The projected appointment of Rep. Harry Roque as presidential spokesman with the rank of cabinet secretary confirms his dubious role in defending the President’s wayward policies even as he is nominally a Deputy Minority Leader of the House of Representatives.
It is statistically flawed and patently misleading for President Rodrigo Duterte to boast during the Maskara Festival in Bacolod City that his margin of victory of six million votes established his ratings.
The results of the 2016 Presidential elections installed Duterte as President based on his braggadocio and exaggerated promises, not on his untested performance nationwide.
Duterte’s 16,601,997 votes constituted only a plurality of the 42,552,835 votes cast as the other presidential candidates garnered a combined total of 25,990,838 votes.
The threat of President Rodrigo Duterte to declare a "revolutionary government" has no constitutional basis and is based on imagined fears.
A revolutionary government is the result of a successful people’s uprising or revolt overthrowing an incumbent President and his subalterns like the EDSA People Power revolution.
Section 11 of Rule III of the House Rules on Impeachment regarding the disposition by the Plenary of the recommendation for dismissal of the impeachment complaint by the Committee on Justice presupposes that the recommendation is based on the insufficiency of the complaint, lack of sufficient grounds or absence of probable cause.
In the above cases, the rejection of the recommendation for dismissal triggers the preparation of the Articles of Impeachment by the Committee on Justice because the very substance of the complaint is effectively upheld by the requisite number of 1/3 of the Members.
The double-digit erosion of President Rodrigo Duterte’s popularity and trust ratings is not a matter of seasonal decline or the end of a honeymoon.
It is strongly indicative of the Filipinos’ frustration over the President’s persistent erratic policies, flawed pronouncements and cardinal failures.
