BC Cook
IN the United States, this is a time for post-election healing. The presidential campaigns, held every four years, used to bring out the best democracy had to offer. Now, it is a putrid pageant of freaks, loudmouths, hyperbole and bile, all of which must be hosed off by January.
I saw a bumper sticker over the summer that said “Giant Meteor 2024: Just End it Already.” That summed up how disgusted the American people, indeed the world, had become over the campaign. Both sides raced each other to the gutter with comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis, Stalin and the Communists, etc., etc.
Well, as if to let the world know that the United States is not the most dysfunctional democracy, Filipino leaders have taken the vitriol to new heights (or depths). This week, Vice President Sara Duterte, daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, said she spoke with an assassin and has instructed him to kill President Marcos if she herself is killed. You read that correctly. The Vice President has threatened to kill the President if she herself is killed.
Her exact words in a recent interview were, “I have talked to a person. I said if I get killed, go kill BBM (Marcos), (Marcos’ wife) Liza Araneta, and (Speaker) Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke.” She added, “Do not stop until you kill them and then he said yes.”
Good grief. What would provoke such an angry, and extremely illegal, outburst from the Vice President of a modern nation? It seems that she felt threatened when she was warned not to enter the congressional chamber because it was full of Marcos allies. She figured to launch the threat to protect her own skin.
At the risk of stating the obvious, Marcos and Duterte are not getting along these days. Although they campaigned together and swept to victory in 2022, Marcos and his allies are now investigating Rodrigo Duterte’s illegal war on drugs, during which thousands of people were murdered by death squads with the President’s blessing. Rodrigo stands a good chance of being convicted of crimes against humanity in a criminal court and could spend the rest of his life in prison. Sara would like the government to do more to protect her father, or at least not help the prosecutors. Marcos believes that Duterte must answer for his crimes.
Will Marcos have Sara Duterte taken out? If he does, will it trigger a bloodbath that eliminates Marcos and others and topples the government? Can Marcos even allow Duterte to stay in her job now that she has openly threatened his life?
Back in the summer, a crazy young man, hyped up on hateful rhetoric, shot at Donald Trump and clipped his ear, coming millimeters away from killing him. I remember thinking that the country was spiraling out of control. Somehow, cooler heads prevailed, as they usually do. Will cooler heads prevail in the Philippines? What headlines will we be reading a week from now?
BC Cook, PhD, taught history for thirty years and is a director and Pacific historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org).
