Filipinos for nothing

QWERTYMAN

- JOSE DALISAY

There's a part of me that wants to stop beating up on the Dutertes, lest I be accused of being part of the Marcos propaganda machine (which stands to benefit from all this anyway, whatever I say), but like the gift that keeps on giving, the D's and their people just won't let me let them be. Being no lawyer, I'll have nothing to say on the legality or otherwise of the former president's arrest and forced departure for the Netherlands — except to opine, as others have, that justice sometimes works in mysterious ways.

My beef for this week is how the Duterte Agitprop Department (let's call it DAD, like Elon Musk's DOGE) has spun the whole ICC affair in the public sphere. These days, you never expect people to stand on the truth and nothing but the truth in these political matters. But you do hope for some degree of sophistication, for the kind of professional finesse that will justify the multimillions that any PR crew tasked with saving Rodrigo Duterte's skin — or barring that, at least his reputation — will have been budgeted.

There are three propositions by the Duterte camp that I want to focus on, among many others that have arisen since the arrest.

First, his supposed global allies and endorsers.