By the time the individual whom they elected took their oaths as president of the Philippines, the Filipino people have usually been comfortable with the choices they made, believing that they knew enough about the incoming presidents’ personalities, beliefs and backgrounds to be able to expect proper and lawful things from them. There are, in my view, two exceptions to this rule.
One, certainly, is the man who will be sworn in today as the 16th President of the Republic. True, like all his predecessors, except Corazon Aquino, Rodrigo Duterte has been in public office all his life – chiefly as mayor of a large and formerly problematic city – but since the start of the electoral campaign, he has been saying things and performing acts that had placed him beyond the bounds of civility and propriety. He says that after June 30, he will undergo a metamorphosis. Not one of his predecessors had to make such a promise; the Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Gloria Arroyo that the Filipino voters knew before inauguration day were the same persons that ascended to Malacañang after their oath-taking.
Whether Rodrigo Duterte will undergo a metamorphosis after June 30 is not a certainty. What is certain is that, as he prepares to ascend the stairs of Malacañang, the majority of the Filipino people are apprehensive about the former mayor of Davao City. They distrust him and are not comfortable with him, they fear that the irreverent and imperious person who assumes the presidency today is the same person they will be living with over the next six years.
The other president-elect, who, in my recollection, assumed the presidency of the Republic amid such apprehension and distrust was Diosdado Macapagal, who took his oath of office on Dec. 30 (then the prescribed date under the 1935 Constitution), 1961. The man whom the media referred to as DM became Chief Executive after four years as vice president.
Many apprehension-filled questions were asked about President Macapagal during his first days in office. What will he be like? Will he be accessible to the people, or will he be a distant kind of Chief Executive? What are his likes? Who and what does he dislike? Is he a vindictive type of person, and does he have a list of people and groups that he intends to go after?
The apprehension and distrust regarding Diosdado Macapagal stemmed partly from the personality of the new president. The Poor Boy from Lubao was a self-made man who never forgot his provincial roots. The UST-trained lawyer eventually became chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the House of Representatives, but he did not develop the personality of the typical Filipino politician. He was basically an introvert.
Another source of the apprehension and distrust regarding Diosdado Macapagal was that President Carlos Garcia and the ruling Nacionalistas, knowing that Macapagal was bound to be the Liberal Party’s standard bearer in the 1961 election, deliberately kept him out of the limelight. Without an official position – President Garcia did not offer him the traditional foreign affairs portfolio – Diosdado Macapagal did not, during the four years of his vice presidency, mingle extensively with the leaders of the various sectors of Philippine society, such as the business sector. Thus, he was not able to develop close ties with them.
That situation of apprehension and distrust gradually changed, and the change was largely due to one man. That man was Armand Fabella, the highly regarded, Havard-trained president of Jose Rizal College, who Macapagal appointed as his chief economic adviser. The business and professional groups – especially the former – were now saying to themselves: if Macapagal has Fabella as his close adviser, the country will be in good hands. True enough, the country was in good hands and the four years of the Macapagal presidency have been said by economic historians to have been the most stable years of the post-war Philippine economy.
In due time, Macapagal began to endear himself to the Filipino people and Malacañang ceased to be the object of apprehension and distrust. Macapagal did not promise, and did not have to undergo, a metamorphosis. What the Filipino people saw was what they got.
Is there anyone in the Duterte camp capable of generating an Armand Fabella-type impact on the presidency of the man they call Digong? The nearest thing to such a person is Carlos Dominguez, the newly appointed secretary of Finance. Sonny Dominguez, a Davao-based businessman who enjoys Duterte’s trust – they were classmates – is highly regarded in business circles from both the academic and professional standpoints. His inclusion in the Duterte Cabinet has been a reassuring development for many Filipinos within and outside the business sector.
The gradual dissipation of the initial apprehension and distrust of Diosdado Macapagal became possible because the Poor Boy from Lubao was essentially a decent person and a nation-loving public official. I hope that with the passage of time, the same thing can be said about the current apprehension and distrust of Rodrigo Duterte.
E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com