Former President Rodrigo Duterte struck gold during his Mandaue City rally speech when he denounced the sale of the country’s gold reserves.

“Ang unang gikawat ni Marcos ang atong (The first thing Marcos stole is our) gold reserves. Sigihan na nag baligya ang atong (They kept selling our) gold, hangtud karon (until this.) Gamay na lang kaayo (Very little remain).” fPRRD declared before the crowd that was estimated between 20,000 and as much as 40,000 by organizers.

The expose so triggered Malacañang that Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin swiftly replied on a Sunday with a biting statement that sounded more like an angry diatribe unflattering for a “Little President.”

“This is another budol from a one-man fake-news factory,” snapped Bersamin in a statement that could not hide both the rage and the fear that prompted it.

Bersamin could have done better than that with an impassioned comment befitting at least the office he presently occupies. Forget the previous one to which fPRRD once appointed him. That is now a distant memory.

Newly-installed Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary Claire Castro tried a new tack: make light of fPRRD’s revelations by describing it as a campaign joke.

Castro, of course, was either trying to gaslight by baiting critics away from the real story or deflecting the heat from PBBM, or both. Whatever, it is a miserable failure.

FPRRD waited for the best time to detonate the bomb. When the time was ripe at the Mandaue rally, he chose his words well.

“So, unsaon na lang pagtindog ang ekonomiya pag-abot sa panahon (how will our economy recover when the time comes)?” he asked, which only hyped the crowd even more.

The country’s unflattering distinction of being the topnotcher in the sale of the gold reserves is no joking matter and not a trivial campaign joke.

Citing data from the World Gold Council, bestbrokers.com sold 24.95 tons of gold, the most globally. This information from the brokerage tracking website unwittingly revealed the secret sale by the Marcos administration.

FPRRD dropped the bombshell in Mandaue, eliciting angry reactions from the crowd. More than the unjustified sale, the secrecy surrounding it makes it scandalous.

Castro shifted responsibility for the sale to the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), leaving no doubt about what to expect from her. Who is she fooling? Unless PBBM fires all the BSP brass involved in the sale, the impression is that they were given the go-signal. The buck stops with PBBM, no doubt about that.

Going back to Castro, this is a matter of national concern, and fPRRD did the right thing by raising the issue with the public. It’s definitely NOT a “campaign joke,” unless she wants to give the impression that pulling off the sale without the knowledge of the Filipino people is a laughing matter.

Castro better come clean and tell the Filipino people what they are entitled to know: who greenlighted the sale, how much it cost, where the money is now, and where it will go.

And if she thinks we have been taken for a ride, there is no debate that the blame rests squarely on PBBM. If Castro wants the BSP officials to be held liable for it, there’s no debate about their complicity. But there’s no way PBBM can escape liability for this gold sale mess.

It’s nearly three years since PBBM took over. He is now responsible for what transpires under his watch - whether he admits it or not, whether he likes it or not.