THIS IS our personal take on former President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s apparently accompanying his arresting officers to Villamor Air Base and later to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) headquarters at the Hague, Netherlands with hardly any noticeable protest.
Yes, we agree with certain posts of some netizens that what Duterte did was a strategy that has something to do with the impeachment trial of his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte. We know that he wants so badly to have VP Sara acquitted from her impeachment case so that she will have a very smooth sailing towards the Presidency in 2028.
In other words, we believe that the former President is making an extreme sacrifice by allowing himself to be dragged to the ICC and in the process ignite nationwide protests from his supporters, those who believe he did not commit any crime in his war on drugs.
And what has VP Sara’s impeachment trial got to do with Duterte’s “obedience” to his captors from the ICC? Well, with the present massive show of sympathy to the former chief executive and the harsh chastising of the act of the incumbent President in allowing the ICC warrant of arrest to be served, the standing of the senatorial candidates under the former President’s party – the PDP-Laban – appears to have been boosted immensely.
In fact the momentum of the administration’s alliance candidates seems to have stopped on the track with the various scheduled campaign meetings with President Bongbong Marcos, Jr., attending to personally endorse them, suddenly were derailed.
With Duterte’s predicament in The Hague detention center triggering global manifestation of sympathy from Filipino communities, the senatorial candidates of the former President seem to have grabbed the upper hand from the well-oiled campaign machinery of the administration ticket.
To us, the possible implication is that the result of the coming May election will see majority – if not all – winning bets will be from the former President’s ticket. What then will it make of the composition of the next Senate?
Well, it will be a legislative body dominated by majority pro-Duterte senators. And remember that the impeachment trial of VP Sara will be held under the next Senate whose composition will serve as judges.
What then is likely to come next but a largely possible VP Sara’s acquittal. So her journey to the Presidential election and winning as the next President will be as sure as the sun rising in the east. It is of course courtesy of the VP’s father and his extreme personal sacrifice.
But will the elder Duterte be able to get out of the rut that is the incarceration in an ICC-authorized jail? He may, or may not. Knowing the former Prosecutor, former Mayor, former Congressman, and former President, we personally believe that his according his ICC captors the unusual ease in having acquired jurisdiction over his person is a long-planned and carefully studied option.
Yes, the former President may be aware that he may languish in an ICC jail. However, we are certain that if he is given a fair trial he can wiggle himself out unscathed. And if Sara becomes President, then the government will surely be mobilizing its resources and exploring all legal means to have him exonerated and even have those who dragged him to the international court pay moral damages.
Duterte may even end up a hero without getting shot and killed in an airport terminal tarmac; more so if after his trial he can prove that a number of casualties that does not even qualify to be called as “humanity” will turn out to be “sacrificial lambs” in the efforts to save society from perdition.
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We do not know really if those who advised the President to have the warrant of arrest on the former President be served at the airport arrival area gave the appropriate advice. Were they not aware that the timing was very far from ideal? Imagine the service of the warrant being done at a time when the campaign period for Senators is just halfway through!
Did the President’s adviser not consider the possibility of a highly negative impact on the administration’s senatorial candidates’ campaign?
Now the administration slate appears to be hesitant in conducting rallies in cities and capital centers in the Visayas and Mindanao. They know they stand the risk of being heckled by pro-Duterte crowds that seem ready to howl invectives to the administration slate with the harshest criticism aimed at the President.
Somehow it dawns on us that the persons advising the President to have the former President arrested by the ICC before the election could either be working silently for the former President contrary to claims made by some Duterte loyalists that they’re traitors to Duterte
On the contrary, they may be traitors not to the former President, being his former men, but to the incumbent President who tapped them to join his team.
Come to think of it. It is very apparent that what they have advised Marcos, Jr. is working to the advantage of their former boss who is now in the ICC jail.
Again, this is only our personal take on the matter. We could be wrong. But we could also be proven right. We’ll just have to wait.
