Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio thinks all politics is local, which is why she pandered to the zealots of Pastor Quiboloy y Carreon by telling them she committed an error when she asked them to vote for President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in the May 8, 2022 presidential election.
In her statement on Aug. 25, 2024, Sara Duterte was contrite in asking that members of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC) “forgive” her for committing a mortal sin. She failed to admit that she ran in tandem with Marcos Jr. and had she not asked them to support Bongbong, she could have been skewered by Team Unity operatives for junking her running mate. Yet, it was Sara herself who promoted the idea that honesty is not needed in politics and sincerity is likewise worthless before and after the elections. Of course, the KOJC was never responsible for the victory of any president, past or present, since it’s a much-hyped “religious” group with “millions” of members who sing paeans to Quiboloy in his Tamayong “kingdom. KOJC is a cult very much like the cult of Jim Jones in Guyana.
However, by telling the Duterte choir that she “regretted” her decision to back Marcos to the hilt, she should follow it up by quitting as vice president since she has just burned all the bridges behind her and made it impossible to reconcile with Malacanang. Sara is the gift that keeps on giving that her “rival” for the presidency in 2028, who looks, talks and walks like Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, must be more than pleased. First, she quarreled with Romualdez over the “demotion” of Deputy Speaker and former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, then her camp blasted Romualdez anew over billions spent for his foreign trips, along with dozens of pals. Then she dubbed Romualdez as “Tambaluslos,” the mythical forest monster with huge genitalia and insatiable lust.
Sara also accused Romualdez of masterminding the expose about her spending P221.424-million in 11 days in December 2022 using the Contingent Fund (CF) of the Palace chargeable to what she thought was the confidential intelligence fund (CIF) to be given to her office. She was not entitled to it since there was no such item in the 20022 budget for the Office of the Vice President (OVP.) No matter how you look at it, Sara has to explain the disbursements and even reimburse the republic for what is clearly an illegal disbursement. Yet, the petulant Sara found a conspiracy against her by Romualdez and ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro, Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas and Kabataan Rep. Raoul Manuel, who found all the receipts that confirmed Sara’s cavalier treatment of public money.
She has trouble behaving as Vice President just as she failed to make a dent at the Department of Education (DepEd), stirring the hornet’s nest and creating more enemies to keep her busy fighting for a lifetime. She is like a square peg in round hole at the DepEd and a bull in china shop as she couldn’t understand why she is being grilled, why she has to defend her budget and why lawmakers would say no to all her pet projects, including the “Isang Kaibigan” children’s picture book that couldn’t pass muster the test. Andy Runton must be laughing himself hoarse over the “Isang Kaibigan,” just as the US-based writer Ninotchka Rosca laughed upon reading Sara’s “obra maestra.” Who says honesty is needed in literature, especially children’s literature? At P50 per copy, Sara will be flooding condos, shacks and hovels with 200,000 to better serve her needs in promoting herself.
Nonetheless, since she was out of the country when the floods inundated Metro Manila on July 24, 2024, she now discovers another “cause celebre” or “casus belli,” the “failure” of the Marcos Jr. government, her own government, to “implement” a flood control program for Davao City, which is regularly ravaged by floods as the surrounding watersheds and forests have been stripped of trees and vegetation, leading to soil erosion and the deposition of huge volumes of silt in the rivers and other waterways. Sara may point her index finger at Malacanang for not funding the program as it was approved only last but four of her fingers point to her, her father Rodrigo, her brother Paolo and her other brother Sebastian for not crafting such a program even as they had been in power in Davao City for more than three decades. It is funny how she makes a mountain out of a molehill, and exposes the sheer incompetence to give their own “beloved” city a respite from annual disasters.
Sara is, of course, projecting, just as Donald Trump projects his own failings as the problems of the Democrats. The Dutertes do not take responsibility for their shortcomings and since 1986, they could have lobbied long and hard for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to craft a viable, sustainable and comprehensive solution to the recurrent flooding in the city. Instead, they benefited from the confidential intelligence funds (CIFs) that Duterte, the father, Duterte, the elder son, Duterte, the younger son and Princess Sara appropriated in the decades they had controlled Davao City. Sara had complete control of more than P2.6-billion in CIFs during her term as mayor from 2016 to 2022.
Rodrigo Duterte had a CIF of P144 million in 2016, and Sara inherited the budget when she became mayor the same year. The following year, the CIF of Sara zoomed to P293 million, or more than double the previous year’s figure at 103.5%. In 2018, the CIF soared to P420 million, a 43.34% increase from the previous year. The CIF was fixed at P460 million in 2019 and the three succeeding years. Yet, these are just the CIF and do not include the city’s appropriations for other projects, including waste disposal for which the city reportedly forked over P1-million daily. Then, you have an army of so-called “ghost” employees that the Commission of Audit (COA) had been trying to locate for years. The CIFs spent by the Dutertes dwarf those allocated for wealthier cities like Makati, Quezon City and Manila. With Sara now openly at war with the Marcoses and the Romualdezes with her statement on Quiboloy and the raid on his “kingdom,” expect not only fireworks but continuous bombardment. Sara needs a lot of reinforcements to pursue her own little war and maybe, just maybe, Uncle Xi may come to her rescue.
