HOTSPOT
 

Nobody could have imagined in 2022 the developments of the past few weeks and months of 2024.

The list is getting longer: the Duterte camp destroying its Uniteam alliance with the Marcos camp; Vice President Sara Duterte resigning from the Department of Education; former president Rodrigo Duterte being summoned and investigated by the Senate and the House, and possibly turned over to the Interpol once ordered by the International Criminal Court; VP Sara being investigated on the misuse of confidential funds; and the exposure of the Duterte camp’s alleged links to POGOs.

Hopes are up for those worried by a Duterte succession or restoration in 2028. It may not be easy for VP Sara, after all.

The rosiest outcome may be a swift impeachment and trial of VP Sara, culminating in her conviction which leads to her removal and a ban from holding any office. At around the same time, the arrest of former President Duterte by the Interpol. Both which was impossible to imagine in 2022, but not anymore in 2024 and 2025.

We cannot trust the cynics’ view that senators may not convict VP Sara or the Marcos administration won’t cooperate with the ICC. Their cynicism in 2022 about a perpetual Marcos-Duterte alliance turned out to be wrong, and their cynicism didn’t foresee what has happened in 2024.

Members of both houses of Congress may already have gone too far in trying to hold the Dutertes accountable, that they risk themselves and their political careers being destroyed if the accountability measures don’t succeed and the Dutertes manage to evade liability.

Grabbing some popcorn is the last thing we should do right now. Let us press the Marcos administration, the Senate, and the House to investigate other alleged extrajudicial killings under the Duterte administration of 2016-2022. I’m referring of course to the killing of activists, peace negotiators and consultants, Lumads and Lumad teachers. We must also demand the reopening of all Lumad schools which were shut down in those years.

Moreover, we should press for the accounting of former President Duterte’s ₱21-billion confidential funds from 2016 to 2022.
VP Sara, who this week dramatically asked why she would steal ₱125-million as she continued to push back on the House hearings, should also be asked about the confidential funds amounting to ₱2.5-billion she received as mayor of Davao City from 2017 to 2022.

There must also be a reckoning about the Duterte administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and the huge number of deaths of people and health workers. Up to now, there’s no closure for the relatives of those who died — no national memorial, no national mourning, no accountability. Tens of billions were supposedly spent for the world’s longest lockdown — there must be an accounting.

I am happy to see families of victims of drug war-related extrajudicial killings now being seen and heard in Congress. They deserve it, and we long to see them testify in local courts and in the ICC.

But I also would like to see the families of these victims to have their day to face Duterte in Congress and in court.

Some say we should just watch the Marcos-Duterte death match as onlookers. But this is not a sport or reality show. This is about the President and Vice President, the House and the Senate, the courts, our national budget. Our own country, citizenship, and sense of justice are at stake. Many are directly affected, all of us would eventually be affected.

Fast forward to 2054 or 2064, when the youth of the future would ask what people did in the tumultuous years of 2024 and 2025, the answer is being written now. Hopefully, not “they just watched and the problems festered” or “they just grabbed some popcorn.”

I would rather see Filipinos get more engaged and more organized in politics and in elections, and push the House, the Senate, and the Marcos administration to use all their power to give us a Duterte-free Christmas or New Year.