THE habagat ravaged Luzon in the past week and nary was a sighting of the president who has fashioned himself as a caring and accessible leader noted by observers. When he finally surfaced publicly, he had very little to say about how the flooding affected millions in the metropolis and nearby regions. But he went-off guns ablazing, so to speak, expressing his characteristic passion and anger towards his other pet peeves - this time corruption.
First on his list was the firing of AFP officials who were involved in systemic corruption at the V. Luna Medical Center and the Philippine Military Academy. The sheer number of those involved amounting to about twenty and more involving unit commanders and top officials at these crucial military institutions earned the president’s ire. They supposedly engaged in ghost delivery acquisitions and other forms of malversation for personal gain, practices that are not new to Philippine governance ever since lowly and top bureaucrats considered it their personal birthright to dip into public coffers.
It seems that while the storm was brewing and eventually inundating Metro Manila, another storm is shaking government particularly the military establishment. The defense officials revealed all of these to their commander-in-chief which then predictably triggered his outburst and launched his new crusade. He ordered that these corrupt military officials be court-martialed and publicly shamed for their actions. Duterte lamented that these practices are so deeply systemic and widespread in government that he is tempted to resign.
One can only imagine his frustration. The very institution that he placed his trust on, the military establishment, turns out to have untrustworthy elements rotting the institution from the inside.
But something is amiss here. Because in the same breathe that expressed his desire to resign, Duterte also relayed his wish for a military junta to replace him at the helm, in complete disregard for the rules of succession for continuing civilian supremacy over the military as enshrined in our 1987 Constitution which remains in effect. Something is definitely brewing in Malacanang and at the DND that should worry us more than we already are.
The crackdown on specific military institutions and officials could be nothing else but a veiled loyalty check for the whole AFP establishment and a demand for them to toe the line in an upcoming scenario. It is a tactic that is old as it is effective. Surrender to the altar a few so as to drive fear and obedience to the others.
This development comes at the heels of the impasse over the passing of next year’s budget in Congress. The super majority which once had been at the control of Duterte’s guy, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, is now at the expert hands of former President and returning political player Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Harry Roque, presidential spokesperson, now wonders what kind of relationship the Palace now have with the House.
The expressed exasperation of the President over-all reflects the general lack of direction amid the violent and costly crackdown not just on drugs but also in the scuttling of the chances for just peace, attacks on human rights, and the failure in the upliftment of the economy especially among the poor who have been bludgeoned and ran over by his Train law.
Two years into his term, the inconvenient truth about what he got himself into might finally be dawning to the old man. His small-town tactics are no match to the structural inertia of centuries of deep-seated and systemic corruption. Despite his folksy appeal and shrewd use of the State’s monopoly of violence, he has been gobbled by the stronger logic of the State and he is now ready to surrender to its eventual revelation as a despotic and police institution in the form of a military junta. It is indeed a sad thing to witness this dawning realization of the president before the public’s very eyes. Now, all he wants is to disappear.