THE OTHER day, Sunday, June 19, 2022, gave Davao City and the Davaoenos the rare opportunity to be at the center of national attention. Thanks to Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio who had her oath-taking and inauguration held in the city.
The oath-taking brought to Davao City a caboodle of personalities from all walks of life; politicians both winners and losers, local, national and even international media representatives, both critically-bias against the VP’s UniTeam, and fair; representatives from the diplomatic community; business sector both local and national; and of course the ordinary residents of Davao City who feel proud of the achievement of Sara both as Vice Mayor and later Mayor of this southern Mindanao metropolis which many believe the ones that catapulted her to the Vice Presidency.
While the oath-taking and inaugural ceremonies took only less than two hours, the activities at the San Pedro Square lasted up to the wee hours of the night courtesy of entertainers who were most of the time with the Vice President’s UniTeam campaign sorties.
We were however a little bit wondering why in all of the introductions of the Vice President her marital family name was somewhat omitted. Whether this was intentional with a noble purpose, or simply a scheme to smoke-screen a family name that was quite critical to the administration of her father President Rodrigo R. Duterte, we can only speculate. In fact from the time we started witnessing the live television coverage of the inauguration we never heard even for a single time the name of the VP’s husband Manases Carpio ever mentioned.
The VP’s husband is a nephew of Retired Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Antonio Carpio, one of the harsh – if not the harshest – critics of the Duterte administration especially on the President’s handling of the West Philippine Sea dispute with China.
In her inauguration speech that lasted only for about 12 minutes the Vice President mentioned that she would place family relations at the center of her efforts to succeed in every aspect of her responsibility as Vice President – and we assumed – as Secretary of Education which she will handle in concurrent capacity.
It was ironic though that she mentioned the many challenges that Filipino families are facing nowadays leading to a number of break-ups. Yes, Sara knew whereof she spoke.
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Nine days from today it is the turn of President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. to have his oath-raking and inauguration as the 17th President of the Philippines. It will be held in Manila at the old Congress building which is now converted into the country’s national museum.
For certain Marcos, Jr.’s inauguration and his inaugural speech will be closely watched by the Filipinos as well as leaders of other countries. What he will say, commit and intends to do will surely be recorded for future reference when the Filipinos and other nations as well will assess him later. Marcos Jr.’s performance will definitely be gauged on his promises and how much of these are accomplished and how many are not and the reasons why.
Meanwhile, the most anticipated move that the incoming President is expected to give priority is what he will do to arrest the continued skyrocketing of prices of oil products, what he will do to make good his commitment to bring down the cost of rice to between P20 and P30 a kilo. Rice is the most basic food for the Filipinos.
Of course it is imperative for the new President to act with dispatch on the very high price of oil products. If he will be able to arrest the increase or even better bring down the cost, then the cost of everything follows the downward trend. After all, prices of prime commodities and even luxury items are dependent on the cost of oil. It runs the machinery needed for the production of everything that mankind needs to survive.
Should Marcos Jr. be able to do this one highly anticipated beneficial act – bring down the cost of oil – his Presidency is already made. He will be on his way to redemption. In effect if the younger Marcos is seeking a “shot at redemption” of the Marcos family he needs to make the first move – one that will justify the votes of the 31 million plus Filipinos.
And if from the very start Marcos Jr. makes the wrong move, his Presidency will already be doomed.
