NO less than former President Rodrigo Duterte found the book “Kingmaker: The Hardcopy” worth reading, saying the public ought to know what went wrong between President Marcos and his former executive secretary, lawyer Vic Rodriguez.
“As events unraveled,” Duterte said in the foreword of the book, “the break-up that triggered the purge at the top would only be the beginning of an irreversible slide. It would pull down, not just the power on the throne, but sadly the country and its people.”
Rodriguez was Marcos’ spokesman in his 2016 electoral protest on the election of Vice President Leni Robredo, his spokesman and chief campaign strategist in the 2022 presidential elections.
He left Marcos 79 days into the Marcos administration, citing First Lady’s meddling ways in choosing presidential appointees, among other issues.
“There are enough juicy details to titillate the minds of a people hungry to find out what went wrong in what otherwise seemed like an enduring friendship,” the former president said.
Launched last July 5, “Kingmaker, The Hardcopy” is a 301-page book, covering five chapters, based on interviews with Rodriguez and several others.
Written by newsman Gerry Lirio, the book answered all allegations hurled against Rodriguez during the May 2022 campaign and the early days of the Marcos’ administration.
“The revelations contained in this book are graphic recollections of specific events that have been stored in (Rodriguez’s) memory bank, faithful recollections of what would turn out to be a painful chapter in a surprising twist of fate,” Duterte said.
“Malacañang in the heady days after the 2022 elections and the first sign of the cracks that would destroy, perhaps forever, a bond that had weathered many storms,” he added.
Like Duterte, Rodriguez now called Marcos a weak leader, always yielding to the whims of his First Lady Liza Marcos Araneta.
“To say that this is a must-read book would be to stress the obvious. It is not just the story of one man and a moment in time that will soon take its place as a footnote in history,” he said.
“It is easy to dismiss this book as one man’s self-centered attempt to rewrite history from a self-serving perspective. So, what’s wrong with that?
Duterte said Rodriguez’s account ought to be placed on record.
“No historian, no matter how scholarly he subjects his body of work to, cannot completely extricate himself from his own biases and fixations that in turn cast a shadow on it,” he said.
Rodriguez handed Duterte a copy of the “Kingmaker: The Hardcopy” in Cebu on July 1.
“Not a few would gladly pay a tidy sum just to get a first-hand look into the workings inside Malacanang in the heady days after the 2022 elections and the first sign of the cracks that would destroy, perhaps forever, a bond that had weathered many storms,” Duterte said.
“The break-up would take a life of its own, spilling over into the irreversible slope that would threaten the very existence of the nation,” he said.
“Rather, the inside look into Malacañang in that turbulent period is a story in itself that needs to be told so the lessons it teaches would not be put to waste.
Duterte said there would be as many perspectives as there are people with stories to tell about it.
“Without fear of contradiction, this is one instance when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts so this book makes no such claim,” he said.
“Truth, they say, is stranger than fiction. This book is proof of that.”
