Deconstructing the ‘disunity’

THE unravelling of the “unity” team began with the unceremonious but perfectly understandable (whether by Machiavelli or Sun Tzu standards) demotion of the former president, former speaker, former senator and now one of 10 deputy speakers of the House.

Speaker Romualdez acted with dispatch after hearing murmurs about a coup being hatched by dissatisfied members of the HoR who brought their complaints to the lady who once coveted his perch, something she admitted, but now supposedly disdains.

As she was the “chosen” successor to a decapitated speaker in the Duterte government, complete with SONA drama, Romualdez cannot be faulted for what the lady’s supporters call unceremonious and disrespectful.

Any politician worth his salt would “nip in the bud” threats to power, and the speaker is no slouch when it comes to the game of thrones.

But while politics is the art of the possible, it is also the art of the surprise, and the statements from the Sara and GMA camps come to many as subliminal revelations.

Recall that GMA explained in her second post-facto statement that everyone knows the speakership can happen only with presidential imprimatur, thereby insinuating that Romualdez had that from PFRM Jr. before she was demoted.

Uneasy lies the crown when two fiefdoms, from the North and the South, are feeling antsy

What has since become the talk of the noisy and nosy small town (politicians, political observers and the “marites”) is more the reaction of the vice president, Inday Sara Duterte-Carpio y Zimmerman who resigned immediately after from the Lakas of both Arroyo and Romualdez.

This writer will no longer comment on the “tambaloslos” tweet which Davaoenos recall was the favorite expletive of the vice-president’s grandmother, the esteemed Nanay Soling, just as “p..i” was her son’s cri de coeur each time he was angry. Inday Sara, while fast with her fists, is decidedly calibrating with her words, with a touch of elegant prose that writers like us cannot but admire.

It is the official statement issued after her 45th birthday that we shall try to deconstruct in this article, like tea leaves geomancers read and political observers “analyze.”

The antecedent that triggered the reaction was a side comment from Cavite representative Elpidio Barzaga Jr., which seemed to imply that Speaker Martin did not deserve the pointed barbs from the vice president, including intentionally omitting the president’s middle name in a birthday celebration.

“Sycophants,” she implied. Many more from the HoR followed Barzaga. They know wherefrom the butter in their bread comes, and for now it isn’t from Davao.

Yet as she herself said, one must not mistake humor for attack. But never mind the tit for tat.

What is rather interesting are the second and third sentences, where she calls the allegation of Speaker Martin’s help in pushing for her VP bid as “acutely