Tag Archives: Paolo Duterte

komentaryo

Duterte chooses charter change #CongressPH #NoToChaCha

Duterte, his men, and his children have circled the wagons, and we should all know better than just to watch it happen. At the very least, we learn from it. Because this is the first time that the process is on the surface — we are being shown the action, and we are allowed to infer the unfolding, and we have seen how the crisis was resolved, so they can all move towards the conclusion — that of Charter Change, which is at the heart of this (now resolved) fight for the House Speakership.

The show was interesting enough of course, even as it was a dead-end for nation. The battle was always only among Duterte’s men, with all three, Alan Peter Cayetano, Lord Allan Velasco, and Martin Romualdez pledging loyalty to the President. Of course Romualdez is more of a Gloria Arroyo (and Marcos) ally; Velasco seems to have come out of nowhere but is supported by Duterte propagandists; and Cayetano, well, is only loyal to himself — but all of that doesn’t matter when they’re united for the common Duterte cause.

Unity has been such a part of the plot that Duterte and his men put together, and the audience almost doesn’t matter: we aren’t supposed to care. After all, we all know that Duterte controls Congress, and will give him everything on a silver platter. But this battle for the house speakership was taking too long to get resolved, and in the meantime, we were being given too much information about how corrupt, how greedy, how power-hungry the men who surround Duterte are — his children included.

So what did this battle for House Speakership reveal?

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komentaryo

Duterte’s children, lust for power, and a discredited Congress

I don’t know what it is we still expect from a House of Representatives ruled by Duterte’s people — men and women who have clearly made the decision to follow this President’s every whim, who have sold their souls to this devil of a government that engages in state violence, impunity, and the murder of democracy.

But then again, we should’ve known this was going to happen. After all, we watched Congress Reps up in arms versus the better Duterte appointees, when he still had his head on straight, but had absolutely no control over even his own party-mates — oligarchs, businessmen, miners, landlords — who were threatened by the likes of Gina Lopez, Judy Taguiwalo, and Paeng Mariano in the Cabinet. Even then, for all his tapang Duterte was revealed to be nothing more but a coward: there is no one he can control other than those people he can fire or kill — and Congress Reps aren’t that.

And then there are his children — more people he cannot even control, a son and daughter who do not listen to their father, and who have their own agendas. If there’s anyone putting Duterte to shame (more than his big mouth), it is his own children.  (more…)