By Mortz C. Ortigoza, MPA
The two-point plunge of the popularity of beleaguered Vice President Sara
Duterte was due to the series of damaging corruption accusations by people of
various persuassions how she handled hundreds of millions of pesos of
confidential funds (CF) when she received them in the second semester of 2022
and the whole year of 2023.
According to the November 26 to December 3, 2024 scientific survey of the premier and prestigious pollster’s Pulse Asia, Sara got 50 points versus the 48 points of President Bongbong Marcos. Duterte got a significant reduction from Pulse with 69 points in June 2024 and 60 points in September 2024 while Marcos had a slight drop of 53 and 50 points in June and September, respectively. The latest poll was a tie because of the margin of error of positive and negative of two percent from the 2,400 respondents.
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| ESTRANGED FORMER ALLIES. Philippines Vice President Sara Duterte (left) and President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. Asia Media Center |
The alarming decline of Vice President Sara’s popularity among the among
the 69 million voters (2024 Comelec) was due to the damaging accussations that
she stole if not malversed the P612.5-million confidential funds appropriated
to her in 2022 and 2023.
Some of them according to the hearings of the QuadCom as posted at the
column of Jarius Bondoc in PhilStar:
• 405 of 677 payees (60 percent) were inexistent, said committee chairman
Rep. Joel Chua. Philippine Statistics Authority has no birth, marriage, or
death records of Mary Grace Piattos, Chippy McDonald, Fernando Tempura, Carlos
Miguel Oishi, and Reymunda Jane Nova – all snack brands.
• No record either of Kokoy Villamin, who received cash from (the Office
of the President) OVP and DepEd but with different penmanship and signatures,
said Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong.
·
Milky
Secuya twice received money from OVP on the same day and used the same pen ink
for different signatures.
·
Alice
Crescencio signed three DepEd acknowledgement receipts from three distant
sites: Pasay City, Iligan City, and Lanao del Sur.
·
OVP and
DepEd officers broke state accounting rules on handling CFs, Rep. Romeo Acop
said. OVP special disbursing officer Gina Acosta and DepEd SDO Edward Fajarda
handled hundred million-peso withdrawals but had no fidelity bonds.
· Acosta admitted turning over P125-million cash every quarter without proper documentation to VPSG chief Col. Raymund Dante Lachica. Similar confession by Fajarda in giving large sums to DepEd security head Col. Dennis Nolasco.
DepEd Usec. Nolasco Mempin, a retired major general, was used for falsified CF spending, Rep. Gerville Luistro said.
· DepEd needed to justify millions in CF disbursements. Mempin stated that Sara asked him to secure certifications from Army battalion commanders who officially joined Youth Summits. DepEd submitted the certificates to the Commission on Audit as proof of spending. It turned out that local governments, not DepEd nor AFP, bankrolled the events.
Despite VP Sara threat in November to kill President Marcos, First Lady
Liza Marcos, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez when her chief of staff Atty.
Zuleika Lopez – whom Ramon Tulfo called Sara’s girlfriend – was cited in
contempt by the House of Representatives’ Quad Committee and thrown to the
House’s slammer for several days, supporters of Sara all over the country hysterically
called in social media for mass demonstrations especially at Epifanio de los
Santos Avenue (EDSA) – the symbol of People’s Power that ousted two Philippines
presidents.
They wanted to goad the military and the police to join ‘em for their
People Power’s pipe dream.
What happened? Only a hundred of more warm bodies showed up their
support. Was it due to the latest Pulse’s poll that Sara got only 34 points
while Marcos got 51 points, respectively in the almost 15, million populated
Metro Manila?
Duterte and Marcos got 40 points
and 64 points (?), respectively in Balance Luzon. It only showed gargantuan
island’s Luzon as the bailwick of Marcos.
Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao have a population of 64,260,312 (2021),
21,155,014 (2021), and 26,252,442, respectively.
Even in the Duterte’s lair Mindanao where she got 80 points of the
Pulse’s survey, the call for a mass rally to show support to lawyer Lopez and
the government’s persecutions of the Vice President did not result to a hundred
of thousands Filipinos converging and shouting with their lungs out in the
highways of Davao City. The Marcos Loyalists of the 1980’s – whom were paid and
part of “hakot (hurled by buses)” could shame the pathetic numbers of Duterte
rallyists in Davao, Cebu, and Metro Manila.
Are the Filipinos now lukewarm to
go by the hundreds of thousands or million in the street to induce the top
brass of the military or police to breakaway from the chain of command and go
to EDSA and Camp Crame to call for their comrades in arms to join them against
the constitutionally constituted government of Bongbong Marcos just like EDSA 1
and 2?
The fear that jailing the Vice President (by citing her in contempt at
the Quad or incase the plunder case could be filed against her and the Judge
sees a probable cause) or her father former President Rodrigo Duterte could
unleash the dogs of war in the military and the police who are loyal to them
seem to be next to impossible after those series of minuscule pathetic rallies and after Congress included in the 2025
General Appropriations Act and President Marcos will sign anytime from now the
P6,000 a month increase of the already padded pay of the military.
Yes Virginia! The military only and not the police are the beneficiary as
the government was at a loss how to bankroll this new increase that I suspected
it came from the P15 billion diversion of funds from the P50 billion
modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
This diversion incited protest
calls cum manifesto like those from the retired generals in the AFP and the
Philippines National Police. It only shows that loyalty against a coup is
higher priority for Malacanang than procuring a squadron of F-16 Viper or
Gripen Jas 39 multiple role fighter jets to fight the Chinese at the Spratlys. Anyway,
the price of this squadron is prohibited as each jet cost P5 billion or P60
billion for the 12 jets. I know this because I wrote extensively on them on my
blog and interviewed Saab-Gripen Vice President for Communication Robert Hewson
and an an executive of Gripen who is a Swedish pilot in the Asian Defense &
Security (ADAS) at the World Trade Center in Pasay City.
Why the members of the 150,000 -strong AFP and not the members of the
220,000 –strong PNP that will be given the manna? Each of the members of this
two branches of military and uniformed personnel (MUP) has received a generous
increase of his basic pay when President Duterte complied with his presidential
campaign promise to give them hefty pay spike thus his signing of the law in
2018. A Private in the military and the police received an almost P30,000 from
their previous P15, 000 emoluments.
A Private in the military will receive almost P36,000 a month in January
2025 (and we are not talking here about the salaries of the Corporal to the
Four-Star General) while its police counterpart turns green with envy.
The Marcos Administration – cash strapped – ignore the police despite
their 220, 000 sheer number. Why? They are not a threat to topple down the
leadership at the Palace near the Pasig River. The sanamagans only carry long
and short firearms while the 150, 000 military operate howitzers, mortars,
machine guns, tanks, and fighter planes.
Now, that’s the chutzpah of how to buy the loyalty of a particular sector in the government.
For the meantime, we crossed our fingers for the looming impeachment of Sara by the pro-Marcos majority congressmen in the House - spoiled by pork barrels - approve the Article of Impeachment and how Senate tries her.
Senate President Chiz Escudero said on a presser that impeachment process is sui generis (unique) that even vacation breaks could not stop to oblige the Senators to sit as a judge to see the culpability of the Vice President.
Would the brouhahas of the impeachment gnaw further the popularity of La Sara?
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MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA
I am a twenty years seasoned Op-Ed Political Writer in various newspapers and Blogger exposing government corruptions, public officials idiocy and hypocrisies, and analyzing local and international issues. I have a master’s degree in Public Administration and professional government eligibility. I taught for a decade Political Science and Economics in universities in Metro Manila and cities of Urdaneta, Pangasinan and Dagupan. Follow me on Twitter @totoMortz or email me at totomortz@yahoo.com.
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