WHEN FORMER President Rodrigo Duterte called current Philippine President Bongbong Marcos a drug addict and constantly high or “bangag” during a prayer rally in Davao on January 28, BBM struck back quickly at his predecessor and told reporters before his departure for Vietnam on January 29 that it must be Duterte’s use of fentanyl over the years that has affected his health and clouded his judgment.
Critics were quick to call this political bickering between the two leading figures of the erstwhile Uniteam as a whole new chapter in the country’s drug war – Boy Cocaine versus Tatay Fentanyl.
Or is this another case of the pot calling the kettle black?
Towards the end of 2023, the internet was flooded with hundreds of posts and videos from anonymous accounts claiming that BBM was caught on video using illegal substances. While all these claims were not substantiated with any proof, the “polvoron” issue sparked a renewed curiosity among the public on the President’s illegal drugs history. In fact, this was brought up during the height of the campaign in the 2022 presidential elections. However, the Marcos fanatics dismissed it as outright lies and considered it as another smear campaign from the so-called Dilawan.
Riding high on his promise to end the country’s drug problems, Duterte won in the 2016 presidential elections amidst reports of human rights violations in his all-out war against drugs as Davao City chief. Early in his term, Duterte admitted taking, and abusing fentanyl which, according to him was prescribed to him to relieve pain caused by spinal injuries he suffered from a motorbike accident when he was 68 years old.
Then in 2017 his son Paolo and son-in-law Manases Carpio were called to a Senate inquiry regarding their links to the shipment of $125-M worth of narcotics from China into the country. This was not the first time that Paolo was implicated in drug cases. There has been government documentation that dates back to as early as 2007 which shows Paolo had been mentioned by the country’s drug enforcement agency as one of the drug protectors in Davao City, the Duterte’s hometown in the southern Philippines.
Is this ongoing word war and exchange of accusations the start of a real crack and eventual demise of the Uniteam? For a supposed unifying team that was not formed to address the myriad of problems facing the country but to simply ensure the defeat of the opposition candidate, the fall-out was bound to happen.
In November 2023, BBM touted his administration as anti-corruption when his allies in Congress questioned and eventually disapproved the confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education amounting to P500-M and P150-M, respectively. This move, according to many, soured the otherwise mutually beneficial relationship between BBM and VP Sara Duterte.
Now Duterte is posturing himself as against Charter change, not so much to defend the Constitution but to spite BBM and to block any move to perpetuate himself, the Marcos family, and his minions to power. Obviously, this is a move borne out of self-preservation, and not out of patriotism.
At the center of all of these are the Filipino taxpayers who continue to suffer the consequences of the wrong choices made by the gullible, indifferent and vulnerable voting public.
As for the opposition that is now relegated temporarily on the sidelines as mere spectators, they should take their cue from Napoleon – never interfere with the enemies when they are destroying themselves.
