“Duterte snubs proclamation,” cried the banner story of a daily. Its editorial, entitled “No-show,” stated: “The proclamation of a president and vice president is thus a moment of great significance in this democratic space…the ceremony, for ceremony it is—is not merely a swearing in of political lemmings bellying up to the banquet table of a new ruling party, or a proclamation of a city mayor beloved by his constituents and embarking on yet another term.”
Duterte remains an enigma to many. His fellow Davaoeños understand; they have seen him, lived with him in their seminal lives for three decades. And they know that he has always disdained pomp and pageantry. Ceremony, for that matter.
The guy does not celebrate his birthday. Even when he was running for president, on March 28 this year when he was already considered a “serious” contender by the usual disbelievers in Manila, he cocooned himself within the confines of home. Others would have made a big splash; birthdays, after all, are annual events in one’s life. Last year he turned 70, and he was already making waves by his “listening tour.” One would have expected some social bash to mark a significant milestone. He did not have any.
I recall that at the height of martial law, Ferdinand Marcos gathered most everyone in his Ilocos Norte hometown for a bash of the century, his 60th birthday. Was it nearly as ostentatious as the 40th wedding anniversary before martial law, of his economic and political arch enemy, Eugenio Lopez Sr., who had a magnificent party in his sprawling Parañaque mansion by the sea, complete with a champagne fountain and deposed European royalty flown in as special guests? I cannot say; I was neither in one nor the other.
At about this time, the young Rodrigo Duterte, though scion of a self-effacing governor of the undivided Davao, and Marcos’ pre-martial law secretary for General Services, was at the Lyceum, the plebeian college where nationalists like Lansang and Lapuz along with Joma Sison taught and decried the inequalities that pervaded a Filipino society presided over by oligarchs. Nothing much has changed since then, despite authoritarian rule and the “rebirth” of what many now call “democracy.”
And so, when the demise of martial law opened for prosecutor Duterte the opportunity to lead came, he simply poured his heart, his mind and all his waking hours to transform his Davao from social wilderness into a peaceful haven for his constituents, minus ceremony. Just hard work, never mind the accolades, never mind the pomp and pageantry.
The guy lives simply and disdains the trappings of wealth and high office. On the night of May 16, a week after his historic victory, he had a late supper of fastfood fare with just his partner, Honeylet Avancena, the faithful Christopher “Bong” Go, his newly-minted spokesman Atty. Sal Panelo and this writer inside his small temporary office at the Matina Enclaves. Grilled pork chops in a paper plate, some Korean fried chicken fillets in a paper carton, some pancit, and him eating with bare hands. I have seen this scene several times—the mayor of the largest city in the country eating with gusto the ordinary Filipino way, “kinamot” as the Bisaya call it, whether his favorite “inun-unan” or “paksiw na isda” to Tagalogs, or grilled fish, or even a hearty tinolang manok. Now the president-elect of the twelfth-largest population in the world, the guy still eats with bare hands. Nothing has changed.
Sometime in early December last year, when he had already filed his CoC through attorney-in-fact Salvador Medialdea (now named his executive secretary), we were guests at a birthday luncheon in Bonifacio Global City. The other guests were the crème de la crème of Philippine business, and the venue was a French restaurant. The menu consisted of Coquille Saint Jacques on a bed of greens, a lime-laced spume to wash the taste buds before an entrée of beef cheeks on a puree of cauliflower, among others, and a variety of wines to choose from.
Duterte stood up from the table where he sat with business titans, went to the washroom, and then sat beside us ordinary mortals in another table. He hardly touched the food. “Wala ko kasabot anang menu” (I don’t understand the menu), and then asked the ubiquitous Bong Go if there was a chicken sandwich in his car, so he could eat before proceeding to a speaking engagement somewhere. No belle vie; no haute cuisine, just “inato.”
Neither is the man awed by the pomp and pageantry of Roman Catholic rituals; the smell of incense, the gold-threaded robes, the soaring hallelujahs. He prefers the quietude of solitary prayer, his daily communion with the Supreme Being, and demonstrated in action by service to fellowmen. Though not a very religious man myself, I still get goosebumps when religious ceremony evokes memories of a childhood where Latin phrases had to be memorized and the whole church is enveloped by the scent and smoke of “holy” incense while a soaring choir sang in the background. But not Duterte—no longer.
The PDI editorial concluded, “inexplicably, he let the moment pass, allowing the leaders and members of Congress to go through the motions, to call out his name and proclaim…an invisible man.”
Judge not the man based on the mores and traditions of a “democracy” in form. Judge him when he begins to institute the meaningful changes that will make our democracy one of substance and not mere form.
For the “democracy” we claim to cherish has become virtually meaningless to the ordinary Filipino. The ultimate “ceremony,” that of having the privilege to “vote” for his choice of a president every six years, has become more and more an exercise in the futility of change. As the French would say, “Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme chose” ¡(The more there is change, the more things remain the same).
Democracy should mean equal voice and equal opportunity, not the rent-seeking privileges of the politico-economic elite, not the hypocrisy of a class divide where elected and appointed servants have ceased to serve the “bosses” they proclaim. Not mere institutional form, but substance felt in daily lives.
Let Rodrigo Duterte in the next six years begin to give substance to democratic form. And fulfill his promise of “tunay na pagbabago,” sans ceremony.
