AMERICA holds the world's worst record on Covid-19. To date, 706,000 Americans are dead, 14.8 percent of 4.75 million deaths worldwide, while 333 million Americans comprise only 4.3 percent of the world's 7.8 billion population. Go figure!
Donald Trump is no longer president. But his incompetence and criminal disdain for American lives make him among the worst American presidents ever. This is his legacy. But Trump is hardly alone in this. He had the American fringe as accomplices; the Trumpers, his fanatical cohorts whose ideological precepts may be labeled as Trumpism — a compendium of conservative social and political beliefs lodged within the right-wing spectrum of the Republican Party never seen before in US presidential politics.
Trumpers/Trumpists/Trumpism
American political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, who died before Trump's ascendancy, demarcated a class of Americans, generally white male, less likely to have a college degree, making $50,000 annually or less, describing themselves as "conservatives." Fusing this self-avowal with the lower class from whence they sprung, places them in the category of the "working-class authoritarians." Lipset further postulates their "authoritarian predispositions and ethnic prejudice flow more naturally from the situation of the lower classes than from that of middle and upper classes." Donald Trump appealed to this type becoming the "staunchest champion of the white working class that American politics has seen in decades...[these] working-class groups have proven to be the most nationalistic and jingoistic sector of the population." (Jordan Smith, National Journal)
A symbiosis ripened between Trump and this class. He was attracted to them as he inspired the mob. He was not born to this class but imbibed its intellectual proclivities and embraced its language. Political sociologists suggest that these Americans in the lower strata are drawn to extremist movements and "once recruited, they will not be alienated by its lack of democracy, while more educated or sophisticated supporters will tend to drop away." (Jordan Smith, National Journal) Hillary Clinton in 2016 described them as a "basket of deplorables"; racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic — and Trump lifted them up. Their politics lean heavily toward the Republican Party. These Trumpers, white supremacists, the dregs of the Republicans, fight for dominance of the party's mainstream. Their sentiments regenerate the Republican agenda, their politics seeping into their political conversation, parroted in the US Congress and in red state legislatures; their syntax artlessly arranged to sway the least common denominator of the inarticulate during political rallies. Their grievances are insanely eclectic, from a delusional stolen election demanding Trump's reinstatement as president; to voter suppression targeting black democrats; to banning abortion; to imposing racial standards on immigrants, particularly from Islamic countries. But the more dangerous pronouncements are pandemic related.
A terrible scenario
A grim development is unfolding in America's fight against Covid-19. Thanks to Trump's Operation Warp Speed, the big pharmaceuticals — driven by profit motive, capitalism's leitmotif, particularly at a time of a global catastrophe — responded with alacrity. What could have taken years of vaccine development was accomplished in just two. China, Germany and India were well into vaccinating their citizens, with China extending its sphere of influence in Asia. America has a different story to tell. Even with available vaccines that can potentially cover their population twice over, the Americans did not react fast and well enough. Consequently, a surging new Delta variant overtook their communities.
Well into the US vaccine rollout, statistics show that a third of Americans have refused inoculation. The Trumpers are in the forefront preaching anti-vaccine, anti-masking and anti-social distancing, woven into all sorts of conspiracy theories and reinforced by Fox News and right-wing media. All these vehement objections are coated with a patina of cherished concepts of liberty and freedom. They will not be dictated upon. Their individual rights to choose must prevail over the mandates of government. This is the American way! The paradox is that Trump has had his two vaccine jabs, and 90 percent of Fox News personnel have already been inoculated.
This incessant hammering by the Trumpers has distorted the pandemic narrative. In the 2020 presidential elections, 17 of the 18 states that voted for Trump have the lowest vaccination rates. And they have a higher morbidity ratio particularly among the Trumpers' demographics of 65 years old and above. These data show Covid deaths affect white Republican families disproportionately, with the possible exception of black Democrats where healthcare disparities exist. In this case, race comes into the picture as black Americans are more likely to die from Covid than white Americans — whether Republicans or Democrats.
CNN's gruesome figures reveal that "86 percent of Democrats have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 inoculation compared to just 45 percent of Republicans. And 38 percent of Republicans say they will definitely not get any doses of vaccine. Of 10 states where Covid-19 cases rose more than 10 percent in the last week, eight have Republican governors. More than 99 percent of deaths from Covid-19 in June were in unvaccinated people...states with low vaccine rates have almost triple the rate of new Covid-19 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. Unvaccinated people were five times more likely to get Covid-19 than vaccinated peers and 29 times more likely to be hospitalized for their infections." This evidence shows that there are more unvaccinated Republicans than Democrats. And more of the former die of Covid-19.
Now America is in the midst of the 2022 campaign for the med-term elections. Trump has of late roused his fanatical base to push for the state, local legislative districts and in the congressional elections. Their political rallies are classic Delta variant super-spreaders. Killing off the Trumpers, the most dependable of GOP voters may not be the best political strategy — except for the Democrats.
Trumpist influencers
Backstopping the Trumpers are personalities who rule the airwaves – radio-TV. A sampling of these right-wing radio hosts was all over the place rousing the mob against the vaccines.
Dick Farrel, the anchor of Newsmax TV of NBC affiliate WPTV of West Palm Beach, was known as the other Rush Limbaugh. He was a staunch advocate against the vaccines and called Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and chief medical adviser to the US president, a "lying freak." He died on Aug. 4, 2021. He was 65.
Marc Bernier is known as "Mr. Anti-Vax" on his weekday WNDB radio show from Daytona Beach. He was a respected conservative radio host for over 30 years. He was 65 years old when he died of Covid-19 in late August.
Phil Valentine of Nashville, Tennessee, talk show host of SuperTalk 99.7 WTN was skeptical of coronavirus vaccines. A radio personality for some 40 years, he had a wide following with his program syndicated in 100 stations in the US. Moved into a critical care facility, he regretted "he wasn't a more vocal advocate of the vaccination...I wish I had gotten it!" He died last August at 61 years old.
These influencers refused to be vaccinated while they had the chance. In their intensive-care deathbeds, they regretted forgoing vaccination. Too late!
The pandemic is still raging worldwide killing millions. In America, vaccines are widely available. Covid-19 should be non-political. Unless unthinking humans force the virus to choose sides.
THIS classic phrase illustrates what is happening in the highest institutions of our country today, the legislative and the executive. These two democratic institutions - in theory co-equal and durable (including the judiciary) - are meant to be interdependent branches of government with powers defined by our Constitution. But in reality, man-made as they are, the presidency can be "more equal"; nonetheless, both are fickle. Institutional dynamics are significantly prejudiced by the people presiding over them. We refer specifically to the constructs within these separate institutions: the blue ribbon committee of chairman Richard Gordon and the office of the presidency. The two central characters, I fear, have of late gone mad! Not mad as in "angry, infuriated or livid," but mad as in "insane"! The public has never witnessed such vicious hostility between two protagonists in a combat by proxy in a separate arena; one in the Senate's hallowed halls, the other at the nightly Malacañang Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases press briefings with social media stoking the carnage. The fight, nonetheless, is as gory as a gladiatorial mano a mano: personal, lethal and dirty. None will win. But the losers are our institutions.
Genesis of a corruption
What started as a moro-moro traditionally presaging an election circus season turned nasty when the blue ribbon, a legitimate subsidiary to the Senate's constitutionally mandated oversight functions over the executive departments, was convened to look into what the Commission on Audit flagged as irregularities in the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) during this pandemic. President Duterte's knee-jerk response to castigate the harbinger of bad news, not the bad news itself, prompted the convening of the blue ribbon to dig further. True enough, the Department of Health (DoH)-Procurement Service-Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) funds transfer in itself was proscribed.
It should be noted that there was no love lost between the ambitious senator and the President now perceived to be an easy adversary entering lame-duck status.
The Deegong was clearly at a disadvantage as the Senate was performing its mandate. But the wily and overzealous senator has eroded the high ground by a performance that is less than stellar. Although his bamboozling of witnesses, unable to put a word in edgewise before the senator's machinegun-like spittle-scattering questions, ferreted out some ugly facts amidst panic and confusion.
What has been learned so far
The blue ribbon hearings have shown that a scam is being perpetrated in the procurement of PPE, with the culpable bureaucracy appallingly exploiting a world crisis brought on by the pandemic. The details have by now been digested by the public; that the DoH illegally transferred P42 billion of its funds to the procurement service of the PS-DBM to outsource the bidding and purchase of PPE and other related, pandemic supplies; that the PS-DBM bought overpriced surgical masks from various suppliers but favoring the under-capitalized Chinese subsidiary Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp., topping more than P8.7 billion. The stink has diffused to high heavens and will not dissipate on Duterte's simple say-so, demanding that he be taken on faith.
The Chinese connection and the involvement of close colleagues of the President was perfunctorily established by the blue ribbon. Although not directly accused of corruption himself, the President's subsequent vehement defense of his Chinese colleagues, particularly of his erstwhile "economic adviser," Michael Yang, in a diatribe is reminiscent of a line in Hamlet's - "the lady doth protest too much, methink."
The next moves
To halt the hemorrhage of possible incriminating evidence and an attempt to cover for his men, Duterte recently ordered government officials to clear with him before appearing at Senate hearings. This has been done by past presidents through declaration of executive privilege. The Supreme Court didn't agree. Admittedly, senior executives and hundreds of "resource persons" time-wasting appearances under pain of "Senate contempt" have more to do with the Senate's vanity-driven measures asserting its oversight functions than anything else. Only a handful are called with the rest twiddling their thumbs over hearings that last for four to seven hours. But this presidential injunction could also derail the 2022 national budget deliberations, exacerbating the economic collapse which has already caused massive unemployment and Covid-driven business closures.
At this point, the public has had its fill of the sordid facts, innuendo and chismis surrounding the month-long moro-moro. Perhaps the blue ribbon has enough goods on the massive corruption of this government to ensnare the miscreants and prove them all to be criminally liable and pass these on to the appropriate courts. And revert back to the more important concerns of the country - resolving the pandemic and its resultant economic depredations.
Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, the more restrained among the President's men, has this to say: "Just file the necessary cases and leave it to the experts tasked to investigate them while you (Senate) do your jobs to legislate or conduct investigation properly in aid of legislation. By doing so, you can preserve your energy for the coming elections."
The blue ribbon may have squeezed out the last extracts from government corruption leaving only the residue relevant to the election season; and allowing further alibi for the President to regain his strong-man repute disputing a lame-duck status. The President, piqued by Senator Gordon and intolerant of criticism, has vowed to campaign against the senator - which may instead guarantee Gordon's reelection.
What are the stakes
In retrospect, all these contribute to what ails the Philippines today. Our concept of governance is defective and bankrupt, among other things. On one level, traditional political practices are pervasive resulting in personality-centered electoral politics, the motivating factors driving the rivalry between power centers – the legislative and the executive branches - each using its constitutionally sanctioned prerogatives as weapons. On the one hand is the Senate's oversight function over the executive branch, and on the other is the executive branch's prerogatives and license over the regulatory agencies. Both have potential for abuse. And in these hearings, both have shamelessly transgressed the parameters of their discretion.
On another level, our inherently defective system has a paucity of transparency and accountability. The blue ribbon has uncovered fraud in the use of public money. The appropriate response would have been for the executive branch to investigate anomalies and prosecute the same. The Duterte doctrine of dismissing on a mere "whiff of corruption" would have been a deterrent if applied promptly. Instead, Duterte's knee-jerk reaction was to deny the presence of corruption, initiate ad hominem assaults on the investigators and a personal aggressive defense of the rent-seekers and perpetrators.
All these occurring during the country's highest regime of pain and trauma, the continued harvest of dead souls through mismanagement of the pandemic and its resultant economic devastation. The repercussions are wide and long-term, and the aftermath is grim. The leadership of today's branches of government will be answerable to the generations to come.
Enough is enough! We need our leadership in all branches of government to hunker down and prioritize their next moves. Politics must be deleted from the equation. The hearings could stop now, and the President must prosecute the corrupt. He has eight months more to rule. Until then, he is accountable for Filipino lives yet to be wasted.
Or they can continue this madness. And the gods deliver us from them.