Falsity for legacy

“THE REAL change we have all yearned for so long is now happening. We have made the significant starts, pioneered initiatives and accomplished impressive milestones as a nation during the first half of the Duterte administration … The President’s vision for a better Philippines is already a reality.”

So declared Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea last Friday, monumentalizing the regime’s self-proclaimed gains as his president’s legacy to the Filipinos.

This, at the launch of the information drive of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) on what it holds as the impact of the administration’s programs dubbed…yes, self-servingly, the “Duterte Legacy” grounded principally on the Build, Build, Build Program; Alternative Learning System; Poverty Reduction; Job Generation; the Bangsa Moro Basic Law; Universal Health Care; Universal Access to Tertiary Education; the Boracay and Manila Bay rehabilitation; and the war against illegal drugs.

Not so fast, Medialdea. Hold your gun, PCOO. Sen. Ping Lacson (no relation in any way) was quick to the draw: “It’s too early — just three years. So many things can still happen. They’re entitled, though, to do their own propaganda.”

The senator noting that it would be up to the people to judge whether the proffered legacy of the Duterte presidency is credible or not: “For example, if the government says they won the fight against graft and corruption, the public should ask: Is it true? If the government said they are successful at the anti-drug operation, people should ask: Is the government telling the truth?”

As indeed, a number of netizens have started not only questioning the veracity but readily probing, if not proving, the apparent untruth behind some of the claimed achievements of the regime, to wit: The ALS already being implemented when Duterte was still a mayor. The 64 airports – made to appear like they were constructed under the Build, Build, Build Program – were actually in various stages of repair, rehabilitation, upgrading. So are the claimed 243 seaports and 2,709 bridges – absent any location, or if even real.

So, it was claimed that the Philippines ranked 49^th in the IMD World Talent Ranking 2019. So, the Philippines too has the lowest IQ in Southeast Asia – scoring 86, as against the 108 for record-setting Singapore – in the World Smartest Cities study of the World Population Review last year.

Aye, to every claim of achievement by the regime, the resounding counter-proof of failure from these netizens.

Instantly finding its way in the web side by side the PCOO infographic of the Duterte Legacy is “the correct, all-too real” if defaced version of it, the so-called accomplishments superimposed with the “actual” failings, to wit: the devastation of Marawi; the P12-B shabu smuggled through Customs; EJK and tokhang; recycling of incompetent, inept, and corrupt officials; martial law in Mindanao; surrender of the WPS to China; POGOs; red-tagging of journalists and activists; persecution of critics; ravings against the Church; misogyny and profanities; culture of impunity; bukbok rice and imported galunggong; the P50-million caldera exclusive to the 30^th staging of the Southeast Asian Games; fake news and DDS trolls.

No game of truth or consequence here. Only the reality of consequential truth demolishing crafted falsity. A legacy of lies and lunacy, as some netizens readily damned the PCOO grand production.

Succinct is one Facebook post: “So much ado about the 'Legacy' when Duterte will be remembered by one dominant issue: FAKE NEWS. That the regime was immoral, apathetic, murderous, thieving & totally corrupt - all sprung from how they manufactured, used and thrived on FAKE NEWS.

The 'LEGACY' is merely their compilation of the FAKE NEWS of "accomplishments" they want repeated and repeated in the subconscious until it assumes the appearance of Truth.

Without FAKE NEWS, the entire Duterte facade is nothing but a recital of regression in the Economy, international standing, and of our democratic way of life.”

That it has to come out midway through the Duterte presidency – too early, as the better Lacson observed – is as much prematurely as preemptively.

Legacy is a judgment of history. Duterte’s minions could not wait for that verdict – ominously damning as it already is. Hence, the haste with which to write their own peremptorily, though twisted as it may be.  

“The evil that men do lives after them…” So, the Bard immortalized. So, it could be of Duterte. As it was with Hitler, as it was with Stalin, and yes, Marcos.

That Marcos Junior is moving hell to rewrite, aye to revise, indeed to pervert this country’s history to glorify his Dictator Senior may not have been lost to Duterte’s sycophants. The PCOO and Medialdea, for sure Panelo too, may even have taken their inspiration for the Duterte Legacy from there.

By coming up with it presently, they may be entertaining thoughts of saving Polong, Sara without the H, and Baste from the same dire straits that Bongbong is now in.   

Ay, the lunacy of it all.