THE screws are tightening on both sides of the Pacific, pretty much like the garote that snuffed the lives of the Tres Martires, Padres Burgos, Gomez and Zamora. Sooner or later, some necks are going to snap.
In America, the screws are being tightened around the neck of President Donald Trump, with calls for his impeachment, while, in the Philippines, the target is President Rodrigo Duterte, with hints of a coup.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is digging into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s suspected hand in influencing the results of the US presidential elections, and Trump’s alleged connections with Russian-controlled business interests. The first casualty has been Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign, following revelations of possible unlawful contacts between him and the Russian ambassador to the US.
The Democrats are calling for an independent counsel to conduct an impartial and thorough investigation of these allegations. Doubts have also been raised that Trump has not truly divested himself of his business empire and that his presidency is being used to benefit the Trump enterprises.
On the other hand, Trump’s executive orders on banning visitors and immigrants from predominantly-Muslim countries, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, have affected even legal US residents and citizens.
In a recent incident, passengers of a domestic flight landing in New York were asked to show their IDs by immigration authorities, ostensibly in the course of searching for a person who was subject of a deportation order. Ordinarily, only passengers of international flights are subjected to such an inspection.
The most eyebrow-raising news was about immigration officers questioning the former wife of boxing icon, Muhammad Ali, Khalilah Camacho-Ali, and her son, Muhammad Ali, Jr., upon their arrival in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from a trip to Jamaica. Both Camacho-Ali and Muhammad Junior are bonafide US citizens.
Trump’s obsession to build a wall on the US-Mexican border to keep out illegals from Mexico and other Latin American countries, has been translated into more aggressive action by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In cities across the US, ICE officers have conducted raids on business establishments suspected of hiring undocumented workers. In some cases, checkpoints have been set up at which motorists have been asked to produce IDs, to prove legal presence in the country.
Trump has also begun to tighten the screws on the media, singling out what he has labeled as “the fake press who are the enemy of the American people.”
The enmity between Trump and US media is escalating. Trump has sent word that he will not attend the annual White House correspondents reception where the chief executive is traditionally roasted.
The report is that Hollywood star, Alec Baldwin, who has been doing a hilarious impersonation of Trump on the TV comedy show, Saturday Night Live, may be invited in Trump’s place. It goes without saying that Trump will get the roasting of his life at the event.
That’s not all that the US media are doing. They are digging up all kinds of dirt about Trump, particularly those related to his businesses.
The New York Times, Time Magazine, The Atlantic and The Guardian UK have raised the possibility that Trump owes $560 million dollars to the Blackstone/Bayrock Group, which is wholly owned by Russian billionaires who are cozy with Putin. The media suspect that this explains why Trump refuses to release his tax returns.
The speculation is that Trump’s indebtedness is one of the reasons why Russia has him by his cojones and why he could be subjected to pressures against US interests.
On another front, a special report in Newsweek, aired on MSNBC TV, alleges that Trump could be subjected to blackmail by the government of Turkey because of his relationship with the Dogan business group which is building twin towers bearing the Trump name. It appears that the Turkish government has arrested a senior executive of the Dogan group and Trump has hinted that the executive should be given a break, otherwise, the Trump group will lose millions.
What the Turkish government may want in return is the extradition of a Turkish imam, suspected of having committed a terrorist act in Turkey. The imam is now a legal US resident and the US had earlier refused to extradite him. Newsweek believes there could be a quid pro quo by which Trump’s business associate will be released in exchange for the imam’s extradition.
If this, in fact, happens, the screws could really tighten around Trump’s neck.
In the Philippines, Duterte is beleaguered following revelations by a self-confessed member of the dreaded Davao death squad (whose existence a Senate investigation committee has denied). Former Davao policeman, Arthur Lascañas has revealed to the media that Duterte had personally ordered several killings, including the assassination of a broadcast journalist.
Duterte has been unusually quiet in the wake of these revelations, leaving it to his spokespersons and trolls to question the credibility of the self-confessed assassin. On the other, Sen. Dick Gordon, who had conducted the Senator inquiry into the Davao death squad and had doubted its existence, has shown no interest in revisiting the case.
The 31st commemoration of the People Power Revolt at EDSA, on February 25, echoed with warnings against the threat of martial law by Duterte and condemnation of the extra-judicial killings that have marked Duterte’s campaign against the drug menace. Perhaps fearing that the EDSA gathering could snowball into an attempt to oust Duterte, his camp rallied thousands of supporters and staged a “vigil” at the Rizal Park on the same day.
Interestingly, a delegation led by the Marcos family, attended the pro-Duterte rally, loudly branding as a “fake revolution,” the 1986 EDSA uprising that ousted President Ferdinand Marcos.
In a demonstration of tightening the screws on the opposition, the Duterte government facilitated the arrest and incarceration of Sen. Leila de Lima, a fierce critic, on allegations of abetting the criminal activities of drug lords confined at the New Bilibid Prison.
In the Senate, in what may called a massacre, Liberal Party Senators Franklin Drilon, Risa Hontiveros and Bam Aquino and Pwersa ng Masa Senator JV Ejercito, were summarily ejected from their committee chairmanships, apparently for being oppositionists.
At the Rizal Park rally, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II did a virtual Pontius Pilate by asking the pro-Duterte supporters, in the course of his speech, whom they wanted him to arrest next. Like the Jews screaming for blood, the crowd yelled out the name of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, not that he has any moral similarity to Jesus Christ.
The message of Aguirre has not been lost on the critics of the Duterte administration. The screws are being tightened on them.
Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay, who earlier swore under oath that he has never been a US citizen, may have been caught lying because of incriminating documents released by media. The documents show that Yasay did in fact become a US citizen and his renunciation only took effect before his appointment to the Duterte cabinet.
In that case, Yasay’s tenure as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and his senatorial candidacy in the 2004 elections were against the law. With the screws tightening around Yasay’s neck, will his patron, Duterte, come to his rescue or drop him like a hot camote?
Finally, the question is, whose neck will snap first. Trump’s or Duterte’s?
Or will it be Trillanes, following De Lima, as well as those who attempt to fight the Duterte juggernaut or Aguirre, Yasay and the mouthpieces, Martin Andanar and his trolls?
And in the US, will it be the US media and the Democratic Party or will it be Trump’s team of alternative fact-purveyors, like Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway?
Abangan! ([email protected])
