‘This is what I see: The President, though sometimes lucid and able to string together a group of five words or more to form a coherent thought, will continue to be completely and absolutely incompetent.’

I CAME across a Facebook post from a very “ahem” enthusiastic fan of President Duterte. It was wordy, repetitive, rather boring, and unapologietically long for what amounted to enough brown-nosing to give its readers leptospirosis. The problem is, a whole lot of what was written was, well, demonstrably false. Unsurprising, coming from someone in PCOO, but still, we deserve more for the taxpayer money that goes to their exorbitantly large salaries. So, to help him out, I’ve decided to fix his post for him.

You’re welcome, good sir.

REALPOLITIK

When Rodrigo Roa Duterte declared his candidacy for the presidency after the almost-illegal-but-not-quite switcheroo act with Martin Diño, he was very candid and genuine. And by “candid and genuine” we actually mean vulgar to the point of sounding like your drunk kanto tambay uncle on the Saturday evening after he lost in sabong.

He was brazen enough to admit to amassing millions and spending it all on “happy happy,” and bold enough to say that his presidency will be bloody.

He often said, “Mahirap ka? Pu***g ina, magtiis ka sahirap” while always making excuses for his corruption-laden Cabinet. In other words, a comfortable life for him and his cronies at the expense of the Filipino masa. This is an all-encompassing vision that includes his mainland Chinese overlords.

CRAPTASTICISM

I have watched and listened to enough of his speeches to know that if you hear one, you’ve heard them all. He is a narrator, if by “narrator” you mean to say that “brrrtbrrrt” is the height of compelling storytelling.

And we all know that in narration, the story has to actually make some damn sense. Here, government officials would force certain issues by taking everything Duterte says and spinning it to mean something else, often the exact opposite of what he clearly just said.

But as Foreign Affairs Secretary Locsin said on Twitter: “My daughter totally controls this Twitter thing which explains the sudden disappearance of my most piquant tweets. Children I tell you.”

THE DUTERTE BRAND

The first half of Duterte’s term was focused on killing Filipinos and instilling fear among the populace. No short-term/long-term thinking here. The Duterte brand is not complex. It is state-sponsored murder. And to an extent cronyism and virtual junta-making.

The Duterte brand essence: Kill, kill, kill.

All his promises to the Marcoses, fulfilled. All his promises to Xi Jinping, fulfilled. All his promises to Filipinos — to defend the West Philippine Sea, to eradicate drugs in 3-6 months, to give Filipinos a comfortable life, heck, to uphold and defend the Constitution — eh, not so much. Duterte doesn’t really care, we’re not his priority anyway.

Foreign policy heavily in favor of China was pursued for God knows what true purpose. This has made Filipinos very uncomfortable, more so now that another Filipino fishing boat was rammed by a Chinese vessel, this time with likely no survivors. To think that the crew of the Gem-Ver hasn’t even been compensated over what happened to their vessel at the hands of the Chinese.

THE FINAL 2 YEARS WITH COVID-19

This is the most challenging part. Any leader who has done well must outdo himself, but in Duterte’s case all he had to do was show up once a week, and he can’t even do that consistently.

So, this is the situation of the Philippines today.

The President, absent.

Economy, tanking, and about to get much worse, by this government’s own data and projections.

Military, busog.

Foreign policy, backtracking, because the military dislikes faulty Chinese military wares.

Basic services, barely there, and only because the local governments at the provincial, city, municipal, and barangay levels have all stepped up despite shotgun neither-here-nor-there policy wishwashiness from Malacañang.

Trust and approval ratings, irrelevant, but someone felt the need to make optics more important than our inability to bring the COVID-19 infection rates down.

The Opposition, surprisingly enough, virtually non-existent, save for a few sane voices in the wilderness.

This is what I see: The President, though sometimes lucid and able to string together a group of five words or more to form a coherent thought, will continue to be completely and absolutely not up to par.

This is what I say, in the immortal words of Justin Bieber: You, President Duterte, and all your Duterte Death Squadders, can go love yourselves.

Happy 4 years, Mr. President.

Bumaba ka na.

‘The news will report that you were found in some obscure highway, far from where you were taken. It will say that you had a sign tied to your neck. The police will claim that you were involved in some criminal activity…’

TODAY, I’d like for us to perform a visualization exercising using a hypothetical situation. (In case you’re DDS and don’t know what “hypothetical” means, please look it up. That’s what the internet is for.)

It’s an early evening on a humid Wednesday. You arrived home from work some minutes earlier, exhausted but happy for the productive day. After dinner with the family, you sit down at your table on the far side of the living room and fire up your computer, then log into your favorite social media platform, to see what everyone else has been up to. An hour or so from now, you’ll take a quick bath and settle in to sleep, as tomorrow you have a deadline to work on at the office.

You hear a loud knock on the door, and you think to yourself, “May bisita ba kami? Gabi na ah.”

As you stand up to answer the door, the door suddenly crashes open with a loud bang, and within seconds you are surrounded by men clad in military-style black uniforms and black masks, all with assault rifles aimed directly at you.

“Sumama ka sa amin” are the only words you hear before sets of hands grab you by your arms and start dragging you towards the door.

“Sandali lang, ano ginawa ko?” You plead, all the while making futile attempts to resist being taken outside.

“Huwag ka ng magtanong, basta sumunod a na lang!” the same gruff voice answers.

“Kulit nito ah,” another voice quips. Without warning your head is hit from behind by something cold and solid — was that the stock of someone’s rifle? — and you immediately feel whoozy and weak. The sets of hands are now practically carrying your limp body.

What happens next is a blur. You hear familiar voices calling out your name, while other voices ask what you’ve done and where you’re being taken. You glance back and see one of the masked men standing by your door, their rifle aimed inwards. The man is saying something, but you’re too far now, the voice is muffled, something about being a suspect…?

You wake up in a dark room, with a single light hanging overhead. You’re handcuffed and bound to a chair. Your ears are ringing, and you can feel something warm trickling down the back of your neck.

An unfamiliar voice booms out. “Nasaan si Jobert?”

“Jobert?” You don’t know any “Jobert.” “Sino?” you ask weakly, your head still spinning.

You hear a whooshing sound, and a split second later you feel a cold, metal bar smash the side of your face. You feel your jawbone crack and several teeth get knocked out. Blood immediately floods out of your mouth, and then starts dripping down your chin.

“Wala akong kilalang ‘Jobert’” you try to say, but the pain you feel just from moving your jaw reduces your sentence to a murmur, barely audible.

“Nasaan si Jobert?” the voice asks again, angrier this time. A second later you feel a fist slamming into your stomach at full force. Dizzy, nauseous, and tasting your own blood, your body reacts before you can stop it, and you throw up all over yourself.“P—-a, linisin nga ‘yan!” another voice says. Minutes later, an entire bucket is splashed at you. For a moment it wakes you, and makes you all the more aware of how much pain you’re in.

For a while, there is a hushed murmur in the room. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, you hear a door open, and you hear a voice whisper, “Boss hindi ‘yan ang target.

Magkapangalan lang sila.”

The last thing you hear is the sound of a gun being cocked.

The news will report that you were found in some obscure highway, far from where you were taken. It will say that you had a sign tied to your neck. The police will claim that you were involved in some criminal activity, and that you were likely killed by your own co-criminals over a disagreement.

So dear reader, after having visualized the events above, I’d like to give you a pop quiz.

Was the above scenario:

a) An incident that happened during Martial Law under Dictator Marcos?

b) A case of “tokhang” under Duterte?

c) A future case of a suspected terrorist being taken into custody under the Anti-Terror Bill, by then signed law?

Can’t tell which one it is?

That’s exactly my point.

‘Earlier in the week, President Duterte rejected reopening schools and holding face-to-face classes for as long as there was no available COVID-19 vaccine — which sounds nice at first pass, until you figure out that he actually wants people to stop their schooling altogether.’

I HAVE this personal rule, “Stupidity before Malice.” This means that when someone does something objectively wrong, rather than assume that the person is malicious in doing it, I just assume that they are plain stupid.

Never has that rule been challenged more than in the past few days.

In a House of Representatives hearing over the franchise renewal of ABS-CBN, SAGIP Rep. and pomada model Rodante Marcoleta made various allegations against the network, allegations that were in fact openly and definitively addressed by ABS-CBN executives in the prior House committee hearing and before a Senate hearing earlier this year. Marcoleta even had the gall to use Kim Chiu’s instant classic video rant/pop song “Bawal Lumabas (The School Song)” to start his blithering speech.

And for extra fark, ACT-CIS Rep. Eric Yap insisted that it had to be done to put ABS-CBN’s responses on their legislative record — never mind that they were addressed in the same committee, and never mind that Senate records are public records they can easily access. I mean I get it, it’s a long drive from Batasan to GSIS Building, but haven’t you ever heard of — gasp — email?

Stupidity? Or malice?

In a Senate session, Sen. Pia Cayetano said: “I welcome — I do say it — this unfortunate event known as COVID-19 because it opens our eyes and gives us that window of opportunity to provide necessary funding, attention and efforts that our healthcare deserves.”

That makes as much sense as welcoming an akyat-bahay gang into your home because it gives you a window of opportunity to provide necessary funding and efforts that your home security deserves.

In the same Senate session, Sen. Ronald dela Rosa was overheard saying, “Sarap ng buhay, sarap ng buhay, ganito na lang tayo palagi ha?”

In the middle of a pandemic. Where the economy has ground to a halt and government has struggled to keep now-jobless citizens afloat. Where our health care system teeters on the edge. Where over 14,000 have been found infected and nearly 900 have died so far, with no cure or vaccine in sight for at least another six months.

 Stupidity? Or malice?

Earlier in the week, President Duterte rejected reopening schools and holding face-to-face classes for as long as there was no available COVID-19 vaccine — which sounds nice at first pass, until you figure out that he actually wants people to stop their schooling altogether.

Following that line, Malacanang plays footsie, saying that classes will reopen in August as scheduled, and that face-to-face classes will only be allowed in areas where community quarantines are lifted totally by the start of the school year. Meanwhile, areas under community quarantine will have mixed modes of learning, including radio, television, and internet. Now, not everyone had internet, but thank goodness television and radio are still accessible, especially in far-flung areas thanks, to ABS-CB-

…whoops.

Stupidity? Or malice?

On Tuesday the Metro Manila Council wants to downgrade Metro Manila’s quarantine status to “general community quarantine” or GCQ. This means that more business establishments would be allowed to open, and more classes of people would be allowed to leave their homes.

 The Metro Manila Council also recommended that buses and jeeps remain banned from operation.

Just so we’re clear: the Metro Manila Council wants to allow people to go back to their work, without the public transportation they need to get there.

Stupidity? Or malice?

‘If this COVID-19 pandemic and the Duterte regime’s constant fumbling of its response is a test of anything, it is a test of our might as the Sovereign People.’

IF you’re a 90’s kid like me, then you probably remember the time when video game arcades was the thing and the game Mortal Kombat was such a huge deal due to its motion-capture fighting graphics and its novel “Fatalities.” But one thing you might not remember is the Test of Might.

The Test of Might was, well, mostly just a button-spamming exercise, where you try to make a meter hit a threshold in order to break certain materials. There was no real technique to it, no fancy button combinations — just hit the buttons as fast as humanly possible and that was it.

I imagine that this is what the Duterte regime thinks people want in terms of “mass testing.”

Every talking head of this regime seems to reinforce this notion, from the Health Secretary to the Presidential spokesperson to Koko The Explorer. “We can’t do mass testing, we can’t possibly test EVERYONE.” Even more ridiculous when they say things along the lines of “Don’t call it mass testing, that sends the wrong signals” when everyone, including them, have been using the term “mass testing” since the quarantine began.

First, no one expects this regime to perform miracles. Heck, some of us don’t even expect this regime to get the bare minimum done. What we do expect, regardless of political leaning, is for frontliners, especially medical practitioners, to be tested more aggressively, for patients under monitoring and under investigation to be traced and likewise tested, and for testing to be readily available as the need of the public arises. But more to the point, to constantly fudge around with semantics just to make the citizenry seem unreasonable is disingenuous at best, downright insulting at worst.

Keep in mind, all of this policy lollygagging is taking place even as the data of the Department of Health itself indicates that, far from flattening the COVID-19 curve, it went down after the first flood of test results, only to slowly climb its way back up. Where other countries have lengthened the period by which new cases emerge, ours remains fairly constant, made erratic by the 2-3 week backlog of case results.

Worse, this data is just the symptomatic cases where they seek medical attention. We don’t include people who died before their test results came back, or people with COVID-19-like symptoms but who were never tested. Neither does it include asymptomatic cases, who could very well be going about their daily lives completely unaware that they are potentially infecting everyone they come into contact with.

To add to even more confusion and rewriting recent events, DOH Secretary Duque now claims that we’re actually on our “second wave,” the first wave being back in January when there were only three known persons with COVID-19. Yes, that’s right: at the time when WHO was using DOH’s own data to claim that the Philippines was a “model” country for containing the virus, we were having our “first wave.”

We cannot keep shifting the goalposts and playing political scrabble while the COVID-19 virus goes relatively unchecked. We cannot keep button-mashing our pandemic policies and pray that something sticks.

If this COVID-19 pandemic and the Duterte regime’s constant fumbling of its response is a test of anything, it is a test of our might as the Sovereign People.

Kaya pa ba?

‘ABS-CBN lost its franchise because Duterte wanted them to lose it. Perhaps because a party closely associated with Duterte is interested in picking up ABS-CBN — with its frequency assignment and all its assets throughout the country — for a song? Who knows?’

THE story of the ABS-CBN shutdown really began on November 11, 1931.

On that date, the Radio Control Law (Act No. 3846) was passed by what was then the Philippine Legislature, requiring a legislative franchise for all persons or corporations setting up and operating a radio station. To put this in perspective: at the time the Radio Control Law was passed, FM radio hadn’t even been invented yet, and there were no television stations in the Philippines.

In case you’re wondering, yes, television broadcasts do rely on radio frequencies. In fact, anything transmitted over airwaves relies on radio frequencies. Even Tiktok videos of Baby Boomers, regrettably. The ubiquitous nature of radio waves and the fact that frequencies are a limited resource both make franchises to utilize radio frequencies extremely valuable. We’ll get back to this later.

The second act of the ABS-CBN shutdown takes place on July 23, 1979 — when the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is created under Executive Order No. 546, and its powers are defined. Notably absent from its functions is the power to issue any provisional authority for the operation of public communication utilities.

Which brings us to April 27, 1995, when the NTC adopts its 1995 Manual of Procedure. In it, we get a first glimpse of a peculiar term: “temporary permit.” It occurs only several times throughout the manual, and not once does it say that the NTC could issue it for television broadcasting purposes without a corporation first having a congressional franchise. In fact the Supreme Court put this question to rest in G.R. 144109, February 17, 2003, where it plainly said that a corporation with no congressional franchise cannot be granted a temporary permit. Years later, in 2006, the NTC issues its new Rules of Practice and Procedure, where “temporary permits” gets a facelift and a new name: “provisional authority.”

Keep in mind that throughout this entire time, the laws that define NTC’s regulatory powers were not amended, nor is Act No. 3846 ever amended or repealed. Which is a whole other future article. But I digress.

All this brings us to last week. After being threatened by Solicitor General Jose “Who’s Next?” Calida with graft charges over any provisional authority issued in favor of ABS-CBN, the NTC issued its now infamous cease and desist order. To which ABS-CBN responded simply by complying and going off-air.

So, for those who are reading this but aren’t keeping track — I’m looking at you, DDS trolls — the crux of the ABS-CBN shutdown comes down to two key points: ABS-CBN lost its congressional franchise to broadcast over its assigned frequency, and the NTC performed its ministerial duty to compel ABS-CBN to cease utilizing said frequency.

To be clear: It has nothing to do with “violations” of ABS-CBN. Please lang, DDS trolls, stop believing your own fake news.

This isn’t to say that the acts of the Solicitor General and the NTC are above board. To illustrate: if the Solicitor General believes — rightly — that the NTC has no lawful authority to issue a provisional authority to a corporation that has no congressional franchise to utilize radio frequencies, then why hasn’t the Solicitor General gone after the NTC for all those times when it “did” issue such provisional authorities? Why make ABS-CBN an anomaly?

Speaking of “anomaly,” let’s talk about the Speaker of the House Alan Peter Cayetano. Rather than hold committee-level hearings on the multitude of bills filed on the renewal of the ABS-CBN franchise, he instead: relied on NTC representations on issuing a provisional authority for ABS-CBN, made grade-school-level “inspirational” posters that backfired severely, and held Kobe Bryant memorial exhibits. That last one, he did twice. I mean, all love and respect to the Mamba, but come on. That’s more important than passing laws? Really?

The simplest solution to the conundrum is, and always has been, in the hands of Congress: pass the bill renewing ABS-CBN’s franchise. What’s the worst that can happen? President Duterte, being what he is, vetoes the bill, and then Congress — by a two-thirds vote, voting separately — overrides the veto.

Does Congress have the spine to do it? Can it go against Duterte?

Because that is what this boils down to. ABS-CBN lost its franchise because Duterte wanted them to lose it. Perhaps because a party closely associated with Duterte is interested in picking up ABS-CBN — with its frequency assignment and all its assets throughout the country — for a song? Who knows?

After all, what are they in power for?

IN perhaps one of the fastest issues to be non-resolved by the clown show that is this Duterte administration, this past Monday, Rodrigo Duterte issued verbal instructions to state health insurer PhilHealth to make optional the payment of premiums by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). This pronouncement follows objections from OFWs on what they claim was unfair treatment in having their premium payments pegged at 3% of their income.

‘Perhaps throwing people under a bus is some kind of official Malacanang pastime. I wonder how the scoring system goes.’

To be clear: the 3%-of-income premium rate isn’t unique to OFWs. Generally speaking, everyone who is either gainfully employed or who is registered as a self-contributing professional or self-employed individual has to pay that rate, subject to a salary floor of P10,000 and a salary ceiling that is presently at P60,000. It’s in the law itself, R.A. 11223, better known as the Universal Health Care Act of 2019. And under this law, PhilHealth has no discretion to change the rates, or even to “ahem” make premium payments optional.

On that note, what Duterte did is such a trapo PR move. What he has effectively done is throw Philhealth management under a bus for implementing a law that Duterte himself signed into existence.

And just to double down on the trapo-ness of things, Presidential spokesperson and one of the planet’s “Top People Who Should Never Be On Tiktok Ever Again” Harry Roque claimed that the law does not authorize PhilHealth to collect OFW premium payments in the way it wanted to — which was either a partial payment followed by quarterly payments, or a full up-front annual payment. As one of the recognized authors of the UHCA during his stint in the House of Representatives, it is quite strange for Roque to phrase his statement in this way. It is disingenuous at least, woefully misleading at worst. PhilHealth, as the implementing agency for the UHCA, was given wide latitude under the law to craft the implementing rules and regulations of the law. The law does not limit the means by which PhilHealth could collect premiums from anybody, including OFWs.

Perhaps throwing people under a bus is some kind of official Malacanang pastime. I wonder how the scoring system goes. Points = salary grade of the person thrown, maybe? Double points if Salary Grade 27 or above? I know a prime candidate working in the OWWA, if anyone in Malacañang is interested.

PhilHealth’s pushback has been nothing if not calm. In the fallout of Duterte’s “optional payment” pronouncement, PhilHealth President and CEO Ricardo C. Morales released a statement basically lecturing everyone on a) what the law says, b) how the sum of OFW premium payments are far outstripped by the sum of the claims filed by OFWs and their dependents, and c) the fact that PhilHealth cannot amend the law to accommodate the OFW clamor. Says Morales: “PhilHealth commits to continue exploring means to soften and alleviate the impact of premium rate increase, but it cannot change the Law.”

It’s the closest thing to a middle finger I’ve seen one of Duterte’s appointees give him.

So, where are we now? PhilHealth will seemingly continue to look for ways to collect premium payments, just in ways that won’t make OFWs instinctively reach for their pitchforks. Meanwhile, the DDS working abroad are all broad smiles over Duterte’s inutile PR announcement. Nobody wins, but everyone walks away from the fiasco, feeling like winners.

At least until the next time an OFW who treated PhilHealth premium payments as “optional” tries to file a claim.

WE’RE nearly two months into the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) over Luzon, and with any luck, we’ll be downgraded to general community quarantine (GCQ) after May 15th. Which I find relieving, as it means we’ll never have to experience being under Maximum Plus Ultra Extreme Overdrive Expanded Fortified Grade-A Satisfaction Guaranteed Enhanced Community Quarantine with Zinc. But as we prepare to enter a stage in this SARS-CoV-2 pandemic where we might begin to return to some level of normalcy, I have to ask: what can we expect?

For one, we can expect more people outside their homes. The IATF Resolution No. 29 — much-ballyhooed but seemingly not published anywhere as of this writing — shows us what businesses and industries may resume operations under a GCQ. I’m sure the first thing some of us will do once GCQ is on is to proceed to buy a new set of clothes, because holy geez all that weight we’ve gained. Or lost, depending on your level of self-discipline when it comes to food, of which I have close to zero.

But with more people outside, we’ll get more people exposed to our law enforcement agencies. And let’s face it, these past few weeks have not been a positive showing for our police.

I’m sure that the Duterte Death Squad (DDS) trolls love what they’ve been seeing in the news. Police entering private property and shouting at condominium residents, or arresting a belligerent resident foreigner on private property, or shooting and killing unarmed retired army corporals in broad daylight, or helping a poor injured POGO worker who literally resisted arrest and tried to make a run for it. DDS eye-candy galore. All in the name of law and order. Or was it in Duterte’s name? I can’t keep track anymore. All I know is that it isn’t in MY name the police are doing any of that.

All of this plays heavily into the “Pasaway ang mga Filipino” narrative, which then lets DDS trolls go on to call on everyone to “Obey the law!”

It’s easy to shout “Obey the law!” in a “Pasaway kasi ang mga Filipino” narrative. Because they’re both truisms. Yes, law-abiding citizens should, in fact, obey the law. Yes, there will always be Filipinos who are “pasaway” in some shape or form. But magically, the law doesn’t seem to apply to that POGO worker who resisted arrest. Or to OWWA Deputy Director Mocha Uson, who recently attended a mass gathering for FAPS Int’l.

(Aside: No, I didn’t invent that acronym. Yes, you may continue laughing. No, please don’t spew coffee onto your device, that is a pain to clean up.)

In fact, the law doesn’t even seem to apply to the police themselves, whose recent infamous actions have consistently violated their own Manual of Operational Procedure, not to mention Criminal Procedure under the Rules of Court and the Bill of Rights under our Constitution. Use of weapons and lethal force? Restrictions ignored. Maximum tolerance? Try minimum to none. Miranda rights? Never heard of them. Warrantless arrests? Presently the rule, not the exception. Charging people with an actual crime? To borrow the phrase of one of the police involved in the killing of Corporal Winston Ragos, “Mamaya malalaman mo problema mo.”

Yes, we must obey the law. Moreso the police. The whole point of why we hold police to a higher standard of conduct is that they can legally carry firearms, and only in specific instances may arrest individuals without warrant. The ability of ordinary citizens to do either, much less both, is severely limited.

We cannot insist, as the DDS do, that ordinary citizens exercise more stringent observance of the law than those mandated to enforce the law. “’Pasaway ang mga Filipino,’ kaya ‘Obey the law!’” cannot mean that we give the police a free pass to do whatever they or the DDS want, in violation of the very law they are supposed to uphold and enforce. It is simply a contradiction of ideas that makes no rational sense.

Yes, we must obey the law. But that means we ALL obey the law. Including the police.

Especially the police.

THIS past Monday, the most curious thing happened: a lawyer, on his own behalf, filed a Petition for Mandamus against Philippine President and host of the Late Late Late Late Show, Rodrigo Duterte.

Okay, some jargon to get out of the way. A “petition for mandamus,” as a remedy under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court, in a nutshell asks the court to direct a public officer or agency to perform a task that they have no choice but to do, as provided by law, that the same officer or agency has either refused or failed to perform. In this case, lawyer Dino de Leon is asking the Supreme Court to direct Duterte, and by extension Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, to disclose Duterte’s medical records, in compliance with Section 12 of Article VII of the 1987 Constitution. Yes, that 1987 Constitution, which, believe it or not, hasn’t expired yet even though it’s already 2020.

For reference, here’s what Section 12, Article VII says:

“Section 12. In case of serious illness of the President, the public shall be informed of the state of his health. The members of the Cabinet in charge of national security and foreign relations and the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, shall not be denied access to the President during such illness.”

Malacañang, for its part, is confident that the Supreme Court will dismiss the petition outright, claiming that the petition has no factual bases.

Does it? Let’s break this down.

Section 12 uses the word “shall” in making the directive for disclosure. This means that, for as long as the President suffers from a serious illness, the President has no choice but to disclose his medical status to the public. But what is a “serious illness?”

“Serious illness” isn’t defined in the Constitution, and can mean different things in different contexts. To clarify this, De Leon dug deep into the records of the Constitutional Commission, where the term was understood to mean an illness “where he is not really incapacitated but seriously inconvenienced in the conduct of his urgent duties as President.” (Records of the Constitutional Commission, No. 43 (1986), July 30 186, p.44)

To prove that a serious illness exists, the Petition cites three bundles of fact allegations: first, Duterte’s own public admissions of various illnesses; second, the many unexplained absences of Duterte from the public eye, often on the premise of “resting at home;” and third, on the recent collection of incoherent rambling speeches Duterte has made in relation to COVID-19 and the enhanced community quarantine in effect over Luzon.

To be fair, let us try to explain these well-known phenomena so as to discount any serious illness.

The incoherence is easy to explain, and doesn’t require Duterte to have a serious illness. Duterte may just be a blithering idiot who is in way over his head in tackling a deadly pandemic, and so resorts to pandering to his equally blithering base to keep their morale up while people all around them die from Duterte’s sheer incompetence.

The frequent prolonged absences are also easy to explain. In fact Duterte himself provided an explanation for at least one such absence: he was just at home, binge-watching on Netflix. Long story short, he may just be a lazy bum who, in any other circumstance, would be fired from his job for work avoidance.

But then we come to the many illnesses that Duterte has admitted to having. De Leon enumerated all of Duterte’s known conditions, and makes a case for each one being a serious illness, based on credible medical references. Will this be enough to at least convince the Supreme Court to give the petition due course?

It’ll be interesting to see how Malacañang responds, beyond asking the Supreme Court to dismiss it. After all, Duterte did admit to having all these medical conditions, and medical literature does place these conditions well within the scope of “serious illness.” Then again, there is only really one way for Malacañang to handle this without looking like they’re trying to hide something.

As they are so often fond of saying: if Duterte has nothing to hide, then Duterte has nothing to fear.