"Because of his popularity, President Duterte must have thought he was doing just fine."
"Because of his popularity, President Duterte must have thought he was doing just fine."
On October 5, 2020, Pulse Asia released the results of its Sept.14-20, 2020 survey indicating that amid the pandemic, 91 percent of Filipinos approved of President Duterte’s performance; only 5 percent disapproved. More than nine out of every 10 Filipinos trusted the Philippine leader.
The nearly incredible and stratospheric trust and job approval ratings were the highest ever for any Philippine president. In fact, it is the highest for any leader of any democratic country in the world today, and in history. The 91 percent beat approval ratings of world dictators Hitler, Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Khadaffy during their time in power. It also beat the popularity and trust ratings of Jesus Christ in his time. The 91 percent made Duterte the world’s most popular and trusted leader, bar none.
The Pulse Asia rating, it now turns out, has done more damage, than good, to the Filipino people and to the Philippines.
Duterte thought he was doing just fine. Pulse Asia said so. This gave him confidence to do things he wanted done his way. He indulged in his favorite pastime—killing people, verbally, and brutally.
The President harangued Vice President Leni Robredo, to near oblivion. It was effective. Robredo is among the cellar dwellers in people’s presidential preferences for 2022. Among the 11 people Pulse Asia listed in its Nov. 3-Dec. 2, 2022 survey, as possible presidential candidates for May 2022, Robredo ranked a dismal sixth, with voter preference of just 8 percent nationwide—8 in the ABC class, 8 in D, and 8 in E income class voters.
The first five in Pulse Asia’s presidential preference survey had double digit ratings: Sara Duterte, 26 percent; Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, 14; Senator Grace Poe, 14; Manila Mayor Isko Moreno 12; and Senator and boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, 10 percent.
Meanwhile, on March 10, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that “police and military personnel killed nine activists and arrested six others during raids on March 7 in the southern Luzon provinces of Laguna, Batangas, Cavite, and Rizal, south of the capital, Manila.” The police claimed the operations were meant to arrest alleged communist New People’s Army rebels. The police had search warrants.
The killings happened a day after President issued a “kill the communist rebels” order. “If there’s an encounter and you see them armed, kill, kill them, don’t mind human rights, I will be the one to go to prison, I don’t have qualms,” Duterte said in a speech before the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict in Cagayan de Oro, southern Philippines.
In Eastern Visayas, on March 8, an elite team of police snipers, wearing bonnets, ambushed the van carrying Calbayog City Mayor Ronaldo Aquino. The mayor died, along with his driver, his bodyguard, and a civilian. However, a security vehicle escort of the mayor arrived immediately at the scene of the ambush and engaged the police assassins in daylight gunfight while scores of witnesses scampered to safety. Two of the police assassins died.
Vice President Robredo denounced the killings, crying “the Filipino people deserve better than this murderous regime.”
More deaths could occur because of the Duterte government’s failure to procure on time and in great volume anti-COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate up to 70 million adult Filipinos to achieve herd immunity this 2021. Of an announced vaccine allocation of 148 million doses, only 1.08 million have arrived—on March 1 (the 600,000 Chinese doses) and on March 4 (the 480,000 doses of AstraZeneca.
To immunize 70 million in nine months, authorities must inoculate 260,000 Filipinos every day. As of March 9, the Philippines had inoculated just 44,000, after a week or a rate of 6,285 jabs per day. The US does 1.5 million vaccinations daily and will achieve herd immunity by early May 2021.
At 6,285 doses dispensed per day, the Philippines will reach herd immunity in 30 years—long after Duterte is gone as president and probably long after COVID-19 has disappeared from the face of the earth. With a prompt and effective vaccine rollout, some 7,000 Filipino lives will be saved this year.
The Philippines is the last and slowest in the ten-nation ASEAN to roll out a vaccination program.
Why the lack of alacrity in managing the worst pandemic and the worst economic crisis in a century? Well, the complacency engendered by Pulse Asia’s intoxicating 91 percent job approval and trust ratings for Duterte.
“We were excellent,” enthused Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque on March 8, assessing Duterte’s pandemic management. A week after saying that, Roque got hit by COVID.
According to some scientists, countries must inoculate 60 percent of their population in six months to prevent new COVID-19 virus variants from neutralizing the effectiveness of several vaccines developed so far. The virus is mutating faster than the vaccination rate of most countries to cope with.
There at least three known global variants, the United Kingdom B.1.1.7, the South Africa B.1.351, and the Brazilian P.1. The Philippines is said to have its own variant by this time.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the UK variant “spreads more easily and quickly than other variants” and “may be associated with an increased risk of death compared to other variant viruses.”
The Brazilian P.1 was first identified in travelers from Brazil, who were tested during routine screening at an airport in Japan, in early January. This variant contains a set of additional mutations that may affect its ability to be recognized by antibodies.
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