Normally we don’t give a hoot whenever staunch Duterte ally Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa speaks his mind about politics and political goings-on.
We simply don’t find joy in his country boy simple political sensibility full of banalities and platitudes.
Indeed, from Dela Rosa’s recent rictus grin — his contorted grimaces last week summarizing his despair over the bare-knuckled efforts to throw him and other Duterte acolytes over the cliff — he didn’t disappoint.
To fully savor Dela Rosa’s banalities, let the man speak for himself about his newfound grief. (His remarks were spoken in a folksy mix of Pilipino and English but were fully translated to English here.)
● “It’s sad to think about it. It’s sad to think that it was that quick. Before, they were singing hallelujah to us — thank you for the drug war. Thank you for the peace and order. Thank you and thank you, bow and bow. Now, you are the villain.”
● “But for those who are so fast in changing their stance, in changing their views, and changing their everything (sic) all I can say is that these people are so opportunistic. They forgot their principles. They prioritize the opportunity and whatever that opportunity is, only they know about it.”
Other than his low spirits, banality is the immediate impression about Dela Rosa’s scorn of his fellow politicians’ loyalties.
He is hardly saying anything original about the typical Filipino politician’s penchant for survival in a winner-take-all system which requires that one hangs on to the coattails of the one who holds ultimate power.
If profundity isn’t Dela Rosa’s strong suit, it also portrays him as having no idea what hit him, effectually showing him staggering across the political stage mortally injured while proclaiming he’s still in good health.
But in so doing in these heated days of political climate change induced partly by shaking off the hangover of the Duterte regime’s social media enabled proto-fascism, Dela Rosa’s admitted low spirits also reflects the current state of mind of the Duterte camp.
Dela Rosa’s grief has undoubtedly sparked dervish joy among anti-Duterte political factions, with many shouting that with the embattled senator showing tell-tale signs of losing his nerve they’ve gotten inside the Duterte’s camp head.
Getting into the head, of course, starts curing mindless partisanship, the mental pathogen dulling critical faculties which, if not reversed, ultimately produces political zombies.
Anyway, besides Dela Rosa’s hackneyed opinion of Filipino politicians there were also his intriguing views on shifting political alliances which he aired at the same time he expounded on his grievances against his fellow politicians.
Dela Rosa laments that people in the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. are actively working with the “leftists” and “yellows” to pin down former President Duterte and his acolytes.
“Think about it, there seems to be — I really can feel it — that there is an alliance between this government, the leftists, and the yellows. They are coming together just to pin down the Duterte people so it pains me a lot,” he bemoans.
Much can be said about how this state of affairs came about, which to Dela Rosa’s mind — with him not directly saying it — is no less than a conspiracy against the Duterte camp.
But whether or not there exist emerging political alliances taking tactical advantage of the Duterte camp’s perceived ebbing powers, the fact that Dela Rosa is bringing it up now indicates how his camp’s political fortunes are now uniquely dependent upon external events — like the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for its brutal illegal drugs war — than on its political vision.
To their credit, the Duterte camp is actively countering this chance confluence of unsympathetic political forces in ways similar to what Dela Rosa is doing.
But by actively doing so they’re admitting the fact that their once vaunted political camp is now hollowed out from within and buffeted from without, and is now merely trying to survive.