On two successive occasions last Thursday in Cebu, President Duterte defended his strong hand against drugs and criminality.
“I have always held it as an article of faith that there can never be progress and development for as long as there is no peace and order,” he said. He had just laid the cornerstone for what should be by 2020 a third bridge linking Mactan Island, where the international airport is located, to the main island and city of Cebu.
The groundbreaking on the Cordova side was attended by Metro Pacific CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan and company officials, the executive secretary, as well as Secretary Michel Lloyd Dino, his presidential assistant for the Visayas, whom he acknowledged in his speech as the first person to support him in Cebu, even when nobody took his potential presidency seriously.
He repeated the same article of faith in his speech later that evening before businessmen-members of the Cebu City Chamber of Commerce.
The first time I heard the President use the phrase “article of faith” was in early 2015, when he was in the midst of what was then billed as a “listening tour.” He promoted the concept of federalism and in the process introduced himself to the population.
He was invited to speak before the Asian CEO Forum, and I was in Davao to help draft his speech. I then posited that before a business gathering, he should read from a prepared speech.
Closeted at the Marco Polo Hotel with his close aides, I asked him to enumerate his “principles” of leadership. I had hoped to relate these to the local governance success that was Davao City, then adjudged one of the 10 safest cities in the world.
The first, he said, was “I hold it as an article of faith that there can be no development unless there is peace and order.” I thought: Bingo! I had a speech.
Then he recounted his first days as the elected mayor of Davao in 1988. He called the business community in the trouble-plagued city to a meeting through his friend, the late Chito Ayala of respected memory. He told them that “you guys take care of business, and I will take care of restoring the peace and order of our place.”
“You know business better than I. You know the vast economic potentials of our city and the Davao region. I for my part will deal with the lawlessness that prevails here, and when you see the results of my governance, then you invest, and you invite others to invest,” said the newly elected mayor.
In Cebu City last week, in the presence of one of the country’s top business moguls, he declared, “my job then was to build a city; my job now is to build a country.” The same basic principle applies. The article of faith.
Listening in the audience to a leader who never relied on prepared speeches, I realized why he keeps referring to his war on drugs, and defending the draconian measures he has had to employ before skeptics, naysayers, bleeding heart activists, as well as plain haters of Duterte.
He just has to keep drumming that article of faith in the national consciousness. Everything else will follow.
Now that he is president, he is single-mindedly focused on the war against illegal drugs. He vows to exterminate the drug lords and even the pushers who truly, “destroy my people.” “You destroy my people, you destroy the future of my youth, I will kill you,” he exclaims in no uncertain terms.
“These international agencies, these meddlers, even the Catholic bishops, can’t they understand this? If it is necessary to kill criminals in order to save and protect our children, then so be it! Do we have a choice?” He proceeds to berate his critics and even would-be destabilizers.
The audience, composed of local officialdom of the province as well as the business community, and beyond them, ordinary folks who waited hours to be able to greet their fellow Bisaya, lapped his words with applause.
What he was saying was what they themselves know and feel in their seminal lives. From petty crimes that victimize the poor, to syndicated crimes at times perpetrated by those sworn to defend them, they know how criminality and the scourge of drugs affect them and their families. And here, at last, was a leader who in plain language, was telling them that all along, we seem to have forgotten the basics. And see what mess it has created.
Later that evening over a late dinner at the Mactan Airbase preparatory to his leaving for Davao to see his newest grandson (his tenth from three children) born to Mayor Inday Sara and her husband Mans Carpio, he was in an ebullient mood.
Seated between ES Bingbong Medialdea and this writer in a table shared with Governor Davide of Cebu, Governor Degamo of Negros Oriental, Mayor Osmeña of Cebu City and a few of his close friends, he was clearly delighted at the arrival of Inday Sara’s new baby nicknamed Stonefish.
We had a simple meal of eggplant torta, bam-i, that Visayan noodle dish, munggo, roast native chicken and of course, Cebu lechon. Oh, and also, puso (accent on the last syllable), rice wrapped in coconut leaves and soaked in boiling water, the way the Bisayang dako prepare their to-go staple.
The President was clearly in a good mood. We talked about a variety of topics, from economics to developments in the international scene, but as he listened, his eyes smiling, I knew he was very confident that he was in the right direction.