Contrary to the pronouncement of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the instability of the Marcos administration was in full display in recent weeks.
In case you forgot, the elite Special Forces of Speaker Martin Romualdez in the House of Representatives trampled on virtually every known legal and moral doctrine known to a democratic state in their haste to crucify ex-President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Sara Duterte.
This they hoped to accomplish by a shameless public demolition of father and daughter that would culminate in the former being hailed before the International Criminal Court and the latter in an impeachment case.
We all know how it ended. All talk of the ICC has stopped while the impeachment case was dead even before it was filed.
When the influential Iglesia ni Cristo declared that it would hold rallies against the impeachment, it sent shivers down the spine of the powers-that-be in Malacañang. In a desperate bid to save face, members of the HOR were bused in to the Palace to “declare their support” for BBM.
If there were doubts about the insanity of the decision-makers of this administration, they vanished into thin air after that episode. How could the insistence to file the impeachment case be a declaration of support to BBM who labeled the impeachment “a waste of time” in a bid to call it off?
You disobey the President and then you declare “support” for him? If that’s not insanity, we don’t know what is.
Succeeding events were equally, ah, insane.
After cutting corners to come up with the budget for fiscal year 2025 so legislators can present it for BBM’s signature, the latter chickened out and postponed the signing “to allow more time for a rigorous and exhaustive review” of the measure.
First, it’s a slap on both the HOR and the Senate for presenting a document for signing that, in the words of Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, would require a “rigorous and exhaustive review”. That’s no different from saying Malacañang was far from pleased with it.
Of course, we all know what happened.
The nation was in uproar, among other things, over the defunding of the Philhealth funds to the payout war chest of Romualdez and his Praetorian guards and the slashing of the Department of Education budget even after the resignation of VP Inday. Not to mention the play on the Armed Forces budget that tried to please the soldiers at the expense of the modernization plans.
And who can forget how the Bicam formalized the emasculation of the Office of the Vice President’s budget?
Bersamin is right: the budget that the two branches of Congress prepared needs deeper scrutiny. Of course, it would be too much naivete to expect that from BBM with his infamous P20 per kilo scam. Budol me once, shame on you. Budol me twice, shame on me.
Who else but BBM would have the temerity to insist that “we’re quite stable” when everyone knows for a fact that we’re not? It might look that way at present but it’s more because Filipinos decided they will celebrate Christmas regardless of the manner BBM is running the country.
In his alternate universe, BBM trivializes the rumblings and widespread resentment to his incompetence and mismanagement as mere “noises”. Whoever advised him to use that word is a closet enemy because it is fuel to the fire. If there is anything that will motivate the disgruntled in this country even more, it is BBM’s insistence that the nation under his watch is “stable”.
More of this and we are reminded that BBM really needs that hair follicle drug test.
According to a recent survey conducted by Publicus, 36% of Filipinos disapproved of the Marcos administration’s overall performance. While 36% also gave their approval, 28% are undecided. By any measure, this is more than just “a lot of noise”.
When you compare that with FPRRD’s 91% at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, “stable” would be the last word that comes to mind. Word accuracy and firm grasp of reality are not BBM’s strongest points, but that doesn’t give him a free pass to fantasize at the nation’s expense.
Stable this country definitely is not.
