An article in an international publication got the President’s men’s goat again. This time it was a 2,900-word piece at the New York Times, headlined “Becoming Duterte: The Making of a Philippine Strongman” by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Richard Paddock.
The story portrays Duterte as a thug, a killer-savior, who has no qualms resorting to extreme measures if it would suit his ends, and who encourages cops and vigilantes to carry out killings in the name of his war against drugs.
This image has been known internationally, of course, but the author, who flew to Davao City to talk to the people who know President Duterte, traces his rise to power to the violence he suffered at home and in school during his youth and early career.
He is a man of multiple contradictions, Paddock says. He wages a war on illegal drugs while being dependent on fentanyl to relieve pain caused by his sickness. He lives a simple life while being generous and compassionate toward others.
He says the most outrageous things and curses even at the US president, the secretary-general of the United Nations, and even the pope, prides himself in an independent foreign policy and flaunts his lack of regard for protocol. And yet his alter-egos are quick to take offense at any sort of criticism he receives.
Case in point: Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella says this latest New York Times article is a “well-paid hack job for well-heeled clients with shady motives.”
“One gets the feeling NYT is not interested in presenting the whole truth, only that with which they can bully those who attempt an independent foreign policy,” Mr. Abella said, even as the writer has requested interviews with Mr. Duterte and Palace people themselves.
A few weeks ago, Duterte supporters also took to task an American television show for showing a fictional tough-talking, posterior-grabbing Philippine president who was punched on the nose by the fictional US secretary of state. The protesters must have missed the operative word: Fictional.
And then, Mr. Duterte himself called the former president of Colombia an idiot for the latter’s op-ed piece—yes, at the New York Times. Cesar Gaviria said he was talking from experience when he warns Mr. Duterte that the drastic, violent approach to the drug problem will likely not work.
How one reacts to criticism only betrays one’s insecurities and desire to be perceived perpetually in a good light—despite claims to the contrary. People will believe what they want to believe; say what they want to say. Taking them to task for doing is a distraction; all efforts should go into proving them wrong.
If there is one point in the Paddock story that we agree with most strongly, it is that Mr. Duterte is full of contradictions. How else can you explain a tough-talking head of state being unpresidentially hyper-sensitive?