So Vice President Sara Duterte now says she was used by the Marcoses to win the Presidency in the 2022 elections? Is the VP telling it now with all honesty in her heart? Did she know it only these days? Or did she realize that it was also for her advantage that she teamed up then with the incumbent President?
We are asking these questions because in politics, especially in the Philippines, astuteness in devising schemes to win is one characteristic that will assure success in attaining a candidate’s political objective. And there is no denying that VP Sara is truly the daughter of her father, the former President who is known for his ability to make things happen in very subtle ways. Look at how the elder Duterte draw the masses to his side? Look at how he bamboozled some of the country’s elite to the satisfaction of the ordinary people.
And just imagine how the former President waylaid his opponents to the Presidency in 2022 making them believe that he was not running then only to find their strategies exposed and opened to how these could be countered by the very late comer Duterte. The former President substituted the late Martin Dino as the candidate for the highest post so closed to the deadline.
And it was also common knowledge that Sara, towards the end of the term of her father, was already touted as a possible candidate to succeed the latter. But she knew then and her father as well, that running for the Presidency right after the latter’s term was certain not to bode well with the electorate.
It was our take then that instead of running for President in that 2022 election she took her time and opt instead for the Vice Presidency. And like her father, she wanted her “value” as a potential candidate to have more add-ons by delaying her decision and also by filing her certificate of candidacy for reelection as Davao City mayor.
What she did was without doubt, taken notice by the Marcoses who was also patiently waiting for the right person to be his running mate. By then Sara knew that her rivals who had filed earlier their certificates, except then Sen. Kiko Pangilinan, could easily be beaten by her. After all, she was already assured of the Metro Manila, Central, Northern and Eastern Luzon votes, the areas being traditionally favoring Luzonian candidates for President.
As to the Bicol and Western Visayas Regions, at that presidential polls it was a given that the two will go for the Leni-Kiko tandem. The regions are neighbors. For Central Visayas it was also a given for Sara. Thus, she was likely to carry her teammate. But for Eastern Visayas, both then candidate Marcos, Jr. and Sara had equal opportunity. The VP’s grandmother has roots in Southern Leyte. But Marcos Jr, also has his in Leyte Province, the family of his mother Imelda being from Tacloban City.
Of course it is in Mindanao that Marcos, Jr. could have taken the most advantage by pairing with Sara. In the same manner however, the then candidate for VP Sara took the most advantage in the Ilocano speaking regions and the Metro Manila areas.
In other words, we believe that it was not just the Marcoses who used the VP during the 2022 elections. The VP was also able to use the Marcoses in her own political journey. In short, they were using each other.
And VP Sara, by claiming lately that, despite them running as President and Vice President, and doing together painting and cleaning chairs during a Brigada Eskwela event less than a year after winning the elections, “we were never friends” it is like they were making suckers out of the Filipino people.
Did the two of them not deceive the people by pretending to be friends and together extend their unity by supposedly unifying the divided nation?
How plastic could they be if only to achieve their political objective.
And yes. It now appears that the rift between the Dutertes and the Marcoses has already expanded. VP Sara, by lumping her charges that she was “used by the Marcoses,” Imee Marcos, the President’s sister who appears to be buddy of the VP, is now very much into the raging political feud.
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It is unfortunate that this issue of misinformation and disinformation (fake news if you want) are not just limited to the ongoing efforts of certain sectors to have the power distributor in Davao del Norte changed. Also, the same are done on the ongoing Samal Island-Davao City Connector Bridge Project (SIDC).
According to some well-meaning environmentalists the owners and operators of some resorts in the island city are complaining that their desire to have the government consider the environment protection in treating their complaint against the bridge alignment and not against the project itself, is deliberately muddled to way lay the public’s sentiment.
And to think that the disinformation allegedly emanates from the government itself starting from the “highest level down the line.” The advocates claim this disinformation has blocked efforts to protect the natural environment of the island” even as government is now in full swing in implementing the multi-billion project.
While we understand that the objectives of the two endeavors are parallel as it is the good for the people, we have no idea how sweet or painful could be its success or failure if misinformation and disinformation play key roles in whatever outcome that results from it.
