In a surprising turn, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. personally announced the Sandiganbayan’s issuance of warrants for the arrest of ex-Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co and 17 others in connection with an anomalous flood control project in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro. It was an obvious effort to demonstrate control of the raging corruption scandal.

But in the matter of the jaw-dropping attacks by his former political allies and a family member (even if estranged), why isn’t he personally defending himself? The Presidential Communications Office has shown that its messaging is limited; as the otherwise poised Undersecretary Claire Castro indicated in the case of the still-unexplained exit of Lucas Bersamin as “Little President” — when she was left with egg on her face after he made clear that he quit, not because of propriety (as she had claimed), but because an unnamed “close friend” had told him to — she can only report to the Malacanang Press Corps what the Palace wants her to. 

So Zaldy Co’s recent 3-part video failed to serve as explosive fodder for the huge rally of the Iglesia de Cristo and attendant minor cults, and showed up its producers as lacking (despite doubtless unlimited resources) in the skills of agitprop. And Vice President Sara Duterte’s own video of herself expressing dismay and disgust at the mangling of the budget for education and the government’s purported untrammeled greed, along with Mr. Marcos’ manang’s startling (because indicative of the depth of their estrangement) pasabog that he and the First Family are drug users, didn’t upend the power structure. The sh-t didn’t hit the fan. In fact, in what some quarters viewed as displeasure, even horror, at Sen. Imee Marcos’ harangue in its second-day program, the INC nipped its 3-day schedule, pleading its members’ exhaustion but also claiming success in getting its message of peace, transparency and accountability across. 

(Senator Marcos’ behavior at the INC rally remains a source of puzzlement almost a week later. The gamble — for gamble it was — resulted in nothing beyond a deluge of online comments about her looks and a resurrection of talk about her paternity. Did the other two women in the power trio that once made things happen — Sara Duterte and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo — approve? And did no one among those who love her attempt to dissuade her from making a spectacle of herself on that Monday night, under the bright lights, reading from what appeared to be a prepared script?)

Now the cue is for Mr. Marcos — not PCO chief Dave Gomez, not Palace press officer Castro — to serve as No. 1 talking head in addressing accusations that 1) he has ordered and received kickbacks amounting to more than P50 billion, and 2) he remains a druggie and is therefore incompetent to be president. 

These accusations, although not sworn to and therefore inadmissible as evidence in court, are grave and not in the least funny. Senator Marcos has accused the President of being stoned as he goes about the affairs of the state, and portrayed the seat of power as a drug house. (In another time, from witness accounts, the Palace was a setting for extended happy hours for then President Joseph Estrada and his pals.) And Co — whether instigated by parties focused on regime change and/or determined to save his hide (he claimed not to have received any of the stolen taxpayer money)— has actually accused Malacanang of having a direct hand in the flood control corruption.

But no: Instead of raising hell or its equivalent for being accused of partaking in the mass thievery that he himself had exposed, the President personally announced the antigraft court’s issuance of arrest warrants for Co et al. and declared, “I thank our people for their patience,” He also personally apprised the public of the recommendation of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure and the Department of Public Works and Highways to the Office of the Ombudsman to file charges of plunder, graft and direct bribery against Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez and Co, the former speaker of the House of Representatives and the former chair of the chamber’s appropriations committee, respectively.

To be sure, these are promising developments in the people’s consistent demand for accountability in its full, not selective, form. (The INC called for accountability in its rallies on Nov 16-17, but not in January when it staged rallies at various points nationwide to back Mr. Marcos’ statement that he was not agreeable to the impeachment of the Vice President, who was being accused of high crimes such as graft and corruption, including the alleged misuse of more than P600 million in confidential funds.) Whether the promise sees fruition or, as in the way the cookie crumbles in these parts, falls by the wayside, will acquire greater impact by virtue of the President’s personal announcements. Imagine what it would do to his ratings — most important, his political survival — if the promise goes nowhere.

And the people are, correctly, keeping up the pressure. Already, the momentum is unstoppable for the mass actions scheduled on Nov. 30. The fundamental message remains crystal clear: Return the stolen public funds and jail those accountable for the plunder. There’s much work to do from there. 

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