Digong Under Oath

It was unexpected, that Digong showed up and under oath admitted, among other things, to stuff that Sen. Bato denies, joke lang daw LOL. The real joke is that Bato and Sen. Go, the ones named by witnesses re Duterte’s drugwar operations in QuadComm House hearings, were allowed to be part of the investigating panel rather than made to sit with Digong to be investigated, questioned, too, under oath.

Laguna Rep Dan Fernandez noted that Dela Rosa ended up “interrogating resource persons” when “common sense dictates (that you) cannot be part of any investigation that you yourself are involved in.”

“He is one of the accused, but he is also part of the jury?” he added. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1999082/house-members-hit-leeway-given

That the Senate was at once bashed by anti-DDS social media pundits for giving the former prez a platform yet again to rant and curse and be bastos — thank goodness for Sen. Risa #bullyforher — was expected. Unahan kasi na mag-livestream with immediate “analysis” na mostly kneejerk reactions, na usually full-of-oneself if not highly biased for or against whatever whomever.

Senate Prez Chiz was quick to respond: https://legacy.senate.gov.ph/press_release/

While noting that the testimonies made by Duterte during the Senate committee hearing were largely the same as when he was still in power, Escudero said the difference now is that he provided the latest utterings about the war on drugs under oath.

“Ang pinagkaiba kahapon, lahat ng binitiwan niyang salita kahapon ay under oath. Pinanumpahan at sinabi niya na ‘yan ay totoo abot sa kanyang nalalaman na pwedeng magamit kung saka-sakali pabor o laban sa kanya,” Escudero said.

He said the statements of Duterte were recorded and transcripts of the public hearing will be released for the reference of whichever party is interested and for the general public to peruse.

Unlike before when the spokespersons of former President Duterte defended his strong statements about the killing of drug personalities as merely words said in jest, Escudero said Duterte cannot claim the same now because he testified under oath.

I wonder now if this is Digong’s way of getting charges filed against him in court to somehow preempt the ICC. Nothing to lose? But if this be so, QuadComm is the way to go.

“Calling Filipinos resilient is an insult”

As Luzon again suffers deadly floods brought by Typhoon Kristine atbp., this piece by Ninotchka in the aftermath of Yolanda 2013 (that I then only partly posted with link to the Yahoo page that’s no longer there) has been getting hits. Posting now the rest of it that I found on Scribd.

By NINOTCHKA ROSCA

It was difficult to see and hear those words repeated, in media reports, articles, military and even White House briefings: “The Filipino people are resilient.” A characterization which should raise anyone’s hackles, with its image of a jelly blob, quivering when punched, then quieting back to what it was before the rain of blows: sans sharpness, inert and passive, non-evaluating of what happens to its self.

No, we are not resilient.

We break, when the world is just too much, and in the process of breaking, are transformed into something difficult to understand. Or we take full measure of misfortune, wrestle with it and emerge transformed into something equally terrifying.

It is what is…and what isn’t

This is in sync with our indigenous worldview, expressed by our riddles, the talinhaga, on which every Filipino child used to be raised: an understanding of reality, including ourselves, as metamorphic (or, capable of transformation).

A leaf by night; a bamboo by day – is how we look at our buri mat. It is both what it is and isn’t.

And because this is a worldview which has to be lived in situ, it is unfathomable to the outsider, despite scholarship and analyses, which come up with nothing but the label “resilient.”

We don’t spring back, we transform

Across oceans and throughout the five continents of this Earth, we carry the tales of our old heroes and muses, our elementals, who confront, in each re-telling, tests of strength and spirit.

Some break, like Mariang Makiling who hides in a thousand-year hibernation; others metamorphose, like Bernardo Carpio who becomes a pillar of stone stopping cliffs from caving in on his village.

We may not remember their old names – names being the first to be erased under colonialism – but we remember how they were and how we are supposed to be: metamorphic.

What have we become after Yolanda?

These two legends represent the twin possibilities for the Filipinos’ metamorphosis. Both are inexplicable outside of the local paradigm. Just as what we’re watching now in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda seems inexplicable.

Who can fathom what drives a woman to open body bags of putrefying corpses in search of a husband, a son, a daughter? At the end of a gaze that has lingered over a hundred dead faces, what is she now?

Who can measure the rage of the peaceable man breaking through the walls of groceries, warehouses, shopping malls? And having pierced both law and walls of Authority, what is he now?

The absence of thousands

To say that Filipinos are resilient is an assurance for those who have imposed upon them – much and repeatedly.

It is to say to themselves that we shake off tragedy much like ducks shaking off water.

It is to ignore the monuments to what has been suffered: matchstick debris of houses, muck and mud of vanished cities, stench of the dead and – oh! – the absence, thousands of absence, of those who used to be in our midst. Who could be so resilient as not to be transformed by that?

In fairness to VP Sara

The DDS camp is, of course, exhilarated by VP Sara Duterte’s revelations re her history with the Marcos sibs, Imee and BBM — she has given vloggers and pundits heaps of new and hot quotable quotes, social media content, to further fuel anti-BBM sentiments.

The anti-DDS naman, whether pro-Marcos or pinklawan or undecided, are mostly rather aghast, if titillated, at certain choice cuts, particularly the threat addressed to Imee in some group chat that if the political attacks on her (Sara) did not stop, “Huhukayin ko ang tatay ninyo (sa LNMB) at itatapon ko sa West Philippine Sea.”  Empty threat?  Matindi just the same because that LNMB burial remains controversial. And then when she started sniffling, the VP was quick to explain, “Hindi ako umiiyak, hindi ako nagco-cocaine, malamig lang yung aircon.” Smooth potshot that.

Everyone’s waiting for Imee and BBM to respond, in their separate ways. But the sibs are on silent mode. Why dignify any of it, is the Marcos style, and it has served them well, it would seem. Especially since pundits are saying that the VP has become “unhinged” if not “emotionally unstable” and need not be taken seriously.

At this point in time, it’s good to be reminded when exactly relations between the Marcoses and the Dutertes started to deteriorate, leading to this unmistakable declaration of war by the VP.

After some browsing I tracked it back to May 2023 when Sara ally, Rep. Gloria Arroyo, was removed as senior deputy speaker, supposedly because she was planning a coup to replace Martin Romualdez (a replay of June 2018 when Arroyo replaced Pantaleon Alvarez) as Speaker. A few days later, “tambaloslos” became part of the public vocabulary, courtesy of the VP. By the new year the Romualdez House was pushing for Charter Change, purportedly to loosen economic restrictions but suspectedly to shift from bicam to uni-parliamentary, no VP needed, and BBM could rule forever as prime minister. That chacha attempt failed, thanks to the Zubiri Senate. But in recent months, Congress budget hearings have been poking into the Office of the VP’s (or is it the DepEd’s confidential fund) 2022 budget, departing from congressional tradition (maybe about time?) exempting the president’s and the vp’s budget from such scrutiny. The VP insists that the Lower House is just fishing for evidence of impeachable wrongdoing on her part, AND says she has a list of 5 impeachable offenses by BBM.

In effect, matagal nang nagti-tit-for-tat ang dalawang kampo. Sabi nga (daw) ni former Sen. Manny Villar, it’s all about 2028. The UniTeam promise, premise, was that 2028 would be Sara’s turn as president, with BBM’s annointment. Now that the prospect has dimmed considerably, I imagine that the VP isn’t going to let up on the diatribes and that the DDS are back to calling on their peeps to do an EDSA before Congress succeeds in impeaching her.

To my mind, that sit-down with media was a declaration of war, a point of no return. There is no taking back any of her claims, allegations, re the Marcos sibs, the same with the promise of more to come vs the Speaker first cousin and the First Lady.

I don’t think she’s unhinged. Rather, she’s on the warpath. After all the Romualdez Congress is demonizing her like hell.  But I do take issue with her claim that the BBM admin has merely tolerated her, or that she has gained nothing from UniTeam.

For one, as VP she is just a heartbeat away from the presidency. For another,  BBM has kept the ICC out. Maybe in the prez’s balance sheet, that’s the quid pro quo. Quits-quits na sila sa bayani burial ni Marcos Sr.

Garma “sings” — good for her, good of her

Read “Garma’s metanoia” by Philstar‘s Tony Lopez.

While mayor of Davao in 1998, Duterte had taken a liking on the beauteous young police officer, then Lieut. Garma, 23, a 1997 graduate of the Philippine National Police Academy, and who was a city police station commander. She would enjoy a rapid rise, from senior officer of the Davao Police, to regional police chief based in Cebu, Central Visayas, where she was accused of her own EJKs, then to a cushy job inside Malacañang’s Office of the President on police matters, and finally to a lucrative early retirement sinecure as general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

… Garma tried to escape the QuadComm dragnet on Aug. 28, 2024 but was stopped at the airport. (Her US visa was cancelled). Initially, she ignored House summons. During previous appearances (Sept. 12 and Sept. 27, 2024), she was a picture of monstrous defiance and contempt, forcing QuadComm to detain her indefinitely.

Suddenly, after “considerable reflection,” a tearful Garma on Friday decided to finally face the music, and tell the truth before the powerful House Quad Committee….

In her three-page 1,372-word affidavit, Garma claimed to have told “everything I personally know about the war on drugs during the former administration” … despite fears they could “significantly endanger my life, the safety of my family, and others close to me.”

Detained in Congress since September 12, having been cited in contempt for lying, Royina Garma decided to come clean a month later. The truth would set her free.

She implicated President Rodrigo “Roa” Duterte as the mastermind behind his horrific regime’s thousands of extrajudicial killings with huge cash rewards liberally doled out, for three purposes: one, for officers who executed the kills; two, to finance the operations, and three, refund operational expenses, while replicating nationwide, the so-called Davao model of EJKs, Death Squads that seemingly solved the southern city’s illegal drugs problem.

The weeks in detention must have had her flashing back, reflecting on her career in the PNP, what she went through to win respect and acceptance in the macho culture of law enforcement, and tracking when it was that things took a turn, and next thing she knew, she had become complicit in a deadly drug war, never mind due process. She may even have wanted to get out, give it all up, perils and perks and all, but really, how could one do that without incurring the ire of the powers-that-be and becoming a target herself.

Truth be told, there is no setting her free. She will continue to be detained and eventually charged for her part in the drug war. Also it looks like the QuadComm isn’t done  grilling her yet; they are convinced that she has yet to tell-all, since it would seem that she was part nga of Digong’s inner circle.

I was watching when she started weeping as she read that affidavit, and when I realized how explosive her revelations were, I was impressed.  I could understand why she broke down, reading that confession — a point of no return — realizing the consequences not just for herself but for everyone she was naming, colleagues and superiors alike. Nakakaiyak naman talaga iyon. 

“…  at least I will be able to contribute if we really want to make this country a better place to live…for our children,” Garma said in response to a query from Santa Rosa City Rep. Dan Fernandez.  “I think we have to do something para maibalik ‘yung trust sa PNP, magkaroon ng reform sa PNP,” she added.

Brave woman. Now let’s hear it from the men.