte.

The people’s resentment over the raw deal Duterte got was far-reaching. It ignited the spirit of Filipinos who went on vigils and rallies to protest the arrest of an aging leader whose performance and trust ratings were unprecedented in Philippine politics.

The impact of his arrest was not confined to the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas but the local candidates. In Davao City, where Duterte is again running for mayor, he is leading in the straw polls with lopsided results. This is duplicated in many regions but was compounded by the House of Romualdez vote to impeach VP Sara Duterte.

What of the Senate race? PDP reelectionist Senator Bong Go has grabbed the lead in all surveys with a double-digit advantage. Alyansa is in disarray, Imee Marcos and Camille Villar have bolted the party, and the rest are campaigning on their own. The PDP DuterTen is now plus two.

As a consequence, PrimeWater, a Villar-owned water utility, was ordered investigated. That welded the political ties of the Dutertes and the Villars courtesy of PBBM.

Politics is a numbers game. The verdict of the impeachment court will hinge on how many PDP Laban senatorial bets will make it. Make no mistake about that. There are pro-Duterte followers who hesitate to vote for PDP candidates because of their religious affiliation or profession, like movie actors. It is their choice, albeit they overlook the fact the rabid crocodiles in Congress have strings of academic titles behind their names.

In the end, it will all depend on the Filipino electorate to decide whether we want the present administration to stay or to vote for PDP Laban bets and end it.