The 2028 Nightmare: Are We Signing Up for a Sequel?

The ongoing impeachment trial has highlighted a jaw-dropping, historic pattern of behavior that has alert citizens asking the ultimate question:

"If leadership requires actually showing up, does Vice President Sara Duterte even remember where her office is located?"

I really hate reminding Pinoys of our complacency, laxity, and slackness as we put a deaf ear to Inday's shortcomings.

Para na kaming sirang plaka (na paulit-ulit... at pabalik-balik), but there are times we have to be persistent and be makulit, especially when things are not adding up, and we see blatant disregard and disrespect ... when rules are ignored, and the VP is not following her expected constitutional duty.

Let’s review the breathtakingly extensive, multi-year checklist of invitations, subpoenas, and crises that the Vice President has treated with the absolute, unbothered energy as she put an audacious "Do Not Disturb" sign on her door.

When ordinary Filipinos are summoned by the law, they panic. When the Vice President is summoned, her PR team drafts a beautifully dismissive press release.

Here is Sara Duterte's Ultimate Checklist of Avoidance
A.
-The Event / Invitation: Senate Impeachment Trial
-The Expected Constitutional Duty: Sit in the court, face the charges, and explain the missing public funds
-The Actual VP Reaction - Absent. Declared that she will skip the historic trial entirely because she has a "constitutional right to hide behind her lawyers."
B
-The Event / Invitation: The House Quad Committee
-The Expected Constitutional Duty - Explain allegations surrounding extrajudicial killings and operational overlaps.
-The Actual VP Reaction - No-Show. Treated the congressional invitation like an optional high school reunion Evite.
C
-The Event / Invitation: NBI Investigations
-The Expected Constitutional Duty -Show up to clarify her highly publicized, livestreamed statements regarding contracted hitmen. -The Actual VP Reaction - Declined. Apparently, she is too busy dealing with the imaginary security threats to actually sit down with the national investigators.
D
-The Event / Invitation: COA Audit Inquiries
-The Expected Constitutional Duty - Produce legitimate receipts to explain how ₱125 million vanished in 11 days.
-The Actual VP Reaction - Ignored. Rules are for the small fish; the big fish operate on a separate mathematical plane.
E
-The Event / Invitation: National Budget Hearings
-The Expected Constitutional Duty - Defend her office’s spending requests in front of the lawmakers holding the purse strings.
-The Actual VP Reaction - Skipped. Why stand there and answer uncomfortable questions when you can just let your allies throw a tantrum for you?
F
-The Event / Invitation: Presidential Debates
-The Expected Constitutional Duty - Face her peers on live television to prove her intellectual and policy competence.
-The Actual VP Reaction - Ghosted. Better to keep the mystery alive than to participate in an unscripted debate and reveal the absolute lack of substance behind the script.

Well, it is not only the subpoenas, invitations, and events she is hiding and avoiding.

Perhaps the absolute peak of this comedic tragedy is her impeccable, highly advanced weather-radar system.

She has her own PAGASA, and she is following a Meteorological Evacuation Protocol ... totally her own.

The moment a potential flood is on the horizon ... she's gone playing cat and mouse to heaven knows where.

While ordinary Filipinos are wading through waist-deep floods during typhoons or crouching under doorframes during major earthquakes, the Vice President uses a completely different disaster-response system: the Outbound Flight.

Here's how it works!

[Weather Notice]: "Severe Typhoon making landfall in 3 hours!"

[VP Tactical Response]: Pack luxury luggage ➔ Head to airport ➔ Go on an unannounced international holiday. Typically, Inday Sara's routine.

We have seen and experienced her sneaking out of the country every time there is a crisis. And when she comes back ... it's business as usual as if nothing has happened.

To tell you the truth, we have outgrown these scenarios ... but some are tired of the hypocrisy, deceit, and blatant two-facedness.

In 2028, she will court us again, and we voters will become willing prey and victims again to her sugar-coated promises. And some of us don't think anymore - we took her bait hook, line, and sinker.

The question now is, do we still believe her despite her unavailability when a crisis hits? Are we happy and contented with the status quo? Do we want more of the same repertoire from her?

Do we want deja vu written all over again? Or do we want a continuation and a repetition of the same old familiar refrains?

Don't you think we deserve better? At patuloy pa rin ba ang tayong magbulag-bulagan at magbingi-bingihan?