[The Slingshot] Let’s do the ‘kapayapaan’ test on Sara Duterte

Let us quote her recent volatile statement: “Kung sino man kumokontra sa confidential funds ay kumokontra sa kapayapaan. Kung sino ang kumokontra sa kapayapaan ay kalaban ng estado (Whoever is against confidential funds is against peace. Whoever is against peace is an enemy of the state).”

Like all of her statements said out of a temper tantrum (hence ad hominem), this one has boomeranged, of course.

Therefore, let us do the kapayapaan test on Sara.

In 2016, when she went back to Davao City Hall as mayor, Sara inherited confidential funds to the amount of P144M. The reader is reminded of the coverage of such funds as mandated in Joint Circular No. 2015-01: expenses pertaining/related to surveillance activities in civilian government agencies concerned with national security.

On September 2, 2016, Davao City’s Roxas Night Market was bombed, killing 15 and injuring 70. Sara’s vice mayor, her brother Paolo, revealed that he received hearsay information two days previously of a bombing to take place in General Santos City or Davao City. The city’s intelligence community was itself clueless and in shambles. First, the blame went to the Abu Sayyaf, which denied responsibility, saying another group perpetrated it, the Daulat Ul-Islamiya. Disgruntled vendors were also suspected as possible perpetrators.

It took one full month to arrest the possible suspects. They were announced as identified with the Maute group.

For P144M, Sara the city mayor was a failure in surveillance work that the fund could have capacitated her to do. So for what expenses was the huge amount spent for? Not surveillance.

In 2017, Sara’s confidential funds had increased to P294M, an upsurge of more than 100% from the previous year’s P144M.

Less than a year after the night market bombing, on April 29, 2017, the New Peoples’ Army’s 1st Pulang Bagani Battalion launched three simultaneous offensives in Davao City. A food company’s box manufacturing plant and a plastic manufacturing plant were set on fire.

“I take what happened today as a personal insult,” said Sara. Of course it was. Three simultaneous NPA attacks in a city with confidential funds much higher than Manila’s, Makati’s, or Cebu’s, only amounted to a failure of surveillance that could have been spent for from her P294M.

So for what expenses was the huge amount spent for? Cross out surveillance.

In 2018, Sara’s confidential funds soared even higher to P420M, or P126M more than the previous year’s P294M. In 2019, it was further incremented to a mind-boggling P460M, which remained that way each year until 2022. Take note: that was P460M each year for four successive years. From 2016 to 2022, she amassed a total of P2.7B in confidential funds.

On April 22, 2020, troops of the army’s 16^th Infrantry Battalion clashed with an NPA unit in Paquibato District, for decades the stronghold of the NPA in Davao City. An improvised explosive device was detonated, causing minor injuries to two army troopers.

“The New People’s Army has once again shamelessly exposed itself as the devil incarnate,” was all she could do and say. With confidential funds for surveillance ballooning to nearly half a billion each year for four years, Sara did not perform her homework as the fund had mandated her to do.

So for what expenses was the huge amount spent for? Surveillance is out of the picture.

Sara Duterte, in fact, is the one who fails the kapayapaan test. The popular belief now raging across all sectors is that Sara Duterte is a liar.

She is lying about where her enormous confidential funds are being spent. It will be difficult for her to counter furious public opinion. She has a huge problem on her hands even before the 2028 presidential campaign has begun, unless she gets her dream toy – the Red Chinese – bankrolling her campaign. In which case, she will have wads of cash to employ a troll army that can overturn the tide of negativity, as her father did in 2016.

But even that will not be a popular prospect, either. Red China is disliked among Filipinos, placing the hegemon on a very low popularity level, the lowest in fact among countries. If Sara sticks to her predictable card of Mandarin addresses on videos – which many find not cute at all – her Red Chinese obeisance will be a possible kiss of death.

A 3D digital artist from Davao de Oro Province – yes, from the region that Sara thinks is her obeisant baluarte – has began an online movement to dare Sara: “Dear Inday Sara Duterte. I am against your confidential funds. I dare you to declare me an Enemy of the State. I want you to go on TV and say ‘I declare (name of the artist) to be an Enemy of the State for being against my confidential funds.’ Go on. Just do it.”

The writing on the wall is crystal clear: the general public of the Philippines believes it is Sara Duterte who is an Enemy of the State. – Rappler.com

Antonio J. Montalván II is a social anthropologist who advocates that keeping quiet when things go wrong is the mentality of a slave, not a good citizen.