In over eight months, so many things have happened in the Philippines. Good and bad, depending on the news you read, fake or real. I'd say, generally bad. This view is supported by reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, US Department of State and resolution by the European Union Parliament. The negative views on the Philippines are attributed to the policies and pronouncements of the man in Malacanang who assumed office on June 30, 2016.
Who is this man in Malacanang? What do we know about him?
He used to be a mayor of Davao City for decades. Since the Philippines has term limits for government elected officials, what the man in Malacanang did was typical of dynastic political clans in the Philippines - to alternate with family members. He put his daughter as his replacement as mayor, and then he returned to the City Hall to begin another three-term stint. In 2016, the mayor of the city is her daughter and the vice-mayor is his son. That's how dynastic his hold to power in the city is. In short, he owns the city.
In his long stay as mayor, there were COA reports that indicated irregularities and anomalies in the way the city had used its money. The latest anomaly was the hiring of approximately 11,000 ghost employees costing the city hall 720 million pesos in losses. If the city lost this much, then the money must be somewhere. In the days leading to the May election last year, a joint bank account was discovered containing billions of pesos in transactions. This led to the filing of plunder case against the man in Malacanang. A senator challenged the man in Malacanang to divulge the said bank account in Julia Vargas branch of the Bank of Philippine Islands (BPI) if he is indeed clean of corruption. Unexplained wealth is prima facie presumed to be proceeds from corrupt practices, specifically if the amount is beyond the proportion of his legitimate income. Up until now, the man in Malacanang who brandishes his courageous exploits suddenly has metaphorically put his tail between his legs. He used to exhort that his life is open and he has nothing to hide. All of this has backfired when he refuses to open his individual and joint bank accounts containing billions of pesos in transactions.
During his rule in Davao City, there were hundreds of unsolved incidents of killings. Police officers were suspended for their unexplained inutility and ineptitude towards stopping these killings in their jurisdiction. Political critics were also killed to tighten his grip on the city.
One police officer, now retired, Arturo Lascanas publicly confessed his involvement in over 200 killings in Davao City on orders of then the mayor, now the man in Malacanang. Another hitman, Edgar Matobato, earlier pointed to the man in Malacanang as the brain of the killings in Davao City. Both used to be a member of the dreaded Davao Death Squad (DDS). Both men needed more than two decades to break their loyalty to the man in Malacanang.
In fairness to the man, I considered him in the early campaign to be a good candidate. But when it became apparent that his lack of preparation for the job and his utterly simplistic solutions (e.g. riding a jetski to the shoal to establish sovereignty) to complex problems, I became unconvinced that he is the person fit to hold office in Malacanang for six years. When he won handily, I was one of the 90 percent of Filipinos who trusted him in the beginning of his term. Then, I only needed two months to see the egotistic tendencies for violence of the man in Malacanang. Often, the man would preach the necessity of killing to establish national order. He used words, such as kill and slaughter, to rouse his supporters. When thousands were killed without due process and without due diligence of the police to investigate, I saw a reign of terror of vigilante groups and some police. In horror, I see the DDS turning into a national death squad. The patterns of DDS are obviously adopted by the vigilante groups. With so many killings, funeral parlors even complained that they could not cope with the numbers of dead bodies being brought to them.
Here is the man who made his most vocal critic, a woman, the top drug lord of the country without reliable shreds of evidence. Before he assumed office, the woman did not figure in any drug list of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and police. Only to this man's eyes and his ardent supporters', the woman is the top drug lord of the country.
I know that eight months may be premature for others to know this man in Malacanang. It took two decades for Lascanas and Matobato. It took me two months. But the lies, deception, and violence being perpetuated by the man in Malacanang are grossly intolerable that his supporters will soon see what Matobato, Lascanas, and I saw in the man in Malacanang. May God bless the Philippines if these supporters refuse to see how the man in Malacanang is mainstreaming violence, cursing, corrupt practices, patronage politics, political persecution, and incompetence in public office! Five years and three months more under this man if we fail to get to know this man in Malacanang now.
