“The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.” – Sun Tzu

Former President Rodrigo Duterte and Mayor Sebastian Duterte arrived at Tacloban City’s Sto. Niño Church at noon on Sunday just when the last of the morning worshippers were about to leave. It caught nearly everyone by surprise.

The vendors and a few bystanders near the entrance could not believe their eyes. Is it really him?

“I have finally seen him in the flesh,” a vendor muttered, her voice barely above a whisper.

Just days after the deadly typhoon “Yolanda” in 2013, the then Davao City mayor’s disaster response team was the first to arrive from outside Leyte.

That image of him wiping his tears while surveying the debris and mayhem amid the stench of death and decaying corpses left an indelible print in the minds of those who were there at the time. Little wonder that when he returned to campaign in the 2016 presidential elections, nearly all of Tacloban turned up at the rally site to show their appreciation and gratitude for him.

Times have changed.

Former President Duterte and his family have since been demonized by the ruling family in Tacloban. When the former’s supporters scheduled a rally last May 25, the latter left no stone unturned to prevent it from happening.

When his presence in the city on the day of the fiesta was known, policemen tried to stop a program at the GMA Kapuso Foundation village, the rehabilitation project that former President Duterte built for “Yolanda” survivors.

The program was allowed to continue only after lawyer Levito Baligod, the fearless crusader who prosecuted the people responsible for the pork barrel scam, interceded for the homeowners who were then completely unaware that a very special guest was joining them.

On the corner of the national highway leading to the village, supporters of Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez brandished Manila papers with hurriedly-scribbled messages expressing support for him and telling PRRD he was not welcome.

The near-total secrecy of PRRD’s brief sortie, that surgical strike into Tacloban, was justified by the belated and futile efforts of the Romualdez family and their allies to allow even an inch of ground for the former President to step on.

Too bad for them, former President Duterte knows his Sun-Tzu: the decision to keep the sortie visit a secret was a well-timed swoop that enabled him to strike and figuratively destroy his nemesis on that day.

Any doubts that Tacloban is off-limits to the former President by the officialdom in Tacloban were erased by the statement of Tingong party list Rep. Jude Acidre who wasted no time in denouncing PRRD – inviting backlash in the process.

“Bakit JUDE ACIDRE, if you didn’t invite PRRD, he has no right to visit Tacloban? That old man did more for Leyte during Yolanda than you and Martin combined, especially as you did it for politics,” responded Krizette Laureta Chu.

A native of neighboring Tanauan town, Krizette knows what she is talking about – Acidre’s vain attempt to insert the Speaker into the “Yolanda” narrative but which has fallen flat on his face instead.

To rub it in, FPRRD gamely fielded reporters’ questions in a press conference prior to his departure, fueling the bushfire that was the National Day of Protest. In many parts of the country and abroad, Hakbang ng Maisug supporters came out of their shells to fire the opening salvo of open dissent against the Marcos administration.

When he was about to board the vehicle that would take him to the airport, PRRD was surprised to see residents lining the streets. Some were bold enough to pose for selfies while others contended themselves with shrieks of delight from a distance. Motorists – stalled while he waived to admirers – hurriedly shot videos and photos of him at the scene without complaining about the delay. This is something they likely would not do spontaneously for Romualdez, Acidre, and their sycophants.

How painful that must sound to the ears of the powers-that-be.

FPRRD’s Tacloban falcon swoop indeed struck where it hurts most.