We are living in dangerous times. It’s the open season for killing drug suspects. The government is not only standing on dangerous ground. President Rodrigo Duterte has brought us to the precipice. By his own words, a collision course between the executive and the judiciary could bring the country into a constitutional crisis.
In office only 40 days, the President is already talking about declaring Martial Law? This, after a heated verbal exchange with Supreme Court Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno over his warrantless war on drugs and release of a list of high-profile suspects.
Realizing the backlash of the President’s veiled threat, the Palace press office issued a statement saying Mr.Duterte was only asking a rhetorical question. Malacanang’s clarification, however, ran counter to the President’s statement he would direct all officials of the Executive branch not to follow any high court order that would hamper the anti-drug war.
Duterte was incensed that a high public official, no less than the chief magistrate, had questioned his unorthodox method in the anti-drugs campaign. He said Sereno was appointed during the Aquino administration that did nothing in six years to fix the pervasive drug problem.
Chief Justice Sereno knows going down the level of Duterte’s diatribe is a no-win situation. She has wisely chosen not to engage the President in a further war of words.
In essence, Duterte threatened to assume emergency powers and bypass all those who are obstructing his plan to effect change in the shortest time possible. Congress is already proposing emergency powers for the President to solve the traffic problem. Some senators, however, are skeptical about cloaking the President with too much power, more than he needs to solve even Metro Manila’s traffic mess.
Duterte warned of a constitutional crisis if the “obstructionists” continue to stand in his way. If the President is now under pressure to perform, he should not forget he’s the one who had put a self-imposed deadline of stopping crime and drug-trafficking within three to six months upon assumption of office.
Duterte has drawn flak over the spate of killing of drug suspects and his release of a list of police and local officials who are protecting drug lords. Like Sereno, former Justice secretary and now Senator Leila de Lima said due diligence should be exercised before such a list is made public. This is to be fair to those who are still just suspects without hard evidence against them. Duterte’s list included people who are already dead.
What else has Duterte done to put the Philippines on the precipice? Well, he has called the American ambassador in Manila “bakla” (gay). This coarse and undiplomatic language isn’t done in civil international relations. For this breach of protocol, the US State Department summoned the charge d’affaires of the Philippine Embassy in Washington to explain this unprecedented remark against the representative of another government—a major ally at that.
Duterte’s offensive remark against Ambassador Philip Goldberg was apparently caused by the US envoy’s comment about the President’s rape joke over an Australian missionary who was waylaid in Davao. Duterte said he he should have been first in line as Davao mayor when the missionary was gang raped. Goldberg had commented that such a serious crime against women was not a light matter to be joked about. For this correct comment, Goldberg got Duterte’s goat.
State Department spokeperson Elizabeth Trudeau also expressed concern over the Duterte administration’s extrajudicial killings of drug suspects. The United Nations, like the US, is alarmed at the series of summary killings. It has come to a point when Duterte could be doing more damage to the country’s reputation than the drug dealers he’s going after.
Our embassy in Washington is still without a chief of mission since Ambassador Jose Cuisia turned own Duterte’s offer to extend his appointment. Cuisia had the good sense not to accept the offer of extension, sparing himself from a difficult and embarrassing position to explain his President’s odd if not bizarre behavior.
We will not name the embassy’s charge d’affaires to spare him the embarrassment and discomfort he’s feeling at the moment no doubt. It must be hard for the country’s ambassadors to serve this President and more so his spokesmen who have to speak from both sides of their mouth to explain and make excuses for their boss..
Some are born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Others a foot. They are usually the ones who love to hear the sound of their own voice and pander to the crowd.