[Pastilan] The curious case of Sara Duterte’s memory hole

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Somebody should tell Sara Duterte that people are swimming in floodwaters because her father Rodrigo and other presidents, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. included, failed to do enough to address this country’s chronic infrastructure failures and the corruption that has accompanied them for decades. 

Her deliberate omissions as she addressed her supporters outside the court after her arraignment was reset were an insult to the intelligence of Filipinos, as she sought to pretend that this catastrophe began recently, or that it conveniently arrived with the administration she once supported and loved, but now wishes to blame.

The responsibility is collective, and her father had six years in Malacañang in which to confront these problems. He did not solve them. He contributed substantially to them. Decades of incompetent infrastructure planning, grotesque failures of execution, and allegations of corruption have left the country exactly where it is today. 

And where was Sara while construction firms associated with then-presidential caregiver and now Senator Bong Go were reportedly collecting government contracts left, right, and center? Some of those contracts involved flood control and other public works. Where was the outrage then?

Where was Sara when the construction businesses of Sarah and Curlee Discaya, by their own admission, saw their government contracts balloon in 2016, when they expanded their attention from local governments to the Department of Public Works and Highways? That was the year her father began his presidency and placed extraordinary trust in figures such as Chinese ring leader Michael Yang a.k.a. Yang Hongming whom Duterte turned into an economic adviser.

The Duterte years also saw the extraordinary expansion of the Yang syndicate’s Philippine offshore gaming operations and a proliferation of criminal allegations and scandals surrounding parts of that ecosystem, including allegations involving smuggling, illegal drugs, etc.. These are not minor footnotes to history. They are part of the political inheritance that Sara Duterte now seems remarkably eager to edit.

Then came Yang and Pharmally. Billions of pesos in government contracts for COVID-19 pandemic supplies became the subject of investigations and allegations of anomalous procurement, excessive pricing, and substandard and questionable supplies. Filipinos were frightened, dying, unemployed, and confined to their homes while public money was being spent over deals that raised serious questions about who benefited from the national emergency. Sara was not exactly famous for making herself hoarse in protest.

And what did Sara say when her father himself publicly suggested that eliminating corruption was effectively impossible within the existing constitutional framework and floated the idea that the country might need “another Marcos” (dictator) to end it?

Silence. Sara Duterte did not call her father inutile and bangag (slow-minded) – by his own admission, he was using Fentanyl. Instead, she has been trying to sweep all the corruption and anomalies that took place from 2016 to mid-2022 under the carpet.

Now the ambitious Sara wants Filipinos to believe that Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is all to blame – he and he alone – for the country’s institutional rot. This is political amnesia if not intellectual dishonesty. Marcos did not invent decades of failed flood control, inadequate drainage, dysfunctional planning, or corruption. This may have been taking place since his father’s presidency or even much earlier. Nor did he inherit a blank sheet of paper in 2022. But neither does that absolve him of responsibility for what happened under his administration. 

The adult position is to hold every administration accountable for its own failures, not to turn politics into a children’s game in which one family is permanently innocent and another is permanently guilty.

Sara’s propaganda is therefore not merely partisan. It is intellectually lazy. It asks Filipinos to forget everything that happened before 2022 and to treat the Duterte administration as though it had not been six years of terribly bad governance.

And now she wants Filipinos to believe that she is the greatest agent of change.

This is the same politician who could not even say Pax Silica right and then became the subject of ridicule for calling it something resembling “Fox sili.” If the phrase was unfamiliar, that is hardly a crime. But when someone presents herself as uniquely qualified to understand the future while displaying conspicuous unfamiliarity with a major geopolitical and economic initiative, Filipinos are entitled to ask whether the confidence is supported by competence.

More seriously, why should taxpayers be expected to place unquestioning faith in Sara whose own offices have faced serious questions about the use of confidential funds?

The Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd), during Sara Duterte’s tenure as education secretary, are being scrutinized over their confidential fund expenditures. 

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) was asked to verify thousands of names appearing in the documents associated with those expenditures. 

Information from PSA Assistant National Statistician Marizza Grande, presented before the Senate impeachment court, showed that of the 2,669 names submitted for verification, 1,685 had no corresponding birth, marriage, or death records. These are based on the PSA database.

The verification reportedly found 37 names corresponding to individuals with death records and 25 corresponding to minors, including infants. One listed individual was reportedly only two months old and had died in 1965. 

Two months old. 1965. Let that sink in.

The OVP accounted for 1,992 of the names, of which 1,287 reportedly had no corresponding civil registry records. 

The DepEd list contained 677 names, including 398 without matching records.

Those figures constitute precisely the kind of matter that should make any responsible citizen demand answers before handing even more public money to the people responsible.

So before Sara Duterte asks Filipinos to believe that she alone possesses the courage, competence, and moral authority to rescue the country, perhaps she should answer a simpler question.

Where was that courage when her own political house was being built?

And now we hear that a company linked to Sara secured over P15 million in food and catering contracts from the Davao City government and PhilHealth between 2022 and 2025, with its contracts peaking in the very year she became vice president. 

Isn’t that an awkward coincidence for anyone preaching about corruption while demanding that Filipinos forget the record of her own political camp? 

More awkward still are questions over her disclosed financial interest in the company and discrepancies between her Statements of Assets Liabilities and Net worth (SALN) and corporate records, because the fight against corruption is rather less convincing when the questions start knocking on your own door.

The country does not need another politician who discovers corruption only when it belongs to an opponent. It does not need another dynasty asking the public to forget the dynasty’s own record. It certainly does not need another presidential campaign disguised as righteous anger.

What the country needs is accountability that does not change according to surname.

That standard has to apply to Marcos, and it has to apply to the Dutertes.

In fact, it has to apply to everyone who has occupied Malacañang, everyone who has controlled a government agency, and everyone who has benefited from the machinery of the state.

The floodwaters do not care which political family is making the speech. Neither should the Filipino voter.

Saba diha, Sara! Pastilan. – Rappler.com