Pemberton pardon akin to Duterte's 2016 SONA smirk at De Lima

The most unforgettable State of the Nation Address of President Duterte was his first. And it was not because of what he said but what happened before he actually delivered his speech. While walking past the assembled VIPs on his way to the podium, Duterte belatedly spied Senator Leila de Lima, one of his most bitter critics, somewhere off to his right. He made a sudden turn, took a couple of steps toward de Lima, and shook her hand.

A tide of mixed reactions swept the assemblage. There was approval, relief, gratefulness, pleasure, surprise, shock, confusion, dismay. But that was not the end of it. As Duterte resumed his walk and everybody started to settle into the notion that all is well that ends well, who would have expected Duterte to make another turn, this time with just his head, to no one in particular among the widely-beaming faces, and then make a face, a smirk.

Such a face, or smirk, is a very Filipino, perhaps very Visayan, gesture, a teasing or mocking rib on having pulled a leg. It is a face that seems to scream GOTCHA! without words. It was an O, HA!? moment. It was as if Duterte was telling everyone "you didn't think I could do it or that I would but that I did."

Fast forward to 2020. In this upside down COVID-rapped world, where death and dying have become so much a part of the conversation that no one really wants to engage in, who would have thought Duterte, at 75, would still be up and about pulling pranks. His political enemies, remember, had wanted to see him dead, either by natural means at some Singaporean hospital, or by constitutional inducement through judicial petition.

But there he is, up to his old tricks. Silenced, temporarily I am sure, by a seemingly healthy, resurgent and busy Duterte, his political enemies were caught flat-footed when he pulled yet another surprise. He pardoned the US Marine lance corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton who had been serving time for the death of a transgender.

His political enemies were stopped dead in their tracks as they were about to launch yet another wave of rhetoric against Duterte's supposedly pro-China, anti-US stance. They had assumed Duterte was too far gone getting coopted by China. But there he was, doing something mighty pleasing to Uncle Sam. He just swiped away his political enemies' water pistols.

But look who really got all wet when Duterte turned the barrels around? Why, Leila de Lima, that's who. How De Lima must have bristled at the idea that Pemberton would be walking away scot-free while she remains jailed over what she believes are trumped-up illegal drug charges. It is that darn smirk all over again. And De Lima, as in the first time, still can do nothing about it except to get flustered.

In fact, so discombobulated was the political opposition that the vice president nearly committed inadvertent political suicide attacking the pardon of Pemberton with a series of non-sequitors (e.g. the pardon was anti-poor and unfair to poor Filipinos in jail). If I were her PR handlers, I will have her take back those statements that exposed her lack of grasp of things. Duterte must be mighty pleased with himself. No cussing for a week.