Corruption frustrates President Duterte

I was a big surprise to read in The Philippine STAR yesterday that it seems President Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte looks exhausted and frustrated over his failure to curb corruption in the government to the point that he is ready to step down before his term ends in 2022. However, he said something that unfortunately does not fit our 1987 Constitution when he said that he prefers either former senator Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos or Senator Francis Escudero to succeed him if he leaves because he believes that Vice President Leni Robredo “cannot do the job.”

While I totally agree with President Duterte on his assessment of Robredo, however, for as long as she is still our vice president he cannot stop her from becoming president if he leaves his post or resigns. So in the end, many pro-Duterte pundits are correct in their assessment that for as long as Robredo is vice president, it should keep President Duterte from quitting.

We know too well and expected much from Robredo, unfortunately, when she was still the grieving widow of the late DILG secretary Jesse Robredo, she didn’t even demand a complete investigation into the crash that killed her husband when she could have demanded it from the Aquino Regime. Worse, when the Seneca plane that Robredo took was still missing, DILG operatives ransacked Jesse’s condominium in search of something and most pundits believe that it was for documents naming pro-Aquino loyalists who were involved in illegal drugs.

Many pundits say that this is the very same list of drug lords that is now in the hands of President Duterte. Again, if you recall, I wrote a column when my good friend and fellow The FREEMAN columnist Atty. Paul Oaminal dared me to write that in the State of the Nation Addresses made by then president Benigno “PNoy” Aquino in his six years as president, he barely mentioned the problem of illegal drugs.

This is the very reason why many people support President Duterte’s war against illegal drugs because criminals are out to destroy the youth with drugs and make money from their families. Remember the years during the Marcos dictatorship? The opposition painted a cartoon depicting the tentacles of the supposed corrupt conjugal Marcos dictatorship. Perhaps we should exhort some smart cartoonists to come up with a similar cartoon but this time depicting personalities involved in illegal drugs. But for as long as President Duterte is in charge, then this war against illegal drugs has to continue.

Again, let me take that wonderful quote from Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ, when he said: “If President Rodrigo Roa Duterte does not win the war against drugs, the problem will grow and persist until no administration can. Then we will be controlled by drugs.” This is a reality in the Philippines today, but unfortunately there are just too many people who have become corrupt in the government, which has frustrated President Duterte.

Last Tuesday night, during the launching of Pilipinas Angat Lahat Alliance with business leaders led by Manny V. Pangilinan of the MVP Group, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, Lucio Tan, as well as diplomats at Malacañang, President Duterte intimated to his audience saying: “Guys, I want you to know that I am thinking of resigning because I’m tired. I am not angry with anybody. My chase against corrupt government officials seems to be endless, and it has contaminated almost all government departments and offices.”

I can understand the frustrations of the president especially after he sacked 20 military officials and the entire board of the Nayong Pilipino Foundation for alleged corruption. While President Duterte admitted his failure to solve the endemic corruption in the country, which is why he was ready to give up his post, however he pointed out that Robredo is not competent to replace him.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said the president was not the kind of person who abandons his duties.

When asked by the media about what President Duterte just intimated to the business leaders, Sotto said, “Maybe he just said that in the heat of the moment or he was just getting frustrated with the corruption in government, I’ve known him since 1988, he does not know the spelling of surrender.” So let’s leave it here.