2017 was a year of consolidation for Rodrigo Roa Duterte, the most powerful Philippine president since Ferdinand Marcos (who was president for 20 years, from end-1965 to Feb. 25, 1986).
Duterte’s once ragtag PDP-Laban party easily captured majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, ensuring the passage of priority legislation such as the 2018 full-year P3.7-trillion national budget and the contentious tax law called TRAIN (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion).
TRAIN exempts some seven-million taxpayers from tax if their annual income does not exceed P250,000 but slaps hefty taxes on gasoline and diesel, high-priced vehicles, juices and drinks with high sugar content, mineral extraction, and coal, the source of 50 percent of the country’s power generation.
Duterte has waged a vicious war on drugs that has resulted in the killing of 3,900 drug addicts and their leaders. That’s more casualties than the 3,000 alleged to have been killed extra-judicially or without due process during the 14 years of strongman rule of Marcos from September 1972 to February 1986. Duterte enjoys an 80 percent trust rating.
Duterte has defeated the extremist terrorist group Maute in Mindanao.
He has declared the Communist Party of the Philippines, and its military arm, the New People’s Army terrorist groups too, forcing their 3,000 guerillas and their legal fronts, to be on the run because they will either be killed or arrested.
The President has proved a capable leader on the world stage and one accepted by the international community with the successful hosting of the summit of the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in November 2017, and the Asean summits with leaders of their dialogue partners which included the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Canada, India, and Europe. He has managed a pivot to China without antagonizing the US, whose friendship he keeps, and even while being cozy with Russia.
Duterte defeated the most serious threat to his presidency—and to the nation— the five-month siege on the Muslim city of Marawi, in southern Philippines, from May 23, 2017 to Oct. 23, 2017, with the killing of the two leaders and terrorists of the bandit group Maute —Omar Maute and Isnilon Hapilon, on Oct. 16, 2017. Hapilon was leader of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf which had affiliated with the global terrorist group ISIS.
When terrorists occupied Marawi City late afternoon of May 23, 2017, Duterte, then visiting Moscow, declared martial law and suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, a right given citizens requiring the state to produce persons who are in government custody for alleged acts of criminality or terrorism.
Congress has twice extended martial law in Mindanao, from 60 days in the first proclamation, to until Dec. 31, 2018—a total of one year, seven months and eight days. It is the longest martial rule in the Philippines since President Ferdinand E. Marcos’ 14 years, from September 1972 to 1986. Martial law made Marcos a dictator, ruling by decree and using the military to enforce his will.
With the Executive and Legislative branches of government doing his bidding, Duterte has also focused on the judiciary.
His partymates in the Judiciary Committee of the 294-strong House of Representatives have been feverishly conducting hearings against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno for alleged culpable violations of the Constitution and for alleged abuses as chief justice such as delaying the release of pension and retirement benefits of retired and dead judges and justices, denying due process to an applicant for justice in the high court, and repeatedly violating the sacrosanct en banc rule of the Supreme Court itself.
The House Justice Committee has found the impeachment complaint of private lawyer Lorenzo “Larry” Gadon “sufficient in form and substance,” having been endorsed by 41 congressmen. With that finding, Sereno could be facing an impeachment trial before the Senate as a body which acts as an impeachment court. The betting is that she will be ousted.
Duterte’s followers have also threatened impeachment against Vice President Leni Robredo and anti-graft prosecutor Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales.
Impeachment is a political process, meaning even if strictly, the impeachable accused may not be guilty based purely and technically on evidence, the members of the House and the Senate, being politicians go by first impressions, political instincts, and political realities in making judgments under the catch-all phrase “betrayal of the public trust.”
That is how the late Chief Justice Renato Corona was removed in 2011. He was found guilty by the 24-member Senate, voting 22-2, on the flimsy excuse that he failed to declare in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Networth peso and dollar deposits.
In Sereno’s case, in prior years before becoming Supreme Court justice, she not only failed to declare certain incomes in her SALN, she failed to file her SALNs for a number of years when she was a law professor at the state University of the Philippines.
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