Category: robredo

tricky testy toxic times

ako lang ba ang ninenerbiyos sa state of president duterte’s health?  praning lang ba ako dahil sa pag-amin niyang parati na lang siyang may dinaranas na pananakit ng ulo at ng gulugod, kung kaya’t napagamit siya ng fentanyl na mas matindi pang painkiller kaysa morphine?  di naman niya sinasabi categorically na itinigil na niya for good ang paggamit nito nuong nabuking ng doktor niya na he was using 1/2 of the transdermal patch instead of just the prescribed 1/4.

pag mga doktor ang tinanong mo, napapailing sila sa fentanyl.  parang ang implication ay hindi na siguro umuubra ang ibang gamot na panlaban sa matinding pananakit ng ulo (na maaaring dala ng spinal injury from that motorcyle spill).  and by the way, ang pagkahilo at / o pagsusuka — na ilang beses nang nangyari sa kanya, ayon sa balita — ay ilan sa side-effects ng paggamit ng fentanyl.

maganda sana raw kung ipakita sa atin ang resulta ng head MRI o brain scan ng pangulo.  lalo na’t sinabi ng kanyang doktor mismo na ang sobrang paggamit ng fentanyl ay makakaapekto sa kanyang cognitive functioning, ibig sabihin sa kanyang pag-iisip (which encompasses reasoning, memory, attention, language, grasp of information, decision-making, etc).

it would be good to know that the kill-kill-kill orders, the paulit-ulit kuwentos, the pagmumura, the pagbabagong-isip on major policy issues, the joke about god telling him to stop cursing, calling his most trusted aide a bugaw, the misogynist talk, at kung anuano pang nakakagulantang na pananalita…  it would be good, kahit paano, to know that all these are not products of a cognitively dysfunctional mind, rather, of a politically astute and strategic, if radical, kind of thinking and messaging out to simply confuse, disconcert, discombobulate, and disable us from agreeing on anything, whether for or against him.

on facebook i am dismayed to find that like-minded “friends” who used to walk the middle ground — giving the president the benefit of the doubt yet not hesitating to speak up when disturbed re policy issues and especially by the rhetoric of his rabid supporters — and whose daily statuses i counted on to keep me updated on the latest developments…  i am dismayed to find that they are now squarely on the president’s side.  kahit level-up naman ang discourse nila from mocha uson’s, still, nakakapanlambot.  nakakapanlumo.

parang wala pati sa kanila ang na-tense about the fentanyl flap.  mas nakatutok sila on hitting out at the vp and trillanes and everyone else who dares ask duterte to resign on whatever grounds.  i seriously wonder what they know that we don’t know about the president’s health. maybe he’s actually in good shape?  but why not reassure us?  or maybe they’ve bought in to the bongbong protest as valid and therefore if the supreme court declares bongbong winner, they’ve decided they can live with that?  come to think of it, they have also been critical of the protests vs. the marcos burial in libingan ng mga bayani, and kapansin-pansin how critical they have become of the veep, who it would seem is doing nothing right.

but if digong is as sick as he himself says he is, i wonder what the game plan is.  i imagine that the supreme court is under extreme pressure to decide by january 2017 and going by the optimism of the bongbong camp on fb, parang they expect the ruling to be in his favor.  i imagine that that’s what leni and loida and leila and the liberal party are gearing up for, conceivably with the blessings of uncle sam.  maybe that’s why a certain opinion columnist has been bombarding us with stuff about how it was america that installed cory in ’86, which is like saying that america was responsible for EDSA, which is so not true.

EDSA season will be upon us soon enough, and it will be interesting, if not mindboggling. let’s brace ourselves, for better or for worse.

leni, mocha, joan of arc

it’s laughable the way leni is likened to cory when, really, the only thing they have in common is widowhood.  although it may be said that both ladies were catapulted to public consciousness through their spouses’ unexpected deaths, their personal circumstances and the political situations prevailing in 1985-86 and today are vastly different.  DILG sec jessie robredo was not even in the same league as senator ninoy aquino: he was a newbie on the national stage while ninoy was the leading oppositionist to president marcos before and through most of martial law until his assassination in 1983, and that certainly had a lot to do with cory’s popularity and stature.

but obviously the point is to remind us only that cory, a plain housewife, managed to oust an entrenched dictator, and that there is hope in leni, a lawyer and one-term legislator, doing cory better and ousting a president of five months who is detested by many for ruling like a dictator (EJKs, marcos-love, and all) though without the formality of martial law.

Leni is now the symbol and moving spirit of the political opposition: A JOAN OF ARC IN THE RAGING BATTLEFIELD OF PHILIPPINE POLITICS. [caps not mine]

sabi ‘yan ni belinda olivares-cunanan in her blog political tidbits soon after the veep’s resignation from the duterte cabinet.  back in september 1986, georgie anne geyer of gettysburg times first said it of cory when the new prez was in the U.S. to address Congress, and many of us thought it was silly, and yet philippine media picked it up, so flattered were they for cory, no matter how hilarious and inapt the comparison.

She … seems, in an almost mystical sense, to be the realization of the female leader (like Joan of Arc without the final tragedy) that feminists have looked for.

when cory died in 2009, it was recalled by the foreign press  though with some discernment.

When a bewildered Marcos and his wife Imelda fled the nation, it set a stirring precedent for dissidents everywhere, from South Africa to South America to Pakistan. Aquino was hailed as a modern-day Joan of Arc.

…Aquino’s presidency was less successful than the revolution, with a series of coup attempts by the military keeping the administration hamstrung. She was lauded for her courage, but rarely seemed able to get on top of ruling the country.  

seven years later, in march 2016, it was revived, tagged on to vp leni by philstar columnist tony katigbak (A Joan of Arc in the Phl) for daring, during the campaign, to speak against the marcos burial in libingan ng mga bayani.  and then in july by jojo robles, though wth some disdain (Imelda, not Cory), just before the prez finally gave her a cabinet position.

Leni, who was being cast by the Yellows as the new Cory leading the opposition like Joan of Arc against the Dictator from Davao, felt that the better offensive was an Imeldific charm offensive.

but now that the honeymoon is over, and vp leni is back with the opposition and again being hailed as a joan of arc, alam ba ng yellows na may  kaagaw siya sa koronang ito?   three days earlier than cunanan, on the very weekend that vp leni made sumbong to nation that she had been asked to desist from attending cabinet meetings, mocha uson posted a cover photo of herself clad in armor with sword in hand and the title JOAN OF ARC of the DDS (duterte’s diehard supporters), no less.  laban kayo?

puwede na ring ipalamang kay mocha, please.  mas bagay rin sa drama niya at sa drama ng presidente, whether she hears or not the voice of god, like the original joan, and oh, like her tatay digong, or so he likes to joke.

but seriously.  leni’s resignation from the cabinet has of course renewed rumors of a digong ouster plot in this run-up to the jan 20 and feb 2017 edsa anniversaries.  and it’s hard to simply take leni’s word for it, or the LP’s, that there is no such conspiracy in the works, not with LP moneybags loida nicolas lewis putting her foot in her mouth with that call for the president to resign so leni can take over before bongbong manages to take over the vice-presidency.

was that a signal of sorts to start some balls rolling behind the scenes here and in america?  who knows, we might see a mixed bag of tricks from the EDSA uno and edsa dos playbooks.  duterte won the election fair and square so I don’t see a popular and prayerful clamor for his resignation, but the state of his health is a matter of concern — what if he suddenly keels over, cross our fingers please — or what if he messes up big time — like erap did — and the super majority in congress suddenly finds itself a minority, and a manny villar rises to railroad his impeachment?  fat chance?  just the same, it’s important that the vp question be settled quickly, credibly, and with finality by the supreme court.

i share most of the scattered oppositions’ major major concerns, especially over the drug war (bakit walang nadadali na drug lords?  bakit pinatay si espinosa?  sinong nagpapatay?) and charter change (federalism freaks me out, and wow he’s agreeable to reversing the 60-40 ownership requirement re public utilities) BUT BUT BUT may he live to finish his term, just because he draws the line: NO to foreign ownership of land.

“But you know, there is something which [I will oppose]—it’s a fundamental irreconcilable difference with me and some of the congressmen because even the Speaker before, who was my political enemy, already agreed to sell lands—selling lands to foreigners. I am sorry, but I am not ready for that kind because most of the Filipinos are poor. And with the growing economy of the supergiant, China and the rest, they can always come here and buy the land and they can buy the whole of Tondo and relocate there and we’ll have nothing and everything sold,” he pointed out.

that’s music to my ears, and i am won over again.  anything happens to him, paninindigan ba ‘yan at ipaglalaban rin ng kung sino man ang papalit kay digong?   yes, we would need a joan (or john) of arc of sorts, as much to fight foreign powers who would buy us out as to fight pinoy politicos and oligarchs who would sell us out.

ousting duterte: ain’t gonna happen

nade-deja-vu ako with all the coup and impeachment talk.  it’s like in gloria arroyo’s time when we were forever attempting another EDSA to oust her, especially after the hello-garci i-am-sorry scandal.  but we never quite managed one, did we.  at the time, i figured that it was because there was no one to replace her with — vp noli de castro the media man simply didn’t measure up — unlike in edsa dos, when vp arroyo the economist was mostly acceptable and the Left was simply outmaneuvered (the militants were calling for a council of state).

this time we have a vp who basks in the support of a yellow camp that is rightly offended by duterte’s kill-kill-kill rhetoric in the war on drugs but who seems to be distancing herself more and more from a president who rightly and fearlessly calls out america on historical atrocities committed against filipinos in the course of colonizing our islands.  and this time we have a former justice sec, now senator, trying to distract us from serious allegations that she was the recipient of millions of bucks from the bilibid drug trade for her senatorial campaign and who’s making a lot of noise about “extrajudicial killings” that’s being echoed by pro-american international media, academe, and, even, an international court prosecutor.  and this time we have the many amboys and amgirls among us who simply can’t imagine life without american troops and aid, as though that didn’t always come with all sorts of strings attached, to put it mildly.

but is all that enough to oust a duterte?  i imagine that de lima is hoping praying for an edsa action that would be backed by the yellow camp and cardinal tagle’s church and rogue military forces loyal to america.  but do they have the numbers that the duterte camp has?  no, they don’t.  their best hakot efforts would be as nothing compared to the throngs that the duterte camp is certainly capable of mobilizing throughout the country.  of course they could also shoot for a “crony”-business boycott a la pre-EDSA 86, but the duterte camp could just as easily mount a counter-boycott of the vp’s business allies, and it’s easy to imagine kung sinong pupulutin sa kangkungan.

as for an impeachment ops a la pre-edsa dos, here’s ninez cacho-olivares:

The political reality today is that the masses of Filipinos are behind Duterte and the majority in the House today are not going to try and impeach him and if they try to replicate that which the House and the Senate did in 2000 against Estrada, they are likely to fail and will face political death. Duterte, despite his being a fatalist, won’t give up that easily. Blood will flow, that is for certain.

“blood will flow” is cringe-worthy, of course.  the original EDSA template was all about no-blood no-guns no-violence.  even the president himself might be called upon for “creative imagination.”

Oddball http://jesserobredo.wordpress.com/

jesse robredo was a blogger pala from october 2007 to august 2009 — take that, tito sotto!    the blog Oddball has 31 entries that i intend to copy-and-paste and save and comb through.  i hope it will tell us, or hint at, his thoughts on the economy, the peso-dollar exchange, VAT, the energy problem, foreign affairs, china, america, trapos, the pork barrel, at kung ano-ano’t sino-sino pa.  too bad he stopped blogging after that last entry on cory’s death.  i guess we all know why.

thanks to raissa robles and commenter @noggy for sharing.