Category: rodrigo duterte

Mayhem in Manila . . .

The co-incidence was too much.

In the week or so before the huge Sept 21 anti-corruption rallies in Luneta and EDSA, Duterte propagandists were exhorting their online followers to join either of the two, basta anti-Marcos at hindi anti-Duterte. Nung pareho palang anti-Duterte rin, nag-plan B sila: a Maisug rally sa Liwasang Bonifacio, come one come all. On the side, Tiktok was alive with promises that Sara would be president by September 22.

But lo and behold, not one of the Duterte bigwigs showed up in Liwasan on the 21st. VP Sara, Kitty, RobinP, VicR, LorraineB atbp. had flown to Japan for a Sept 20 OFW rally, samantalang si TrixC was on her way to Europe and has been tiktoking from The Hague’s “Duterte Street” since around the 22nd.

Anyare? So they never meant to make sipot the Liwasan rally? After all those pep talks about people power, as in, let’s-go-do-an-Edsa, bakit parang tinakbuhan nila yung event, bakit sila nag-disappearing act lahat? Dahil alam nilang hindi kakayaning tabunan ng Maisug ang mga Luneta at EDSA crowds? Magkakaalaman na, at mapapahiya sila?

It made even more sense when the ugly riots broke out in Manila, near the Palace. I couldn’t help connecting the awful turn of events to the missing Duterte VIPs.  Maybe they knew this was in the works, and they didn’t want to be around when it happened, so they could pretend to be as shocked and angry as everybody else, and point fingers at everyone else’s corruption except Duterte’s? Read “Pakana ng DDS?” https://politiko.com.ph/ 

Thanks to YouTube, I saw enough live shoots of the action, particularly yung bandang simula sa may Ayala Bridge, when one tire pa lang of a container van was on fire, and spreading, and about a dozen or more masked youths in black were throwing rocks at a phalanx of police who were blocking their way to the Palace. The police, practising maximum tolerance, could only cower behind their shields and stand their ground, even when the kids came at them and beat at their shields with wooden poles.

I wondered who these kids were. I couldn’t quite believe that these were tibaks from the Luneta rally (who were said to have moved to Mendiola for a last rite but didn’t stay), because if they were, it would mean that the progressive Left had suddenly shifted from nonviolent to violent protest tactics?

It seemed to me that these boys were a different bunch, out only to provoke the police into arresting them so they could resist, fight back, create scenes of chaos, and incite usiseros and bystanders to join the march on the Palace, the more the merrier.  In Recto and Mendiola parang mas marami na sila, may kasama nang streetkids and riffraff, at mas magulo na, naninira’t nambabato’t  nagsúsunóg, at nanlabán when the authorities finally moved to detain, arrest, some 200 of them, di na baleng maakusahan sila ng police brutality, the young thugs had to be stopped from doing even more harm.

And when it was over, what a relief that the mayhem was nothing like that of Edsa Tres (May 2001), and that the arrested youth mostly confessed quickly enough that they were primed and paid to pretend and to play at being angry anti-Marcos activists, and to attack Malacañang and call for the president’s resignation, or some DDS sheet like that.

CITO BELTRAN. Were … they “hoodlums for hire” paid to agitate the police into attacking the protesters with a plan of creating negative content and videos for online propaganda? Apparently so, after some of the people arrested confessed that they were paid P3,000 to create chaos in the streets and attempt to siege Malacañang. https://www.philstar.com/

Which is not to make light of the plight of those mistakenly arrested and detained. Gets ko naman the concern of the organized Left (militants and moderates) for these poor kids and their parents. But there’s obviously a lesson to be learned here: stay away from masked figures in black wreaking havoc, or suffer the consequences.

… Garma in The Hague

On the ICC front, it would seem that Sonny Trillanes & Royina Garma have been sighted in The Hague, which would suggest na totoo ang tsismis, the police colonel will be testifying for the prosecution. Read “Duterte and Garma: The next chapter” by Marit Stinus-Cabugon.

The police colonel, merciless and feared even by her fellow police officers, became the face of President Duterte’s war on drugs in Cebu City. The war was indeed bloody and extremely violent. In 2019, the Cebu City Police Office was furthermore used to harass then-mayor (now vice mayor) Tomas Osmeña, his slate and supporters. Osmeña was defeated, and Garma was rewarded by the president with the position of general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).

… It is an interesting twist that Trillanes, bitter foe of the former president, was the link between Garma and the ICC. Maybe Garma weighed her options. Hiding in the US was out of the picture. As for the Philippines, case or no case, she is hardly safe considering her testimonies against former colleagues. Also, the line of victims of the Duterte years’ violent law enforcement operations and extrajudicial killings is long. Some affected individuals might seek retribution.

The postponement “until further notice” of the much-anticipated Sept. 23 hearing comes as a great disappointment to those who pin their hopes on the ICC to bring former president Duterte to justice. However, it also gives the prosecution more time to prepare. What matters is that he will not be released, whether to a third country or to the Philippines. Being detained far from home may indeed have taken its toll on the mental health of the 80-year-old former president. However, allowing him to leave the Netherlands before the trial has even begun would be a victory for the very man who is on trial for crimes against humanity.

Garma doesn’t bode good for the defense, and the Duterte camp knows it. Maybe it’s why they’re suddenly on overdrive. My YouTube algo is rife with new live videos of some DDS peeps rallying in Liwasang Bonifacio demanding that BBM step down because he’s just as corrupt as everybody else in Congress and the Senate and the judiciary, and retired military officers vlogging and pushing violent versions of a people-powered government cleansed of all crooked politicians, or something like that.

Malinaw naman na ang goal ay maiupo si VP Sara, ngunit ayon kay Randy David, malabo itong mangyari nang basta-basta. Read “Don’t waste the anger” https://opinion.inquirer.net/

The Marcos administration wants to keep the anger alive, but under control, so it can immobilize its political enemies—notably the remnants of the Duterte regime. At the same time, it seeks to purge its own ranks of officials whose greed it can no longer defend, not because it has developed an ethical skin, but because the specter of removal from power before the end of its term has become plausible.

On the other side are the Duterte forces, still smarting from the sudden arrest and detention of their leader on orders of the International Criminal Court last March. Their sole agenda is to delegitimize Marcos Jr. and replace him with the constitutional successor, Vice President Sara Duterte. Outside of impeachment, they cannot do this without the tacit support of the military and the cooperation of the middle classes. Otherwise, they will have to wait until 2028. For now, they want to keep the spotlight on the Marcos administration’s culpability in the flood control scandal, hoping to sustain public anger until the next election.

Sana’y magdilang-anghel si Randy. Because so far the Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI) isn’t inspiring confidence that all corrupt heads will roll. What is, and why is it all, going on behind closed doors? That Mayor Benjie Magalong has resigned in disgust has online groupchats buzzing with prominent names allegedly being exempted from investigation. Guess who.

Trust ratings, painful truths

I totally agree with Ronnie Holmes of Pulse Asia that the high trust ratings of Digong and Sara as of May 6-9, just before the elections, had a lot to do with the timing of Sara’s impeachment (Feb 7) by the Lower House followed by Digong’s arrest and rendition to ICC jurisdiction (March 11). https://www.gmanetwork.com/

I-i-impeach din pala, why did Congress not strike while Sara’s trust ratings were down, soon after the Nov 2024 hitman threats on BBM atbp., no-joke no-joke? Sa kaka-delay — first the Lower House, then the Senate: why was the Senate so loath to proceed forthwith, all of three months before May 12 — nakabawi tuloy ang VP, thanks to a very smart comms team that has had her strutting on social media platforms, hitting at the Marcos admin non-stop for the poverty high prices and corruption  (never mind that she has nothing to offer by way of alternative economic policies) and then, post-arrest, doubling down with the “kidnap” of Tatay Digong, tugging at heartstrings with the sob story of advanced age, ill health, 27 pills a day, at kung anuano pa.

Sa madaling salita, had the impeachment trial proceeded, forthwith, back in maybe Dec 2024, it would could conceivably have ended with a conviction by Feb or Mar 2025.  And if the DOJ had also put off Digong’s arrest till May 13, then hindi nadagdagan nang katakut-takot ang mga hinaing ng mga Duterte, and maybe there would have been no consolidating the DDS base, tsismis pa lang kasi. At the very least, the political dynamics would have been quite different come election day. And BBM would not be in the spot that he is in now.

And then again, I could be completely off the mark, and it’s all just a matter of charisma pala, as many analysts and observers say. I tend to think though that the old man Digong’s high trust ratings only indicate that one of two Filipinos think, feel, he should face trial here, not in The Hague, just because kawawa naman ang matanda.

Besides, say pa ng DDS vlogger lawyers sa You Tube, okay naman ang judicial system natin, Digong would get a fair deal. Yeah, right. Imagine the wheeling and dealing. But that’s another story.

***

Rodrigo Duterte: A Fascist Original by Walden Bello Feb 2017
Charisma and Rodrigo Duterte by Randy David Nov 2021
‘The Punisher’: Rodrigo Duterte’s violent reign… by Rebecca Ratcliffe Jun 2022
Rodrigo Duterte’s Popularity … Covid-19 Pandemic by Kasuya and Miwa Nov 2023
Rodrigo Duterte: The provocative but popular Philippine strongman Mar 2025

Gary Granada on Duterte & ICC

Speaking as an anarchist, who advocates for a society based on voluntary cooperation, without hierarchical government, Gary Granada, musician, composer, lyricist, teacher, philosopher, and public intellectual, takes the discourse higher, explains why we are all complicit and now paying the price.

Duterte, ICC and Me
(An Anarchist View)

Imagine for a moment that it is the entire Philippine State being indicted before the international community. On what charge? For failure to fulfill its international obligation to uphold the rights of its citizens. Worse, for systematically carrying out the crimes themselves.

Of course you can’t haul an entire state before the international court, so you do the next best thing – you bring the embodiment of that state. That means the Government during the time the violations happened. But you also can’t fit an entire government machinery in a jet plane. So you send the embodiment of that Government – which is the President.

But it’s Duterte’s undoing, why the entire nation-state? Because a State is accountable for acts done by its agents in their official capacity. Which means that if Duterte is convicted, it formalizes for one thing the liability of the Philippine State to pay damages to the families of EJK victims under his watch.

[ They might want to consider suing the government, or legislators might want to draft a bill “moto propio” ]

Are you hallucinating? Not at all, in fact we’ve already done the exact same thing in recent past. Government started paying the human rights victims during Martial Law in 2013, remember? Marcos was long dead by then, no one to jail anymore. In short, just like this time, a lot of murderers got away with murder. But not the entire State. Think of it as a “continuing crime” – thru time. So who paid the price ultimately?

We, us all – pro-Marcos, anti-Marcos, fence sitters, clueless. The fund, the offices, the overhead costs – all Government property and resources. Instead of hospitals, schools, science and technology, irrigation, housing – the money was spent to pay for the crimes perpetrated by the State.

I think it’s a useful narrative to help instruct young Filipinos moving forward – to the end that they better make sure it never happens again, lest pay the price again. Never mind global humiliation.

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Some Discussion References for Students:
https://hrvvmc.gov.ph/irr-ra_10368/
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule149
https://www.britannica.com/…/state-sovereign-political…