Category: Bongbong Marcos

Why Sara wants to be president now

Published by Ellen on November 29, 2025

Vice President Sara Duterte’s declaration of her readiness to assume the presidency is actually a desperate ploy to save herself. Seventy days from now (Nov. 27), she will again be a subject for impeachment.

Without Chiz Escudero as Senate president to manipulate the process in her favor and the possible absence of Sen. Ronaldo Dela Rosa (who is expected to be in detention at The Hague by then), it is the position of the vice president that is likely to be vacated soon, not the presidency.

Although the vice president is not immune from suit, the Constitution provides that the vice president, like the president, the members of the Supreme Court, the members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman, “may be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust.”

If Duterte is ousted as vice president by impeachment, that would spell the end of her political career because she would be disqualified from holding any office in the country. She would be open to charges, some of them enumerated in the Articles of Impeachment that the House of Representatives transmitted to the Senate in February.

The looming arrest of Duterte and the 2025 elections

Published by Ellen on June 3, 2024

The main character and three of the supporting cast in the ICC trial of Duterte’s deadly war on drugs.

The looming issuance of arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for former president Rodrigo Duterte and his accomplices in his deadly war on drugs is expected to impact tremendously in the 2025 midterm and the 2028 presidential elections.
Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who was the first to bring Duterte’s crimes to the ICC way back in 2017, said the warrants of arrest could be served later this month or early July.

He said, according to his sources privy to the workings of the ICC, the serving of the arrest warrants will be done by batch. The former president will be the first one to be served.

The second batch would most likely include Vice President Sara Duterte and Sens. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa and Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go.

The third batch would likely be the police officials who led in the implementation of Duterte’s war on drugs that claimed the lives of some 30,000. (Government figures put those who were killed during police operations at 6,000.)

China takes the offensive

Published by Ellen on April 18, 2023

It was short and clear. And combative.

In 10 paragraphs, Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian made known last Sunday, April 16, his government’s anger over the decision of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. allowing the United States military to preposition and store defense equipment, supplies and materiel in sites “only a stone’s throw away from Taiwan.”

He warned what China, which boasts of the strongest military in Asia and third in the world, might and can do: “… we will not renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures.”

Marcos’ PH roadshow and the ICC probe

Published by Ellen on February 1, 2023

If you listen closely to Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla’s strident reaction to the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to resume the investigation into the killings related to Duterte’s war on drugs, he didn’t completely rule out allowing the ICC to come into the country.

“Definitely I do not welcome this move of theirs and I will not welcome them in the Philippines unless they make it clear that they will respect us in this regard,” he said in a press conference.

He added: “I will not stand for any of these antics that will question our status as a sovereign country. We will not accept that.”

No mention of Marcos billions in Swiss bank accounts during 2023 WEF

Published by Ellen on January 26, 2023

WEF President Børge Brende interviews President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the 2023 WEF in Davos, Switzerland.

The attendance of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the 2023 World Economic Forum (WEF) from Jan. 16 to 20 in Davos, Switzerland was the ultimate redemption for him and his family and a stinging rebuke to the Filipino people.

In answer to the question of WEF President Børge Brende on how has his seven-month presidency been, Marcos replied that it was “pretty much expected” because, he continued: “I have the advantage of having spent years watching my father being president so I had a very good idea of what entailed. Now, of course it’s different from a son watching his dad doing his job than you yourself doing that job. It’s like I’m in the same setting but playing a different role but ,at least, I know what needs to be done. I have a fair idea how it used to be done anyway and so I have models that I can follow, templates that I can follow.”

He was also asked if becoming president was part of the plan when the Marcos family was preparing for their return to the Philippines after they were driven out of power in what is dubbed as a “people power” revolution in February 1986.

Marcos starts foreign trips with Indonesia and US visits in September

Published by Ellen on August 15, 2022

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said in a tweet he had a fruitful meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the importance of developing the agricultural sector last Aug. 6.

It is significant to note that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. chose Indonesia as his first entry to the world stage first week of September.

Indonesia is a member of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It is a tradition among Philippine presidents to visit a neighboring ASEAN country first before he or she steps to the international stage.

“The Indonesia trip, I think, will be on Sept. 5, “ a source from the DFA said.

How was Palace steel safe opened? Who took missing bags of cash Marcoses brought to Hawaii?

Published by Ellen on July 14, 2022

In my column last Monday on the last 24 hours of the Marcoses in Malacañang on Feb. 25, 1986, I shared the narration of the late colonel Arturo C. Aruiza, aide-de-camp of the late president Ferdinand Marcos Sr., in his book “From Malacañang to Makiki” about their problem when the heavily medicated chief executive could not remember the combination of the steel safe in his bedroom where important documents and valuables were stored. They had to leave the safe unopened.

Aruiza said despite Marcos’ seemingly disoriented state, he picked up a brown Samsonite attaché case, gave it to a valet and told him, under pain of his displeasure, not to open it or part with it.

What happened to the steel safe left in Malacañang?

A loyal aide-de-camp’s account of the Marcoses’ last hours in Malacañang

Published by Ellen on July 10, 2022

Journalist Philip Lustre Jr. has reposted his version of the last day of the late Ferdinand Marcos Sr in Malacañang (Feb. 25, 1986), written two years ago, to counter the version of Sen. Imee Marcos that will be shown in the movie “Maid in Malacañang “ about the last three days of the Marcos family in the President’s official residence.

I’m re-reading the book “Ferdinand E. Marcos, Malacañang to Makiki” by Col. Arturo C. Aruiza, who served as aide-de-camp and confidant of the late president for 21 years until the latter’s death in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1989.

Described as the “Last Loyalist,” Aruiza passed away in 1998 in Las Vegas at age 56.

I’m sharing excerpts from Aruiza’s intimate, gripping account of the scene in Malacañang on the evening of Feb. 25, 1986 like boxes of money in Marcos bedroom and the gravely ill president not being able to remember the combination of the steel safe where important items were being kept.

The awesome thoroughness of Marcos brainwashing ops

Published by Ellen on June 24, 2022

Amidst the preparations for the June 30 inauguration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr as the 17th president of the Philippines, I’m still dreadfully in awe of the thoroughness of the brainwashing operations that the Marcos family undertook to achieve their rehabilitation in less than four decades.

Historian and political analyst Manuel L. Quezon III shared in a talk with VERA Files how meticulous the rehabilitation process was. We all blame social media which the Marcoses have mastered but Quezon said their analog or non-digital work was as amazing.

“Yung favorite example ko yung mga ginawang writing exercise book na pinamimigay sa mga Grade 2 or Grade 3 ba yun so di ba kokopyahin mo yung sentence para matuto ka magsulat at ang mga example na kokopyahin ng mga bata ‘Ferdinand Marcos was the greatest president ever’ or ‘ no one loved the Philippines more than Ferdinand Marcos.’ Ganung klaseng brainwashing. Di ba analog yun libro.”

(My favorite example is the writing exercise they did for Grade 2 or Grade 3, where you copy a sentence for you to learn how to write and the examples that the children copies was “Ferdinand Marcos was the greatest president ever” or “No one loved the Philippines more than Ferdinand Marcos.” That’s the kind of brainwashing. Book are analog, aren’t they.)

Bongbong Marcos enters the world stage

Published by Ellen on June 12, 2022

Incoming President Ferdinand ” Bongbong” Marcos Jr. meets with UN Resident Coordinator to the Philippines Gustavo Gonzalez June 10, 2022.

The office of incoming President Ferdinand ” Bongbong” Marcos Jr. announced that he is thinking of attending the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September in New York.

The announcement came after Marcos met with UN Resident Coordinator to the Philippines Gustavo Gonzalez, who said, “This UN General Assembly meeting will be the first time that the President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will be in front of an important number of heads of state, so this is a great and, I think, a historic opportunity for the president and for the Philippines to share the new vision, the new challenges but, at the same time, the new opportunities.”

This was a day after the meeting of Marcos with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman, who told reporters afterwards that Marcos will not face arrest when he goes on an official visit to the United States, in answer to the question on whether Marcos would be allowed to enter the U.S. despite the contempt order against his family due to their non-compliance with a court order to pay victims of the martial law imposed by his father.