Until he submits it in writing and the Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG) and/or the Office of the President confirms it, the effect of Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte’s resignation has yet to be fully appreciated.
But this early, mixed reactions greeted the resignation of the eldest son of President Rodrigo Duterte from his post, with the President’s critics still wary about the vice mayor’s links to the P6.4 billion drug shipment at the Bureau of Customs in the middle of this year.
In resigning from his post, the vice mayor cited the problems he had with his family and the fallout from the allegations tying him with the multi-billion-peso drug shipment as reasons for his abrupt decision to resign that was, curiously, timed on Christmas eve.
Will the younger Duterte’s resignation somehow ease the heat on his father, who had been criticized by his political enemies as being soft on his family when it comes to allegations of irregularity leveled at them?
The latest target happened to be the vice mayor’s daughter, Isabelle Duterte, who had been loudly chastised by netizens for inappropriately using the presidential seal in her photo fashion shoot.
That photo shoot earned the vice mayor’s ire and he made his own Facebook post criticizing her and even inviting the so-called “dilaw” (yellow) brigade to question him, even as most of them already ventilated their sentiments on what the President called a “non-issue.”
At the most the vice mayor’s resignation, which may or may not be accepted by his sister Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, won’t impact on the Duterte family’s viselike grip on the city’s political lanscape.
On the contrary it may already reinforce the family’s hold on the city’s political landscape though that is already a given. This early the vice mayor’s allies are already lamenting his exit even if the mayor still happens to be his sister.
What is important to the rest of the country is whether the vice mayor’s resignation indicates that he is willing to be fully investigated on questions and allegations raised by his father’s critics on his so-called ties to the syndicate responsible for the P6.4 billion shabu smuggling case at the Bureau of Customs.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, who had been too eager to have the vice mayor expose whatever tattoo he had on his back to prove his alleged links to the Hong Kong drug triad, may want to invite him back to the Senate for further questioning now that he is a civilian, even if he happens to be a civilian whose family still rules at the Palace and Davao City.
Whatever happens, it still remains to be seen if the vice mayor will still push through with his resignation and somehow deflect public criticism on the Duterte family or if this is all for show and nothing will come out of it.