The DDS and Habagat Won’t Let the President Have His Moment

By Joey Salgado

According to the Executive Secretary, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is “personally overseeing” the drafting of his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) set for Monday. When you’re a sitting President who has seen his stellar satisfaction ratings plummet and his senatorial slate underperform in the midterms, this year’s SONA demands more than personal attention. The President would need the best prose stylists and the best inputs from his Cabinet. He would need to summon the ghost of his father’s eloquence, for this SONA will be all about optics, about projecting strength, competence, and resolve to a doubtful nation.

At a time when he should be setting the foundations of his legacy, the President finds himself under intense scrutiny and apologizing for his administration's shortcomings.

Last year, the President used the SONA as his opening salvo for the midterm elections. He drew a sharp contrast with his predecessor, now detained former president Rodrigo Duterte, on key policy planks: the West Philippine Sea, the drug war and offshore gaming. It was a pitch for continuity and for his still to be formed senatorial slate. The President’s SONA set the terms of engagement, with his administration claiming the high ground.

But tactical missteps, political bickering, and an aimless, lackluster campaign resulted in crushing defeat.

This year’s SONA should go beyond being an annual performative rite. It should strive to convince the people that the President can still move the nation forward in the remaining years of his term.

Should he fail, the President could face the risk of being declared a lame duck just three years into his term. He faces the risk of being abandoned by political allies eager to hitch their future on the next probable patron.

The President, therefore, needs discipline, preparation, and focus. Nothing should distract him from this defining moment of his presidency.

But Vice President Sara Duterte and the Diehard Duterte Supporters (DDS) won’t let him have his moment. They are, in fact, out to spoil it.

And if that’s not enough, the relentless rains brought about by the habagat and Typhoon Crising, and the deluge that transformed Metro Manila and several provinces into Waterworld, will surely dampen the expected chest thumping on infrastructure, particularly the billions spent on flood control projects.

Resurgent pinks, reckless DDS

The Vice President is leading the strong narrative pushback from the Hague. Since her father’s arrest in March, the Vice President and her coven have been milking the detention for its last ounce of drama, from betrayal, dwindling fortunes, bickering ex-girlfriends, and the former president’s health. And her attacks against the President remain crude and relentless.

But what began as a troubling display of renewed vigor, fueled by a jolt in her satisfaction ratings after her father’s arrest and detention for crimes against humanity, is fast degenerating into farce.

To most observers, the vitriol against the President and the never-ending Duterte family drama are getting tiresome. We are witnessing the fast descent of their narratives into third-rate entertainment, a rerun of a bad sitcom, tacky and tiresome, and reeking of bad taste and insensitivity.

Necropolitics

Recently they seized on the death in the United States of a young business tycoon, husband of the First Lady’s social secretary, to press the narrative of the First Couple being cokeheads, even presenting official-looking police documents later exposed to be fake.
That the DDS would resort to necropolitics to further their agenda against the President is hardly surprising, considering their bizarre and unprincipled style of political propaganda.

These pseudo-events are calculated to trigger the base and provide fodder for trolls while robbing the President and his Cabinet the opportunity to drum up positive expectations for his speech.

For the Vice President and the DDS, the SONA is just one opportunity to pursue their version of a reset.

With enablers in the Senate, they are determined to freeze the ball and wait it out until 2027, by which time they hope that the public would have forgotten the serious charges that led to her impeachment. They would have forgotten her midnight meltdown and other controversial actions that make her unfit to lead.

By the middle of 2027, the looming presidential elections will preoccupy the public mind. If the reset succeeds, the Vice President would again be the presumed heir to the presidency, a political martyr returning to finish her father’s unfinished business.

While the President is expected to be both salesman and statesman when he delivers his SONA, he should not let the actions of the DDS slide. Otherwise, he would be allowing them to define his legacy.

This article also appears in Rappler