TURNING POINT: The Father and Daughter Tandem

NAAWAN, Misamis Oriental (MindaNews / 26 June) — After she was impeached by Congress with an overwhelming vote, VP Sara Duterte assured the public of a bloodbath at the Senate Impeachment Court. It turns out that it was purely a sound bite to put air into her highly depleted ego. Otherwise, she should not have petitioned the Supreme Court to dismiss her case, if indeed she wanted bloody combat. Her lapdogs in the Senate, Senator-judge Bato, and Bong Go were also barking for the dismissal of her case, a moronic effort that betrayed their ignorance of the law and their role as judges.

Sara tried to act like her father, talking bold and tactless without caring about the consequences. But only up to that point. She is not hard and firm but behaves like a shifting sand. She is a faint shadow of Father Digong who was consistent, decisive, and deliberate, traits that made him magnetically charming. If it were Digong who said there would be a bloodbath, blood would rain at the place of choice and one could bathe in it. 

Remember his drug war? The nooks and alleys of poor urban communities were splattered with the blood of the thousands of extra-judicially killed (EJK) victims.

Sara makes excuses, invents alibis, and keeps saying she is taken out of context, Tatay Digong, on the other hand, takes full responsibility for his actions. He shielded police officers from criminal prosecution, in the cleansing of society of its scum, drug personalities – particularly street dealers and addicts, claiming they were just following his order, their commander-in-chief. He would take jail accommodation for them.

Indeed, he did and took the cross for them. Now at 80, the former president has been detained at The Hague awaiting trial by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for committing crimes against humanity.

Sara at 47, still Vice President and free, appears unperturbed by the noise around her.  But she is like a dock that looks calm and regal on the surface of the water but whose feet underneath are waggling like mad in agitation. Aside from the impeachment trial, she is to face the Ombudsman for committing offenses as a public servant, the Court of Justice for other crimes against the Filipino people, and the ICC, as well, for her crimes against humanity in the Davao Death Squad episode of her political journey. She heaps the blame on the Marcos administration for her present maladies.

FPRRD is stoic and blames no one for his plight. I suppose he expected it to happen and waited for it knowing that fate would eventually find its man.

Who would not miss Tatay Digong?

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. William R. Adan, Ph.D., is retired professor and former chancellor of Mindanao State University at Naawan, Misamis Oriental)