The Big Swindle Called Change

On May 16, 2016 millions of Filipinos fell for presidential runner Rody Duterte believing him to be a man of the masses. After all, he had a photo of him seemingly dozing under a humble mosquito net. Duterte offered himself for fresh change raising the campaign slogan: “Change is coming!”

But the image he cultivated in the public’s mind and the rallying cry of change were just a propaganda ploy to sell his bid for the highest office. He said, “gawa ka lang ng kaunting drama para manalo.” (You just have to make little drama to win.)

Duterte admitted that he had hundreds of poor constituents murdered by the Davao Death Squad. He even corrected the alleged figure of seven hundred individuals killed to 1,700.

The Commission on Audit flagged him for taking liberties with billions of pesos in the public treasury while still mayor of Davao City. The huge chunks of the budget were supposedly for intelligence and salaries of city hall workers which turned out to be ghost employees. He blithely admitted having stolen.

His voters ignored the red flags. They chose to blind themselves with the belief that he was poor even when Senator Antonio Trillanes exposed his deposits with the Bank of Philippine Islands amounting to 200 hundred million pesos.

More than one and a half year later, he practically acknowledged having billions of pesos in banks by suspending and filing charges against Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang for allegedly leaking documents pertaining to his deposits.

Right after the May 2016 elections, while Duterte was still waiting to assume office as the next president of the republic, Davao was a crowded scene of groups and personalities swooping in to cast lots with the victor.

Comers snapped up bookings to all the posh hotels in town, where they shuttled to hobnob with the new president. Getting in by air, billeting in high-end hotels, and lounging in fine dining joints, they were obviously not the poor kind who banked on his popular appeal and the promise of something different.

Party turncoats flocked en masse to seek accommodation in the new power arrangement. Moneyed backers in the just concluded election angled for a slice of the pie. Business operators turned up to smell big-ticket projects. Meanwhile, political sponsors and supporters brokered appointments to positions in the bureaucracy.

The clear sign that the promised change to ordinary folks was not going to happen was the kind of people flocking to the roost and dining with Duterte. The mesmerized rabble during the election sorties were nowhere to be seen in the converging political currents. The opportunistic elite yet again eying spoils and entitlement edged them.

The discredited has-beens of previous rule with criminal dockets and records of corruption slipped back. Out from detention, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regained influence. She once again loomed large on the political stage.

Arroyo and her henchmen immediately busied venting vengeance on members of the previous administration which caused her to wear a neck brace and ride the wheelchair while facing charges of plunder and electoral manipulation during the 2007 elections. 

She nursed six years of grudge in detention at the Veterans Memorial Hospital. Now all of them who caused this must pay.

First to go behind bars was Senator Leila De Lima who fell victim to Duterte’s notorious tokhang (knock and request). She was indicted for a framed-up drug case buttressed by an array of false witnesses from the Bilibid prison.

It wasn’t incidental that besides hounding Duterte for human rights violations during his incumbency as mayor of Davao, former Justice Secretary De Lima also built and filed the corruption cases that clamped Arroyo in detention with no bail.

Held indefinitely at the national police custodial center for confused and problematic charges that prosecutors could not seem to pin down and keep amending, De Lima is suffering worse than Arroyo.

Now, the vengeful pack is gunning for former president Benigno Aquino III. The attack dogs of Arroyo and Duterte have started to dredge gutter slush to do PNoy in: among others, the SAF 44 fiasco in Mamasapano and the controversy-laden dengue vaccine purchase.

The comeback of the Marcos family is another. Imelda Marcos still faced charges of corruption and plunder in the aftermath of a 14-year conjugal kleptocracy that she and her husband dictator Ferdinand Marcos foisted on the country. She had gained notoriety in the international news media for ostentatious spending sprees that left behind royal jewelry and 3,000 pairs of shoes during her family’s hurried exit from Malacanang. Her profligate lifestyle got the label Imeldific.

After 28 years of contenting themselves with displaying to the public the cadaver of the dictator or its wax replica inside a refrigerated glass casket, Imelda and her children were finally able to bury the overthrown infamous strongman at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Cemetery of Heroes), courtesy of Duterte.

The late dictator has a fan in Digong who blurted out admiring his authoritarian stint and owing gratitude to Madame Imelda and the other heirs to the fabled Marcos loot, Bongbong and Imee. He pledged to pay political (and presumably campaign kitty) debts to the brood.

Upon assumption to power Duterte easily whipped up a supermajority of canine collaborators in Congress: the usual herd of traditional politicians merely after self-serving share in power and economic spoils. With them, he easily grabbed huge chunks from the 2017 national appropriations exponentially increasing, for one, allocation to his office from less than P3 billion during the previous administration to P20 billion.

He snipped the contingency fund for calamities and disaster risk reduction: the former in half, the latter almost entirely. He also pared the budget for agriculture and welfare. But his congressional allies got back the outlawed pork barrel in bigger amount of P80 million per solon. Close ones would be favored with gargantuan allotments for unspecified projects, while members of the opposition got zero for their districts.

Senator Panfilo Lacson exposed them, like the P50-billion payment for future road-right-of-ways with no particular takers. Discretionary funds hid in other items most notorious as always the intelligence tab.

With the comeback of the defunct ruling cliques, literally with a vengeance, Duterte showed to be no different from the kind of politico that 16 million Filipinos thought they had driven away by voting him into office. 

The people have been had by the same dyed-in-the-wool trapo who shows more interest in venting vengeance, paying political debts, and dividing spoils among partners in crime, and dispensing patronage than in uniting the country towards a radical break with the past.