DESPITE turning the Philippines into America’s main puppet in its conflict with China in the South China Sea, to the extent of making the country now a prime target of Chinese missiles in a nuclear or non-nuclear war — which may be sooner to break out because of Taiwan — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. wasn’t invited to President Trump’s inauguration the other day as the 47th President of the United States.

At this period of his presidency, that’s a big deal, a big disappointment. Marcos demonstrated his tactlessness when he called the losing candidate, Kamala Harris, engaging her in lively conversation. What was the point of that?

His ambassador to the US, Jose Romualdez, tried to justify Marcos’ exclusion last month when he claimed that the US “traditionally” doesn’t invite heads of state, or their representatives, to presidential inaugurations.

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POLLING firms Social Weather Stations (SWS), Pulse Asia and the now the dubious OCTA Research have been fooling us that most Filipinos back the Marcos administration’s belligerent stance toward China in the South China Sea disputes.

The reality is that we just don’t know what Filipinos’ majority stand is because of basic flaws in their polling methodology.

We estimate that at best 16 to 19 percent of Filipinos either oppose the stance, or are against it, with 65 percent either feeling that they don’t know enough about it to reply.

A basic principle of opinion polling is that the respondents should be aware of the issue they are being asked to give their opinions on. A poll on whether Filipinos are taking the drug sildenafil would be useless and flawed.

OCTA’s 2023 polling for instance asks: “How much do you agree with the response of Marcos Jr. regarding the territorial disputes in the West Philippine Sea and China?” Similarly, Social Weather Stations asked its respondents in its 2021 survey whether the country should strengthen its military capacity, presumably to confront China, over the West Philippine Sea disputes. Pulse Asia in 2024 also asked its respondents whether it agrees that the Philippines should “remove China’s Coast Guard and militia from Philippine territory.”

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THE Social Weather Stations (SWS) report released by the Philippine News Agency said its poll showed 41 percent of “Filipinos” support the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte was colossally wrong, deliberately and maliciously manufactured. Fake news, if you will.

The authentic news, using the details of the SWS data, is that 55 percent of the SWS respondents were not even aware of the impeachment complaint or had little knowledge of it. While 19 percent agreed with it, some 27 percent opposed the impeachment move, were undecided, or said they did not know enough to give a response.

The poll was intended as a last-resort propaganda move, paid (“commissioned”) allegedly for P5 million by the dubious anti-China outfit ADR Stratbase, reportedly on behalf of the Marcos-Romualdez duo to help convince congressmen to approve it asap. The plan was to “fast-break” it before the Christmas break, in the manner in which the House voted to impeach ousted President Joseph Estrada in 2001 in a few hours’ time and relay it to the Senate to undertake the trial. The poll would justify the rush to impeach Sara before the year ends, or so they thought.

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THE Los Angeles fires would be the US’ biggest disaster, with its destructive cost estimated at $150 billion, 300,000 residents evacuated,10,000 buildings razed, 16 confirmed killed, with the fire area of 15,702 hectares equivalent to the size of Manila, Caloocan, Taguig and Pasig combined.

While we certainly sympathize with Americans’ tragedy — especially with the multitude of Filipinos living there — we can’t help pointing out that its scale and the controversies surrounding it reminds us of the Great Fire of Rome of 64 A.D. that humbled the Roman Empire. Indeed, as the Los Angeles fires haven’t yet been put out today, the seventh day, more than the six days that Rome had burned.

The disaster will have long-term political repercussions as California and Los Angeles, for several decades, have been run by Democrats and have been solidly anti-Trump in sentiment.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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