Is the attempt to destabilize serious?
PRESIDENT Duterte is perhaps right in his revelation about attempts to destabilize his government. This is supported by the information I received that critics of the administration will use the Yolanda rehabilitation and other issues to put down the president.
But Duterte is a sitting president who won by a huge margin over his closest rivals in the last elections, so I believe any attempt to oust him would be a waste of resources, time and energy.
The first move is supposedly for members of an urban poor organization from Tacloban City to file a complaint with the Office of the President against Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Lloyd Dino, thus dragging the president into this issue.
The issues would be a rehash of the complaints filed against officials of the previous administration, like substandard housing materials for Yolanda victims. According to my source, some of those involved in this “movement for change” are identified with some government officials.
In my chat with Secretary Dino, he said President Duterte verbally ordered him to facilitate the transfer of the residents away from the danger zone to the new site and expedite the installation of power and water and provide transportation, which he complied with.
It’s a fact that the Office of the Presidential Assistant for the Visayas that he heads, Dino said, has no participation in the construction of the resettlement houses for Yolanda victims as this was done by the national government agency. Well, Dino should know by now that working in government is not a bed of roses.
The two-day nationwide transport strike could also be an attempt to destabilize the Duterte administration. Piston, a left-leaning group of PUJ drivers and operators, opposed the government’s transportation modernization program to hit the president.
But the strike failed to paralyze the transport system because government responded by suspending classes in public schools and work in government offices. In Cebu City, rain assisted the cops.
Look at the streamers of the protesters. These read the same as it was in past administrations. It hit the alleged US-Duterte fascist regime. That President Duterte does not want to be criticized doesn’t make him a tyrant.
The president’s pronouncement that he will establish a revolutionary government should not be taken seriously, as it is not possible under our Constitution.