Days before Christmas, the latest political poll was out. It was either good news or bad news for the two top officials of the land where the longest festive season is known to be observed in the name of peace and goodwill.
But news, which according to the British journalist Malcom Muggeridge is really old hack in a new font, doesn’t choose the season to be in whatever form it comes. It’s not an apology, merely a blessing or a curse in disguise.
The latest pulse shows the sitting president safely, not comfortably ahead of the also sitting but seething vice president in terms of net approval. The son of a former dictator has a 23 per cent net approval versus his unsettled and unsettling spare tire of 22 percent. It’s a hairline risk but still a risk.
The decline of the veep’s popularity has been fodder for political analytsts in glee for future possibility even before the new year sets in motion as tongues start clicking. The bottom line: the Dutertes are finished, kaput, done politically.
So why is former senator Sonny Trillianes frothing in the mouth about a second coming of sort?
Prior to the latest poll, Trillanes, who has subtly been anointed as a political prophet of sort, has warned President Bongbong Marcos that he must have her potential successor impeached in one year or he will have his comeuppance.
If you ask basketball fans, that’s possible, like making a comeback from a 21 point deficit and win by a digit. The one point differential in net approval between the one who won in 2022 and the one claims she had actually the title in the bag but gave it away is flimsy. In fact, it can be called silly, if you go by Trillanes’ calculus.
History is irrelevant if you go by the latest heartbeat of the most naïve political voters in the world ever since, perhaps even before John Stuart Mills warned about intellectual deficit in the representative system like ours.
Incidentally, as this is written, a serious plea is circulated in social media by former Frank Drillon about the rise of actors, comedians and showbiz personalities gunning for political positions in next year’s election.
Whether it’s a curse, or a phenomenon or fate, the call is for the nation to wake up from its deep political slumber and be more intentional about making political choices before the country goes to the dogs.
It’[s not an unreasonable call from former bar topnotcher and remarkable public official whose only fault is to belong to the tribes of the dilawans who are not expected to make a good showing in the forthcoming polls. At least, he can remind the public about responsible voting until he is blue in the face.
Even before the latest poll, there were many who questioned the President’s timing. They don’t say it sucks, but something close it. He is still believed he is playing politics even when the line are clearly drawn and who has clearly crossed it or the rubicon.
Polls are a telltale sign like a lampost and you can response to it in one of two ways: 1) you can use it like a drunkard use it for support or 2( you can use the lamppost as a guide. Guess who needs it most or better.
Forget the earlier shenanigans. There was the imaginary decapitation of the highest political leader which was not only mentally questionable but criminal. There was her designating herself a s surviving successor that was insanely unacceptable and morally reprehensible. There was her threat to have the president, the wife and his cousin killed in the aftermath of an imagined assassination on herself.
The police have yet to find concrete proof that her life is threatened in anyway, except in the figment of her mind.
But the findings and recommendations of the House’s quadcom are unassailable and can’t simply be disregarded especially in the content of the President’s earlier pledge to ensure the rule of law. Bribery, forgery, graft and corruption and betrayal of public trust cannot simply be brushed aside for political reason. the Constitution is front and center of this gross and grand assault in the life of the nation.
If anything, the President’s better net approval should give him the moral and p0litical courage to strongly defend the Constitution and the rule of law against the onslaught of political machinations for selfish and power objectives.
There is an apparent or latent repudiation of politics on that pretext that, in a way, is sadly also reflected in the lack of bullishness from the public or electorate in terms of democratic enthusiasm and judicial standard. Politics has given way to that kind of societal chaos that cannot serve our long-term vision.
The call for the vice president’s impeachment deserves more than just an officious call for line agencies of the government to follow the legal course to punish those who defy it, in no uncertain terms.
It is call for a more decisive action, a defining moment as some congressmen described it that demands wisdom and determination. Telling the House to go back on its word that it will prosecute those it had investigated and found proof of liability is not the correct path to the future.
In politics and in life, timing it said, is everything. The President knows its implications, having lived through the rise and fall of his family, and the nation. The advice of an American senator to his late father to cut clean and cleanly at the height of the 1986 People Revolution should be timely reminder.
Trillanes’ must know or fear something we don’ t in urging the President to give the impeachment of the vice president not only a china man’s chance but an important place in our nation’s history.
