The period June 30–December 22, 2016 has been a time like no other for this country and its people. That period has comprised the first six months of the administration of the man who was elected in the May 9 Presidential election—Rodrigo Duterte.
Those first six months have been a time of indulgence by the lawyer who was once a prosecutor and mayor of Davao City. One can think of no better word to describe Rodrigo Duterte’s conduct in office since June 30—and the weeks immediately preceding his taking of the Presidential oath. It is as though the Man from Davao thought he could take into the halls of Malacañang the mindset that he had and the way he conducted himself when he was mayor of one of this country’s major cities.
Truly, Rodrigo Duterte has been indulging himself during the last six months of 2016. Whatever the real motivation, he has let fly cuss words, insults and invectives with alacrity and with apparent personnel satisfaction. That kind of language is protected by the Constitutional guarantee of free speech, but not when the insulter is President of the Republic and the targets of the insults are real people who matter much to the Filipino people, such as the President of this country’s principal ally, the head of the religion to which the great majority of Filipinos belong and the head of the closest thing that the world has to a government. Mr. Duterte can cuss and insult all he wants, but not at the expense of the 34 million Filipinos who did not vote for him and the 16 million who did.
The coarse language and the worse conduct of former city mayor Rodrigo Duterte has already cost this country a lot in terms of international goodwill and material benefits. The latest loss has been the suspension by the US government of $43 million worth of Millennium Challenge Corporation economic assistance. MCC funds are intended for the improvement of the lot of poor Filipinos, for whom Mr. Duterte has professed to care. Mr. Duterte’s supporters have been deafeningly silent on the matter, but among themselves bankers, securities market people and corporate executives are saying that the steady net outflow of funds in recent months is only partly attributable to the long-expected change in US Federal Reserve interest policy. And the documentable slowdown in US investment commitments does not help the Philippines’ near-the-bottom in the Asian FDI (foreign direct investments) ladder.
Personal indulgence by an elected official, especially the No. 1 official of a country, cannot go on forever. If the last six months have been a honeymoon period—for the 62 percent of Filipinos who did not vote for him that has come to an end. Honeymoon is over. The stark realities of life for 105 million Filipinos must now be faced.
The six-month period of drama, theatrics and grandstanding is over. The time has come to start grappling with realities and doing the business of the nation. There is so much work Rodrigo Duterte & Co. need to do—creating jobs, building infrastructure, making agriculture more efficient, food self-sufficiency, strengthening and broadening the educational system, giving more Filipinos access to health care, collecting more taxes, the list goes on and on. There is just so much work to be done.
The remaining 11-twelfths of Rodrigo Duterte’s term must be a period of seriousness, focus and dedication. Let 2017 be the year for starting to do things that really improve this country and its people.
E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com
