PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte describes his first year in office as a roller-coaster ride. The description certainly captures the often turbulent events of Mr. Duterte’s first 365 days as chief executive.
Some of those events, such as the crisis caused by the terrorist siege on Marawi City, were created by external forces beyond the President’s control. The best he could do in these instances was to react swiftly and decisively, which he did by calling in the troops and declaring martial law in Mindanao.
Other problems were inherited from the Aquino administration, which was more interested in political payback than in national programs that would actually benefit the people. Six years of such misplaced priorities left the incoming Duterte administration struggling with problems such as a corrupt bureaucracy, decaying infrastructure and a ramshackle public transport system that continue to make life miserable for Filipinos today, one year after Aquino left office.
Corruption and neglect by the previous administration also enabled the illicit drug trade to flourish, with drug lords running their businesses out of the national penitentiary. President Duterte, who won the election on the promise of eradicating the drug menace, spent much of his first year pushing a bloody campaign that saw thousands of drug suspects killed even before they saw in the inside of a jail cell. The tough-talking President fueled the perception that the extrajudicial killings were state-sanctioned by saying he would happily execute millions of drug addicts, and that he would protect police officers who carried out his orders.
International condemnation of the President’s bloody campaign led to a war of words in which Mr. Duterte called the US president a “son of a whore,” and refused millions of euros in aid, simply because the European Union expressed concern over the killings.
During his first year, Mr. Duterte also signaled a significant change in the country’s foreign policy, turning away from its traditional ally, the United States, and leaning toward China and Russia.
Mr. Duterte has declined to assess his first year—and rightly so. That is work for other, perhaps more disinterested parties. Besides, one year will not give us the full measure of what Mr. Duterte can do in six years, as his national programs, including a massive, state-led infrastructure build-up, bear fruit.
The first-year mark, however, is an opportune time to assess what worked and what didn’t, and what might be done better in the next year.
In the area of foreign affairs, for instance, we wonder if it was necessary or particularly wise to antagonize old allies in the hopes of making new friends.
Domestically, too, the administration could benefit from officials who can be professional in communicating the President’s policies with no hubris or nonsense.
Finally, after a year of practice, perhaps even the President might want to hold his tongue once in awhile, all the better to give us a smoother ride in his second year in office. That way, we might get to where we want to go faster, with less turbulence.
