Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio has gone bonkers for complaining that his father, the unlamented Rodrigo Duterte, will not be treated fairly by the House quad committee hearings on extrajudicial killings (EJKs) during the “war on drugs.” Fact is, Duterte Sr. was treated well on Nov. 13, even if he refused to answer “yes” or “no” to the question of Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas on whether the drug war was a “Davao City-style operation” or not.
Brosas based the query on what former police Col. Royina Garma disclosed to the same committee earlier, when she said there was a “reward system” for the killings, like the reward system for “ninja cops” admitted by Sen. Bong Go, Duterte Sr.’s Man Friday, during an interview with reporters years ago. Go was also tagged as the “drug war paymaster,” with the remittances taken care of by his underling Muking Espino. Ex-police Col. Edilberto Leonardo, an Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) member, affirmed Garma’s testimony in his role as the implementor of the drug war. Duterte Sr. admitted that Leonardo was recruited for the drug war because INC members can be trusted with money.
The House hearing was very generous to Duterte Sr. even if he continues to bob and weave, parry questions, deflect, and engage in prolonged diatribe, recalling that he killed 6 or 7 people in Davao City, including policemen, which contradicts his earlier claim that he has not killed anyone, as only his death squad members do the murders. It would be stupid of Duterte Sr. to think that coddling murderers is part of a presidential job description and that he could get away with it. The last time we heard, there was no prescription for murder. Like in the Senate, Duterte Sr. showed his irritation when asked about the 122 innocent children in the course of his bloody drug war. Similarly, he nearly had a hissy fit about the question about the drug war’s “Davao City-style operation.”
Sara and her father will certainly not talk about the “fairness” that attended the deaths of more than 3,000 street waifs, small-time gang members, and petty thieves in Davao City when they converted the city into their turf. Justice means a bullet that snuffs out the life of a person the Dutertes had disqualified from living. As potentate, Duterte Sr. declared that crime is the principal problem of Davao City, not joblessness, not poverty, and certainly not corruption at City Hall. Yet, from whence did the reward come? Under the Dutertes, the city had an ocean of cash to spend. Sara spent P2.7 billion in confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) for the hitmen and an army of 11,000 casuals and job order hires.
It is only now that Sara is agonizing over the perceived “unfairness” by her and her father’s enemies. She thus neatly places her foes in the box reserved for her foes, ready to be beheaded and thrown into the Philippine Deep, and carps a lot, hoping the teeming millions would show her some sympathy for the stupid moves of her own making. For her, politics is subtraction, and declares that she hates crowds, which explains that since 2022, she had launched petty little wars against Martin Romualdez even though she wangled concessions from the Palace, including the poisoned pawn in the form of the P125-million “CIF” which turned out to be from the Contingent Fund (CF) for which she is accountable.
Looking frail, even nervous, Duterte Sr. has lost his mojo, and no less than Manila Rep. Benny Abante scored his drug war, the 30,000 fatalities not being acceptable to him as a Baptist minister. Abante asked why so many people had to die and told Duterte Sr. that it is only God who has the power of life and death over humanity, the unlamented former president included. Duterte has been allergic to people blaming him for the drug war but he has to swallow his own guff. He bragged about ending the drug problem in six months; it worsened in six years. The arrogant Duterte Sr. pandered to the gallery of rogues who wanted to clean up Davao City to enrich businessmen. He followed the stinking upper class in expanding his necromania nationwide while the Southern China drug kingpins got royal treatment and profited immensely from their illicit trade.
As to Duterte Jr., she believes that she and her father are the victims of “political prosecution” while the nation at large believes that any investigation into his fiscal abuse should be pursued, especially now that the Commission on Audit (COA) has uncovered documents that show in uncertain terms that P112.5-million were misspent in the 11 dying days of 2022. COA wants Sara to return P73 million paid for safehouses, rewards in cash and in kind. There were no after-operations reports on the intelligence gathered from dubious informants. COA cannot make heads or tails of the falsified acknowledgment receipts (ARs.)
Now, to prove that Sara is more than a wastrel, the budget division chief of the Office of the Vice President (OVP), Edelyn Rabago, testified that P1.026 billion of the OVP’s budget for 2023 was spent for satellite offices in 13 regions and provinces. For the current year, P893.36 million was disbursed for the same offices. She has two extension offices in Tondo and another one in Lipa City, Batangas. OVP chief administrative officer Kevin Gerome Tenido said the satellite offices were established in July 2022 even as there was no money for it under the budget of former Vice President Leni Robredo. They charged the expense to the OVP’s good governance program under the budget, which also covers social services. Spending more than P1 billion for the 16 offices in one year means each office costs P64.1 million. This amount is a chump change for Sara, who must be enamored with building megalithic structures.
