PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s removal of Vice President Sara Duterte and former presidents from membership in the National Security Council (NSC) represents his administration’s vengeful egotism that he doesn’t care that this action even risks the nation’s national security. It is also illegal, as it is beyond the powers of a president to remove as a member of the NSC the vice president, who is specifically ordered to be in that post by the Administrative Code of 1987.

Marcos’ move was triggered by the talkative national security adviser Eduardo Año, who last Nov. 23 claimed that the “National Security Council” had condemned Sara’s threat that she would have the President killed if she was ordered killed by him.

Año, in fact, has again and again been ignoring the fact that he does not represent the NSC, and has often, especially in our disputes with China, implied that he is speaking for the NSC, which is a council consisting of the president, vice president, ranking officials of Congress and other top government officials.

IF you’ve been regularly following social media, you will notice a very palpable shift in netizens’ view of the Marcos-Romualdez regime. The wait-and-see or give-them-a-chance attitudes have very quickly turned to outrage.

Almost every day, there aren’t just posts made on social media but well-written essays arguing quite well how this administration is misgoverning the country to ruin. Not a few times — especially on the 2025 budget — did I feel that these social media writers have written excellent pieces on a topic such that I would just be repeating their arguments in this We, of course, would have to see whether their revulsion translates into actual revolt.

About five columnists of the Philippine Star, whom I have respected over the years for the quality of their writing but who have hardly criticized the regime — probably in deference to the paper’s owners, the Indonesian Anthoni Salim or his CEO Manuel Pangilinan — have in the past several weeks written pieces vehemently critical of the regime, especially of the 2025 national budget which has been scandalously formulated to fund the Marcos-Romualdez gang’s representatives in Congress.

HISTORIANS will look with amazement, shaking their heads in anger, at the Marcos-Romualdez cabal’s frenzied plots, all in 2024, to continue in power after Ferdinand Marcos Jr. by law must step down in 2028. Rather than focusing on the economy, which faces both local and international headwinds at least this year, they concentrated on their shameless efforts to continue in power by hook or by crook, no doubt inspired by Ferdinand’s father’s 13 years of authoritarian rule.

All three were foiled by a vigilant public, especially by the Senate, social media and political activist citizens. The county should now shout, “Strike 3, you’re out.”

The first plot was the Pirma (painfully standing for “People’s Initiative for Reform Modernization and Action), which was a fast-break move to amend the Constitution through Congress acting as a constituent assembly.

SOME 182 retired military and police top brass two days ago issued an open letter addressed to President Marcos Jr. angrily protesting the government’s budget for next year, as revised by a joint “bicameral” committee of 12 legislators consisting of Senate President Francis Escudero and House Speaker Martin Romualdez’s most trusted people.

The letter pointed out that the new proposed budget, among other provisions, outrageously increased the money Congress members can use for their own expenses as well as for a fund likely to be used for their reelection in the May 2025 elections while reducing funds for critical departments with activities intended to alleviate the welfare of the poor.

There has never been such a widespread protest made publicly by retired officers against the proposed budget, and sources claim their dissatisfaction is shared by most active military officers, who, for obvious reasons, could not sign the open letter. The letter apparently has stunned Marcos, who ordered the postponement of his signing into law of the budget submitted by Congress, originally scheduled for last Friday.

HOWLS of outrage, so palpable in social media, rose up over the quad committee member, party-list representative Joseph Paduano’s arrogant, extremely disrespectful bullying of former Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) director general Wilkins Villanueva. Paduano ordered Villanueva jailed “for contempt” when he could not get the latter to agree to his accusations that Villanueva had ordered a warrantless arrest against the wife of a drug personality.

But this is what Paduano and his colleagues in the kangaroo court, glorified as the quadcomm, have done several times: throw a “resource person” in jail when he or she would not agree to a committee member’s accusations.

What angered people though was the fact that Paduano represented a party-list (Abang Lingkod) that grew out of the self-styled Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade, which was the Communist Party’s urban assassination squad. That “army” had broken away from the Communist Party in 2000, under the leadership of Filemon “Popoy” Lagman.

IT is certainly a testament to the incompetence of this government that its foreign affairs officials are either ignorant or confused about our reasons for asserting our sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal after China officially annexed it last month.

While it’s not clear if the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Antonio Lagdameo, himself wrote the Philippine statement on our claim over Scarborough Shoal (Bajo de Masinloc to us, Huangyan to the Chinese) that he made the other day at the UN, or if it was given to him by Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo or his staff to read, it reflects our government’s confusion over the issue.

Lagdameo merely declared that “Bajo de Masinloc has always been an integral part of the territory of the Philippines.” Lagdameo gives no other justification except implying that the Philippine claim is based on the “1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) and the binding 2016 arbitral award on the South China Sea.”

First of two parts

HISTORY will judge 2024 as the year when China formalized its sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal (Bajo de Masinloc to us, Huáng Yán Dǎo to the Chinese). It is now the nearest Chinese-controlled feature to the Philippines, just about as far as the 200 kilometers from Manila to Baguio.

It is a testament to President Marcos Jr.’s incompetence and negligence: While he and his cousin Martin Romualdez were busy persecuting Vice President Sara Duterte, they were disgracefully clueless over what is the biggest amputation of our territory since we lost Sabah when the newly formed Federation of Malaysia incorporated it in 1963.

Marcos is impeachable for the loss of Scarborough on the constitutional ground of betrayal of public trust: He has demonstrated himself to be grossly incompetent and negligent in handling our dispute with China over Scarborough Shoal, naively believing that the US would help us recover it, that following the US line of demonizing China, the world would force Beijing to give it back to us.