Sara Z. Duterte, the vice president and education secretary, is doubtless running for president in 2028. Barring none, her followers have started publicizing her as the (wo)man to beat. That is, if her free fall can be mitigated and the mountain of vitriols against do not destroy her credibility.

In recent months, the volume of news floods about Sara has been unsettling. Her allies call them propaganda or mudslinging, but to those who have factual documents to show, the hits are ‘legit’ bamboozles and hoodwinks that can slowly chipped away whatever credibility left in the overhyped Duterte juggernaut.

For some reason, Sara has not really risen above the promise to make good as the nation’s principal educator. Her recent pronouncements belie her supposed compassion for the education sector, and with new narratives coming out of the woodwork, her obvious lack of foresight, vision, and experience has become a revelation.

Instead of attacking the perennial issues on lack of classrooms, adjusting the poverty-level compensation of teachers, and ironing out the kinks in poorly written textbooks, she preferred coming out with an order removing entirely all classroom visuals and fighting, with support from her political allies, for the approval of her department’s P150-million confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs), which is euphemism for ‘legalized corruption.’

But the crescendo of inappropriateness even got worse when she was exposed to have spent P125-million in CIF last year despite the absence of an allotment set aside for that intention. And to thing the amount was spent in December, in a year she shared with her predecessor, and squandered in just 19 days, the story of extravagance and misuse of public funds becomes magnified.

The assertion that Sara still stands on solid ground and her alliance under the ‘uniteam’ with President Bongbong Marcis has remained steady and stable are two overworked narratives. While the House under Speaker Martin Romualdez, the cousin of Marcos, is playing lovey-dovey with her, the undercurrents may not be playing out in the next few years in her favor.

While Sara’s camp may be amassing a fortune in preparation for the 2028 presidential bid, the Marcos-Romualdez clan is stockpiling dossiers against the arrogant woman (is she?) from Davao and following a timetable that would result in exposing the worms in the Duterte workshop.

Bluntly speaking, Romualdez is gunning for the presidency. That’s an untold story that any good publicist will not work on until the last hour. On the side, the Speaker is preparing his wife, a party-list legislator, to run for Senate in a bid to further strengthen the reputation of the upper chamber as the country’s foremost village of political dynasties. To get this agenda accomplish, the House leadership will rely on the ‘Solid North’ and Romualdez on the Visayan regions.

Another anxious moment the Sara faction does not want to hear is when Sen. Raffy Tulfo, also from Davao region, starts manifesting his intention to contest the presidency. The neophyte lawmaker is not just about popularity; his crusade against corruption does not even come close to the phony Duterte claim Sara is a graft buster. In the end, the woman from Davao will find herself mesmerized by her narcissistic expectations.

 On the campaign trail, Sara’s personal life and character will become fair targets for propaganda, especially her married life which has been said to be as suspenseful as it is convoluted. So far, the stories have involved claims that she and her spouse are living a double life, a narrative that is obscured by details withheld behind some dubious and at times interesting covers.

Given that Philippine politics is vicious and most often flooded with conjectures, speculations, and assertions, the bystanders are assured that partisan fireworks that come with every electoral campaign will have deep impact in the way the Sara Duterte image is sold. With two guys possibly contesting the post she is aspiring for, her journey to Malacañang can be mess. (PMT)