PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. gallivanting in Canada while the country is reeling from an earthquake-ravaged General Santos City in Mindanao, amid a failed governance and thousands of protesting Filipinos led by the powerful Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC), braving the rains and the sun marching on EDSA and converging at the People Power Monument, present a sharp contrasting image of a country in turmoil and an enraged citizenry.
United in shamelessness and hypocrisy
It is incredible and incomprehensible why the current leader of the Filipino nation could have the effrontery to leave a country in crisis, plagued by an unprecedented tens-of-billions-of-pesos corruption scandal which he and his closest kin are accused of masterminding. In an attempt to distance himself from the monumental heist of the country’s treasury, he made it appear in his State of the Nation last year that he was outraged by the flood control projects anomalies and slammed his audience of Congress members by declaring “Mahiya naman kayo! (Have some shame!),” who, in the same hypocritical stance, welcomed the public rebuke with thunderous applause. Such chutzpah! Even in shamelessness and hypocrisy, they are in unison.
Following his hypocritical bombast, he vowed to prosecute the scoundrels and pledged to haul them to jail before Christmas of last year. He even created the Independent Commission for Infrastructure to investigate the ghost flood control projects but after several months, nothing came of it, and the probe body was disbanded, an utter waste of time and the people’s money. His allies in Congress marching to the beat of the drum took turns in whitewashing their respective investigations on the nefarious transactions. The legislative bodies took turns in covering up and shielding the guilty ones, which is unsurprising as the thieves are the ones probing themselves and certainly would not fry themselves or their principals.
The purveyors of the status quo in their vile attempt to remain in power beyond their terms of office, marshaled all their resources to bamboozle the only obstacle to their continued greed for power and ill-gotten wealth — Vice President Sara Duterte. They mangled the constitutional processes, dangling threat and gold, they succeeded in impeaching her — and today, July 6, 2026, she will be subjected to an impeachment trial — not to account for any misdeeds or transgression of law, for there is none, but oust her from being the constitutionally designated presidential successor and disqualify her from running in the 2028 presidential elections.
They are in mortal fear of another Duterte presidency that they have not stopped from pursuing the goal nor halted the political locomotive from crushing her to smithereens.
To abort their defeat at the impeachment trial of Duterte, they have weaponized the law to diminish the number of senator-judges who will try the vice president. Not content with the illegal arrest, detention and rendition of her ailing father, 81-year-old former president Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, Netherlands, where the former faces trial for baseless accusations of crimes against humanity before a foreign court that has absolutely no jurisdiction over him, the highest political operator has endeavored to effect an unlawful arrest of Sen. Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa, causing his forced disappearance to avoid an unlawful incarceration at the ICC custodial center. The agencies under the executive department like the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Department of Justice, as well as the Office of the Ombudsman, have been utilized to investigate and prosecute a number of senators for crimes the grant of bail of which is not a matter of right, which means they will be immediately jailed. This is an executive action designed to prevent the arrested senators from participating in the impeachment trial of VP Sara and reduce the number of senators in the Senate with the end in view of diminishing the constitutional requirement of two-third vote, or 16 senators of the 24 senators required for conviction.
Constitutionally infirm
This is a move that is constitutionally infirm, as the Constitution is explicit and unequivocal in commanding a two-third vote of the 24 senators for a conviction. The fact of imprisonment or forced absence in the impeachment trial by any senator will not change the circumstance that there are currently 24 senators who are members of the Senate. Not one of them has resigned, removed or died.
The recent Senate gridlock and the change in the Senate leadership made in swift succession are the direct result of the planned sinister ouster of VP Sara.
This will explain why Senator Bato has made another disappearing act and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada is currently incarcerated, and why Sen. Rodante Marcoleta is facing plunder and graft charges, and about to be arrested. It will also explain why Senators Joel Villanueva and Francis Escudero were rumored to be facing plunder charges or have been saved from being prosecuted, for now. This will further explain why the NBI is investigating Sen. Robinhood Padilla for prosecution for allegedly helping Senator Bato “escape” from being arrested. It is also the reason why Sen. Bong Go is talked about as the next subject of a warrant of arrest from the ICC.
The people are restless and desolate. Do not let the restlessness and desolation turn into burning fury.
The present dispensation is dangerously courting political Armageddon. The just-concluded three-day rally of the INC is an ominous sign. Various political forces are gearing and raring to stage more street protests nationwide. There are persistent rumblings in the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police of a withdrawal of support. They appear to be waiting for a tipping point to exercise their constitutional duty as protector of the people.
The present political holders must see the handwriting on the wall. They must listen to the voices of discontent and outrage from an overwhelming majority of the governed. They must effect sweeping reforms and radical changes in the social, economic and political system. This country cannot afford another political upheaval that will shatter this country into fragments.
Those who reign in power are gently but forcefully reminded of the saying: “Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”
The clock is ticking.