Wages of breaking up

If Sara Duterte had not picked a fight with the Marcos-Araneta-Romualdez clan and the UniTeam hadn't broken up, would her father be in The Hague right now, waiting to be tried by the "white people" in the International Criminal Court?

- ANA MARIE PAMINTUAN

This question must have crossed the mind of some folks in the VP's camp after Marcos 2.0 readily handed over Rodrigo Duterte to the Interpol for turnover to the ICC, which issued the long-anticipated arrest warrant for the former Philippine president in the wee hours of March 11.

Sen. Bong Go, his voice breaking, announced that his Tatay Digong had indeed been flown out of the country at past 11 p.m. on March 11.

The DDS—not the Davao death squad, but Duterte's die-hard supporters—are accusing the Marcos administration of "state kidnapping," political persecution and surrender of national sovereignty to a foreign court.

Their laments are not entirely baseless. If we had a fully functioning legal system, we wouldn't need the ICC to try a Filipino for an offense that is in our statute books.

And as we all know, the woes of the Dutertes started only after the ugly breakup of the UniTeam, with VP Sara publicly unfriending Bongbong Marcos.

Since the elder Ferdinand Marcos sent his opponents to prison en masse (with Ninoy Aquino to the grave), we've seen a cycle of retributions in nearly all post-EDSA administrations except that of Fidel Ramos. "Steady Eddie" took the opposite tack and explored or made peace with everyone in the name of Team Philippines.

The Marcoses were sent into exile by the revolutionary government of Corazon Aquino, with vast assets believed to be ill-gotten seized or sequestered. Transitional justice in this case is an unfinished business.

Ramos' successor Joseph Estrada's presidency, although short-lived, was long enough to neutralize a publicist linked to FVR, Bubby Dacer, who was allegedly suspected by Erap's camp to be preparing to drop a bombshell against him. Poor Dacer's burnt remains at least were found, but justice for him and his slain driver Emmanuel Corbito has not been fully attained.