WE HAVE REACHED A FORK

By Jose Alejandrino

We are now in the second year of the Duterte administration. The Opposition has not ceased to hammer Duterte. It has not ceased to destabilize his government. It cannot accept the fact that Duterte was elected president.

It is running out of issues against the president so it has switched back to black propaganda to discredit him. Trillanes has gone back to his invented stories about Duterte billions in his bank accounts and to falsely implicating his son Paolo and son-in-law Mans to drug smuggling. The stories don't have to be true, they just have to sound true to catch the attention of the foreign media.

The Opposition knows Duterte's strength is his popularity. So it has to dent that popularity with false stories about his hidden wealth and drug involvement to show he is a hypocrite because corruption and drugs are the cornerstones of his program. Once it has succeeded in lowering his popularity it will move in for the final kill. Robredo is standing by to replace him. This has always been the original plan of the LP. As I had predicted before, the Opposition won't cease in its plan to topple Duterte whose program of change poses a threat to the old established order. It will employ every means under a flawed Cory Constitution to block and bring him down. Broken institutions like the SC, CHR, and recently, the Ombudsman, whose heads are Aquino appointees, have joined the conspiracy. They know that Duterte's powers are constricted by the Cory Constitution.

The LP has lost many of its members to the PDP-Laban which resurfaced in strength by riding on the coattails of the Duterte victory. Before that, it was an insignificant party. Most of its members are really balimbings and can be expected to shift back to the LP once the latter has dethroned Duterte. To expect the PDP-Laban to be die-hard supporters of Duterte is an illusion. Politicians only look after their own interest. They blow where the wind blows. Duterte today, maybe Robredo tomorrow. That is the reality of Philippine politics. Self-interest, not the national interest. Personalities, not principles.

This is why I keep saying that ultimately the president will have to fall back on the people for support. The Opposition knows this and that is why it will do everything to malign Duterte to reduce that popular support.

The only avenue open to Duterte is for the people to grant him extraordinary powers if he is to effect meaningful change. The Cory Constitution needs to be abrogated. The people can grant him such powers within a limited time until a new Constitution has been ratified by the people in a plebiscite.

There are people around the president who do not favor rev powers. We know who they are but won't name them in order not to embarrass them. They have a right to air privately their opinion to the president but have no right to obstruct the people from deciding whether to or not to give the president rev powers. These public officials are the servants of the people, not their masters. Now once the people have decided, they can bow to the people's will or leave the government. None of them are indispensable. Only the president is.

We have reached a cross-road. The people have to decide which road to take. The longer we decide, the longer we procrastinate, the smaller becomes the window of opportunity open to us. Time is not on our side. Nor on the president's side.