I watched the video. I cringed and felt angry towards this arrogant behavior when Sara Duterte threatened to exhume the body of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and throw it in the West Philippine Sea.
And if this wasn’t enough, she also revealed the act of decapitating the head of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. All these for her hallucinations and for a wristwatch. I am sure the thirty-one million (and more) felt the same.
The question is, what do we do now? Will we just sweep this under the rug and go on with our lives?
Or will we tell our congressmen to initiate impeachment proceedings to pluck her out from office, living it up from LGU and DepEd confidential funds.
Indeed, a mentally unstable individual will have difficulty maintaining relationships and will have difficulty controlling anger, together with an impulsive behavior to inflict harm to another person, or to wish another person ill.
I tell you; this family has nothing better in mind but to harm other people who they cannot fool. And then come the sycophants to their defense.
Figure of speech my foot! When you threaten to desecrate the dead by exhuming him and throwing him elsewhere far from his final resting place, and then we are told of a lame excuse that this is understandable and tolerable because it is simply symbolic and a figure of speech on her part, what would you do if the Marcos supporters also threaten to exhume the body of Sara Duterte’s grandfather and throw him in the Pasig River if the Duterte supporters continue uploading fake videos of PBBM because they too want you to interpret this as plain symbolism and a figure of speech on their part?
But wait, a reminder. The Vice-President of the Philippines can be removed from office due to physical or mental incapacity, but only through a legal and constitutional process as outlined in Article VII, Section 11 of the 1987 Constitution.
Certification of Incapacity: If the Vice-President is deemed incapacitated, a majority of the Cabinet must submit a written declaration to the Senate President and the Speaker of the House, stating the Vice-President’s inability to perform official duties.
Dispute Resolution: If the Vice-President contests this declaration, Congress will resolve the matter. A two-thirds vote from both Houses is required to affirm the incapacity.
Succession: If the Vice-President is officially declared incapacitated, the constitutional line of succession will be followed to fill the vacancy.
This provision ensures a clear, fair, and balanced process in addressing the Vice-President’s incapacity to continue performing her duties, and as such can be removed from office thus ensuring a smooth transition for the successor to fill the vacancy.
Chickened out
Former President Rodrigo Duterte was determined to attend the quadcomm hearings saying he is ready to tell all, until his counsel Atty. Martin Delgra III, a former LTFRB head, wrote to the quadcomm saying the former president is “currently not feeling well” and “is in need of much rest.”
Really? As I recall, his rabid supporters have been saying that he is healthy and can very much carry out a full campaign for his elective post, and that the current president is the one needing medical help.
So why this sudden chickening out? Nevertheless, we await his presence in the hearings, minus his usual invectives and stinky behavior. For indeed, bad manners are hereditary. One inherits them from his children.
Remembering father and son JV Cruz and Edvee Cruz
Let’s backtrack a bit. When a dear friend Edvee Cruz (PBBM’s close friend and writer) was still around and his father Ambassador JV Cruz, a former presidential mouthpiece and press secretary passed away, I asked him to accompany me to his wake so I could pay my last respects to one of my late father’s good friends.
Tito JV was a man of the world and lived it up, being the country’s ambassador to the Court of St. James. In the 90s, I would bump into him on occasion as he walked straight inside the Giraffe Bar on 6750, or at the lobby of the Manila Peninsula Hotel.
He would often be accompanied by his favorite drink – a dry martini (a la James Bond) if my memory serves me right still. His wake at the Santuario de San Antonio included a table with his old typewriter and several writing instruments.
But what really caught my attention were the words on top of it written on an old metal plate which said: “When a man is tired of London, he’s tired of life.”
Today, as we sometimes tend to grow weary from the daily grind, we must always find that elusive purpose in our lives, for when we grow tired of it, nothing will ever distract us from being grateful and from seeing a glimpse of eternity.
-o0o-
Random Memorandum: It is imperative that all public officials undergo a psychological test (and pass it) before being accepted as a candidate.
-o0o-
Factoid: A psychological test is a set of stimuli administered to an individual under standard conditions to obtain a sample of behavior for assessment. There are basically two kinds of tests, objective and projective. The objective test requires the respondent to make a particular response to a structured set of instructions (e.g., true/false, yes/no, or the correct answer). The projective test is given in an ambiguous context in order to afford the respondent an opportunity to impose his or her own interpretation in answering.
(Leslie Bocobo is a former Special Assistant to the Secretary at the Office of the Press Secretary, Malacañang, and a former Public Affairs Director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources)
Comments