The chess game that has been ongoing for some time between President Duterte and Senator De Lima appears headed towards the endgame with one side slowly being squeezed into a corner.
To the discerning, it is a chess game pitting a tactician in De Lima and a positional player in Duterte.
Suddenly, De Lima’s queen who once lorded it on open board, found itself pressed from all corners, unable to maneuver with the advantage normally in its favor. The options are hazy at best if not dubious at worse and it seemed only a matter of time before the inevitable happens: a checkmate.
The game started long way back when De Lima donned the mantle as head of the Commission on Human Rights. Right off the bat then, she stressed no doubt as to who was in charge when she picked on then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte not as a worthy opponent but as someone to be persecuted.
It was a gross underestimation on De Lima’s part. In the end, she was left holding an empty bag and could not a pin a single EJK at Duterte’s door. Nope, she did not abscond the game at that stage but merely dallied long on the sides to make her next move like a Yank stooping at an inferior.
She dallied even longer when she donned a bigger mantle as Secretary of Justice. As DOJ secretary, she found former President Gloria M. Arroyo a push-over which she quickly dispatched behind bars. Probably she cast one look at the chessboard and at her opponent from Davao but dismissed him as another push-over not worth her time at that juncture in the face of opportunities and the perks that were beginning to land on her lap.
If she had forgotten, her opponent did not. I do not know if Digong has played in Anda St. where the best of this region’s chess players once converged but it was plain he was a natural, a virtuoso at play who was content on biding his time.
Unlike De Lima, Duterte was intent on strengthening his game, content on building small advantages early into the game. By fate or by destiny, fortune smiled when he found himself thrust into the Presidency no less and suddenly the position on the board brightened up as if by magic. His opponent on the other hand unexpectedly showed her real worth by stumbling into one dubious move after another, revealing herself in a new light.
She was no longer the avenging angel that raised hopes for the victims of EJKs if at all these existed but a woman given to frailties and open to the vagaries that crosses one’s head.
She probably did not notice it then but her play at the board was erratic and meaningless at best as against the resolute responses of her opponent. The tables have turned but if she had noticed it, it was probably too late to organize even a semblance of substantial defense.
Strange how the game from then on seemed to play itself out towards the endgame with Digong hardly ruffled or exerting any effort as a whole nation watches with bated breath what would come next.
There is no doubt now however that the game has since passed the middle game and the diminishing pieces on the board indicated it was only a matter before one side will capitulate.
How this will eventually play itself out is hard to tell. To her credit, leave alone her strong language and her ‘theory’ on orchestrations, De Lima is putting up a brave front. But it was obvious her best moves were ineffectual at best in the face of testimonies that cast her in a new light.
In chess, in the face of futility one can always resign. In today’s world, you need not express your resignation to your opponent’s face in the presence of today’s cellphones.
But one chess grandmaster in the 1930s, Aron Nimzovitch, the father of positional play in chess did something else. One day in a tournament in Europe he was soundly thrashed by an upstart. Refusing to believe he was beaten, Nimzovitch picked up the king at the chessboard and tossed it across the tournament room, at the same time blurting: “Why must I lose to this idiot?”
Pray tell if you haven’t heard the expletives and the cuss words falling on the sides or my name is not Jimmy Boy.
