Pres. Rodrigo Duterte could self-destruct!

In South Korea, justice reigned supreme as impeached President Park Geun-hye was arrested and jailed on alleged corruption after using her influence to secure financial aid to her friends. Here in the Philippines where injustice reigns, during the time of then Pres. Benigno "PNoy" Aquino III I had no doubt that he was personally involved in the misuse of the Disbursement Acceleration Program and the Priority Development Assistance Fund which was declared "unconstitutional" by the Supreme Court. Yet instead of allowing the president to answer for his role in the release of these funds, the Office of the Ombudsman cleared his name.

Back in June 29, 2014, Manila Times columnist Rigoberto "Bobi" Tiglao wrote a column entitled, "Biggest secret of all: Aquino's P220 Billion Pork Barrel." This article was written four years into the Aquino Presidency, whose mantra was "Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap." Yet when this news was exposed there was no investigation by the Commission on Audit or the Office of the Ombudsman into this possible case of misuse of public funds in the full control of one man. That means Mr. Aquino cannot be jailed for any possible wrongdoing and we will never know whether he spent that public money wisely or used it for the political campaign of the Liberal Party.

Calls for an investigation as to who should be held responsible for the Mamasapano massacre was the cry not just of the families of the 44 Special Action Force troopers, but also of the Filipino people as a whole. Once again the Ombudsman cleared Pres. Aquino without any investigation or even a logical explanation except that we now know that the Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales has yellow blood running in her veins.

Now we are in the era of a new presidency under Pres. Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte and yes he has jailed former Department of Justice Sec. Leila de Lima who cried out that she is a victim of political revenge by Pres. Duterte. But apparently her case should be tried in a court of law so that we would know for sure whether she is guilty or not and that's the only way we would know whether the cogs of justice under Pres. Duterte have moved forward to give justice to the Filipino people.

However, I was dismayed to read in the Saturday headlines of The Philippine STAR which blared, "Duterte Hands off on Allies' Quarrel." I would have expected Pres. Duterte to be circumspect on the public quarrel between House Speaker Pantaleon "Bebot" Alvarez and Davao del Norte, Rep. Antonio Floirendo Jr. Pres. Duterte apparently wants to stay out of this public spat, but in my book, he is the President of the Philippines and we look at him as kind of King Solomon, who should not balk at telling his close friends who is right or who is wrong. But instead, Pres. Duterte takes the stand of Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of this affair.

Perhaps Pres. Duterte doesn't realize that while this case involves mistresses of public officials there are laws governing such immoral behavior. As the president who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, it is Pres. Duterte's duty to sit down with his two estranged friends, because if he doesn't the fire of this quarrel might just burn the house down.

I already read many pundits say that they have yet to find any politi-cian who doesn't have a mistress. I dare say that this is lumping together the immorality of our present crop of politicians, which is also unfair because we know that many politicians, especially here in Cebu, do not have mistresses. Of course there's a few of them who continue to maintain their paramours.

So in this season of Lent, perhaps we can make an appeal to Pres. Duterte to solve this public spat before Holy Week, which is next week before this issue turns from bad to worse and affect the Duterte Presidency. While Pres. Duterte still has the support of the Filipino people, he should not waste this political capital because some day these trivial issues might become a main issue against Pres. Duterte. It's bad enough that the yellows are trying to destroy him, but with this spat, Pres. Duterte might self-destruct!

***

For email responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.