Fearing the vice presidency

Alighting from the jam-packed bandwagon of pundits philosophizing the rationale behind the public’s vote for Rodrigo Duterte against the spurning of a compassionate presidency from Sen. Grace Poe-Llamanzares, the blank continuity from Manuel Roxas II and the proven administrative competence from Vice President Jejomar Binay, let us focus on the vice presidency and dwell on the obvious. 

The ruling party had attempted to paint the contest between Ma. Leonor “Leni” Robredo and Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. as a diametric morality play, pitting the threats of a dictatorship against its various antithesis built around images conjured up by a widow, social worker, woman of substance and accomplished do-gooder.

It is a smart ploy. But it is substantially disingenuous. Marcos is the son a despot. But he is nowhere near being one. He is the son of a man accused of terrible, if not demonic cruelty; a man accused of raiding and plundering the state coffers, thus, reducing our economy from one of the region’s most prolific to one of the worst laggards; and, on a more philosophical level, he is accused of subverting law so that the statutes are built around an oligarchy, a virtual autocracy and an undeniable kleptocracy.

Be that as it may, there is nothing in Bongbong’s public life that shows him capable of those, save for the understandable, albeit unsympathetic, portrait of a son wishing that the public would look kindlier on the family he cannot deny.

This is not to say that the sins of the past do not deserve justice. Thus far, justice has eluded us. This is to say that the prospects of a similar dictatorship under this Marcos is a product of deep-set fears and a sense that not enough justice has been applied on one of our darkest episodes in history.

The latent fears of a vice presidency under either Marcos or Robredo flow from extrapolations from the apparent downsides of the coming presidency.

One is that Duterte is no spring chicken. He has had bouts of migraine, which can be debilitating. Duterte will also be confronted with a hostile legislature prone to impeachment threats, if the vice presidency is held by one of their own. The demands of the presidency may likewise take a heavy toll where Duterte’s own campaign promises and timetables contain imperatives. These exert enormous pressures to show immediate results.

One of the most fearful prospects comes from a constantly hanging Damoclean sword over Duterte’s and our collective heads, as he is given to testing the frontier between legality and criminality.

The man needs our full support and prayers. Nay, actually, we need full support and prayers,

Under our latent political system, the vice presidency can either be an ominous threat or a six-year insurance policy for the president.

For the former, Gloria Arroyo, then a vice president waiting in the wings amid People Power II, was accused of at least catalyzing the presumptive resignation of then-President Joseph Estrada.

For the latter, the fear of then-Vice President Emmanuel de Castro ascending the presidency effectively doused efforts to remove President Arroyo from office prematurely.

Now apply those precedents to Duterte by alternately filling in the variables of the same equation with either Marcos or Robredo as the vice presidential unknown.

The vice presidency is a view to a kill. The fear of a Marcos presidency ensures that a Duterte presidency will continue undisturbed, and the prospect of a Robredo presidency following a prematurely exiting Duterte presidency compels the current ruling party to exert extra-herculean efforts to widen her lead in the electoral counts, all with an unspoken prayer that, granted the vice presidency, Robredo might protect those criminally liable in the exiting Aquino administration from accountability and attendant prison terms.