Rather than play along with the wrong idea that vice president Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio was trying to be funny when she appointed herself as “designated survivor” for the July 22, 2024 State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., which meant she was going to keep herself cooped up in some bunker away from the “threatened” Batasang Pambansa, government should let its intelligence work and find out if the veep, and the Dutertes, are ready to bomb their way to power.
Take Sara seriously, unlike Secretary General Reginald Velasco, who is still waiting for Sara’s response to an invitation to attend the July 22 show, or Manila Rep. Joel Chua, the designated Sara critic, who groused that the President’s safety is of paramount significance to the nation and must not be treated as a “joking” matter, and read what Sara and her plotting family are really up to. Sure, a Nagasaki-like bomb would obliterate the Batasang Pambansa and kill the pro-Marcos supermajority, along with the Dutertistic lawmakers, but Sara can never be sure that Tambaluslos would perish along with Velasco, the unelected power behind the mace at the Batasan. It is guaranteed that the bomb would not create a big hole on Sen. Bato de la Rosa’s head or save Sen. Bong Go’s chin from being pulverized.
Sara’s “designated survivor” is pure fiction but her carving for power is not. It is only in the US where the “designated survivor” description applies to top officials who are secured in the event that some idiot places a bomb at the US Capitol during the inauguration in the same manner that Guy Fawkes tried to bomb the British parliament and eliminate the damned Protestants calling the shots in the Court of St. James. Watching too much of the TV series “Designated Survivor” that ran for three seasons in the US, Sara must be enamored with Kiefer Sutherland, son of the sensible actor Donald Sutherland who passed away recently. Kiefer was the reluctant Cabinet secretary who became President Thomas Kirkman after all those in the line of succession were killed by powerful bomb.
Sara is the direct opposite of Kirkman in that she has been gunning for power for the past several months, with calls for “Let Sara lead” becoming a sick job everywhere in the country not named Davao City. Even as she sat in the Cabinet (as DepEd secretary after failing to snatch the defense portfolio), Sara has been behaving at cross-purposes with the Palace, seeking P500-million in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and another P150-million CIF for DepEd. This, after she got P125-million from Malacanang’s Contingency Fund (CF) and an extra P96.424 million for transportation and burial expenses for grieving Mindanao constituents in the dying days of December 2022, when Sara was still covered by Leni Robredo’s zero CIF budget. CF is an accountable item and Sara has to explain how she spent P221.424 million in 11 days.
Taking her word for it, just as the Duterte world believed her yarn that three Dutertes would run for the Senate next year, Sara failed to do the most important thing: She should have appointed herself not only as the “designated survivor” but also the “designated president” since she could have put a hex on Bongbong, First Lady Liza Marcos, Senate President Chiz Escudero and, of course, her “best friend forever” (BFF), Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo and whoever else is in the line of succession. They may not die of a “tsar bomba” at the Batasan, but they can be downed by “bad food,” or contaminated bottled water (even Evian can be laced with poison) or a blackout that can hit at the worst time (and back-up generator may conk out, too) at 3 p.m., exactly the time when executions at Bilibid start.
Being serious about a legal theory for the Sara show, Chua said Duterte does not have the power to appoint herself as a designated survivor since the 1987 Constitution states the fixed line of succession in case of a sitting president’s death or permanent disability. Yet, there was nothing legal on the Sara’s sense of rumor, the same sense of rumor that has served the Dutertes in good stead in Davao City, where their cardinal principle is borrowed from Juvenal: Give Romans bread and circuses and they won’t revolt. Not much need for Marie Antoinette’s crumbs and cake crusts to feed peasants.
Sara is possibly having terrible nightmares right now as the supposed “maisug” movement they are sponsoring appear to be losing steam and the purported owner of the universe, Pastor Apollo Quiboloy y Carreon of Davao City and Lubao, Pampanga had made himself scarce as the FBI seeks his scalp for his child trafficking, child abuse and fraud cases in the US. She cannot relate to the people at large owing to her bad management at DepEd, her strange views on education and her militarizing campuses. However, Rodrigo Duterte has been appointed as the “designated administrator” of Quiboloy’s assets and if he got the proper financial chops, he can use the huge amount of money to ensure that Sara may end up truly as the “designated survivor.”
Better yet, Sara should appoint herself “president,” or the “shadow president,” as she fervently hopes Bongbong would commit mistakes, tons of them, and his acceptability rating drops precipitously, while her popularity streaks to high heavens, and she endears herself to the people at large between now and 2025, and from next year to 2028, long enough to introduce herself to a country that despises Rodrigo Duterte, his Chinese inner circle, his pal Xi Jinping and his media hog valet, Bon Go. Meanwhile, people who really want to see fireworks across the political firmament pray that Sara starts firing away at Romualdez, who is her match and is revving up his machinery for 2028. Or Liza Marcos, who is not supposed to run in 2028, but is known to despise Sara Duterte.
