The chutzpah of those running

MANY Filipinos must cringe every time Mayor Rodrigo Duterte opens his mouth. The Silent Majority must be cursing Fate wondering why the nation has been punished by the emergence of the Punisher (or is it the Equalizer?) as a presidential candidate.

Duterte claims to want to liberate the country from crime, drugs, and corruption. But my impression is he disdains us all. He’s an equalopportunity insult-monger, he insults and curses everybody. Is that why he’s called the Equalizer?

(In an earlier column I wondered if Duterte, if he became president, would be cursing Barack Obama, Xi Jinping, or Vladimir Putin. He didn’t wait to become president to curse Pope Francis.)

I believe Duterte when he says he never wanted to be president. If he did, he wouldn’t be as gruff and coarse. A self-respecting politician wouldn’t be throwing insults and curse words like they were running out of stock. Duterte is not serious; he’s just playing games.

He was even insulting Alan Peter Cayetano for trailing him around like a pet dog. “Palaging nandyan, buntot ng buntot.” And yet the usually feisty Cayetano just ignored the insults. Does he crave the vice presidency that badly?

I admired Cayetano when he led the fight to impeach Gloria Arroyo. Arroyo loyalists like Edcel Lagman and Luis Villafuerte ganged up on him in Congress. But Cayetano turned the other cheek and gifted Lagman and Villafuerte balut from his home district of Pateros.

Then Cayetano (and Sonny Trillanes) went after Veep Jojo Binay and his alleged unexplained wealth and properties. For all those things, Cayetano impressed me. But lately I’m beginning to not like him. Just like I’m done liking Neri Colmenares.

Speaking of Binay, why is he still around? In any other country where official accountability is demanded by society, someone like Binay would have been consigned to permanent disgrace the moment the allegations, which appear credible, against him had surfaced.

And then there’s the rude and boastful Miriam Santiago. I don’t get why she’s running. She can barely walk without assistance. How can she last the campaign?

She’s counting on netizens to send her to Malacañang. She thinks she can stay at home and campaign online. My reading of Santiago is she can’t stand being out of the limelight, so even though her health is questionable (she says her medical records are nobody’s business), she decided to enter the presidential race.

And then there’s Grace Poe, an overambitious neophyte who wants to be president so soon in her political career. She mouths motherhood statements pleasing to the ears of Filipinos but she has no detailed plans for how to accomplish her great-sounding promises.

Bongbong Marcos’ run for vice president is something insidious and worth watching. This is the start of the national campaign of the Marcos family to get back in power.

When the Marcoses lost power in a humbling fashion, they slunk into obscurity in Hawaii. But when they were allowed to return to the Philippines, they started their slow re-assimilation into political power by getting elected in their provincial bailiwicks. And then Bongbong got elected to the Senate.

Now he’s aiming at the vice presidency. In Bongbong’s mind, if things work out in his favor in 2016, the presidency would be next in 2022. The Marcoses’ attempt to make a comeback is what the Yiddish call “chutzpah” (pronounced with a guttural “h” – hoots-pah), meaning utter nerve or gall.

Grace, Digong, Miriam, Binay, and Bongbong, they’re all brimming with chutzpah.

What have we Filipinos done to deserve such a cast of characters vying to run our government?