‘Puksaan Ng Mag-pinsan’: Marcos Offers His Cousin’s Head on a Plate. But is That Enough?

By Joey Salgado

To his allies, Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez’s resignation as Speaker last Wednesday was a noble gesture, a soldier falling on his sword to free his colleagues and the President from the burdensome weight of his presence. “The longer I stay, the heavier the burden grows on me, on this House, and the President I have always sought to support,” he told his colleagues before formally stepping down.

For the past few weeks, according to one ally, Romualdez, who has found himself and his lieutenant Rep. Zaldy Co entangled in the controversy over flood control projects, has been sounding off his closest advisers and friends about the possible implications of resigning. Each time, he expressed ambivalence and apprehension. And each time, his advisers told him to stay.

But when the President himself stressed in an interview Monday that the newly-created Independent Commission on Infrastructure will spare no one, not even Romualdez, the writing on the wall became as clear as a neon sign on a dark highway.

It was the President publicly distancing himself from his cousin, short of saying “bahala ka sa buhay mo.” Romualdez perhaps realized he has worn out his welcome. According to most accounts, Romualdez went to the Palace and spoke with the President behind closed doors. The meeting was later confirmed by the Palace spokesperson.

Romualdez is no amateur politician or a newbie in high-stakes power plays. He had obviously sensed a shift in the political winds on the day the President delivered his State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July. Flanked by Romualdez and the recently deposed Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero, himself linked to a big-time contractor, the President dropped a bombshell when he revealed the existence of sub-standard and non-existent flood control projects funded mainly by congressional insertions. He then chastised shameless legislators, contractors, and legislators who are also contractors. The scandal unfolded quickly.

Corruption buster-in-chief?

With the independent commission fully constituted and Romualdez out of the picture, the President has set in motion the mechanism for exacting accountability for the flood control scandal.

For his handlers, these developments help cement the narrative of the President as corruption buster-in-chief.

Following the SONA, the Palace has been moving, or trying, to stay one step ahead of the news cycle. There is, surprisingly, focus and discipline in the President’s messaging and media management. This is not business as usual at the Palace and this is not the same unflappable President who would confront controversies, criticisms, and difficult subjects with a shrug and a smile.

However, the flood control scandal has taken on a life of its own. It has evolved rapidly from the PR equivalent of a controlled detonation to a symbol of a crumbling state, a trigger that unleashed decades of resentment and frustration with government and politicians.

There are too many players now, both within and outside government, some moving at cross purposes, some with dubious intent, hijacking the narrative and inserting themselves into the headlines that should be dominated by the President.

Offering the head of Romualdez on a plate as an act of appeasement could also have the opposite effect. It could reinforce the belief in the power of sustained protests, on the streets or on social media, and strengthen the clamor for accountability and systemic reforms. The more cunning among the organizers can seize on it to widen the base of the coalition behind the major rallies on September 21, even encouraging spontaneous, leaderless expressions of anger.

Days of disquiet ahead

Like his late father, the President finds himself facing his own days of disquiet, to borrow a line from the title of Jose Lacaba’s reportorial valentine to the First Quarter Storm of 1970. His advisers are closely monitoring the preparations for the rallies, publicly confident that these will be peaceful expressions of indignation that will not turn into nights of rage. The President has embraced the protests, declaring affinity with the people’s anger.

But the President’s assertion that the scandal would have gone unnoticed without his intervention is now being challenged. The President, according to this point of view, is not entirely blameless. He has allowed this state of affairs to continue during his first two years in office, willfully or by neglect, until the rude awakening of a midterm elections rout and eroding trust in his presidency forced him to find an enemy to blame and claim the moral high ground.

For now, the Palace is confident that public opinion is on the side of the President. But public opinion can turn against him the longer it takes to investigate, charge, and arrest key players, and at the slightest perception of selective prosecution. That is the risk one takes when applying a PR solution to a political problem, when the approach is to prescribe paracetamol and a lollipop to a patient in need of surgery.

This article also appears in Rappler