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Friday, March 29, 2024

Strong leaders

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“Rodrigo Duterte has neither credibility nor respectability.”

 

President Duterte calls former Senator Bongbong Marcos a weak leader. But what is a strong leader?

A strong leader is one who has credibility, respectability, and who the people want to follow, and I believe for a Catholic country like the Philippines, one who has moral convictions.

Duterte is not any of these things.

Duterte is not my ideal leader. He has no credibility. He often contradicts himself and frequently says things he does not mean which his spokesmen find difficult to explain. They are forced to say that either the President was joking or exasperated or resorting to hyperbole.

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I cannot respect a leader cursing or making jokes about women. A gentleman should show respect to women. Duterte is not a gentleman.

Most importantly, I believe that the leader of my country, being a Catholic country, should have moral convictions, whether or not he is a Catholic.

A leader of his country should not be living with his querida and their daughter. A querida is now euphemistically called a “common-law wife” or a “partner.”

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Bongbong Marcos is a weak leader? For one thing he was never a Vice President. He could have been were it not for the fact that in 2016, he was cheated by Smartmatic in connivance with the “Yellows.”

My gualy, how can Bongbong be a weak leader with all the following and support he’s been getting as a runaway leader of the presidential race?

It seems that the President is so jealous of Bongbong because his daughter Sara, former mayor of Davao City, chose to be Bongbong’s vice presidential candidate. Now Mr. Duterte had Senator Bong Go run for President — and that reveals a lot of what kind of a person Senator Bong Go is. Once an alalay, always an alalay.

How can I respect a would-be president of my country who takes dictations from his former boss, and who I believe will continue to take dictation from Duterte all the time. How can I respect people who cannot act by themselves?

This is why I have much respect for Sara, who I believe had her own mind by being the teammate of Bongbong as vice presidential candidate.

And look what’s happening. With the Bongbong-Sara tandem, the latest survey shows they are way ahead of the flock.

I also believe that the more Duterte attacks Bongbong, the more Bongbong gets popular. It’s just a matter of Bongbong and Sara maintaining their lead.

What I am afraid of, Santa Banana, is that the President fails to realize that Sara could get hurt by Duterte’s continuous attack on the person of Bongbong.

What I cannot understand is why at one time Duterte became very popular with the people. The people also believed him when he said that he could end the illegal drugs issue in six months. Or a year.

It’s now 2021, and the illegal drug war is still a big problem in the country so much so that the International Criminal Court wants to investigate Duterte for crimes against humanity with so many killings, even extra-judicially.

To my mind, credibility is the strongest asset of a strong leader. My gulay, how can people follow a leader they cannot believe in? Respectability goes hand in hand with credibility.

The problem with our electorate is that because of poverty, they gravitate toward and follow politicians who have money to spread during election time.

Santa banana, it’s an endless vicious cycle during election time. People tend to gravitate around politicians who have money. It’s the lack of education and poverty. It’s not surprising when people go for somebody who has several wives and illegitimate children. In other words, they go for who they believe is “macho,” a hangover from the old colonial days. .

I had occasion to visit a friend of mine, a congressman from the North, and saw in his backyard a throng of people having lunch under a big tent.

When I asked my politician friend who they were, he said they’re from the province. They expected money for a basketball court, uniforms, or for a dead relative or a loved one and almost for every occasion.

My gulay, I told my friend, that’s a lot of money you are throwing. He then whispered to my ear, “pork barrel yan.”

This explains why politicians get into corruption. Where do you think they get money from to spread around their constituents? It’s a vicious cycle of graft and corruption. Politicians need money to spread around and congressmen must use either pork barrel or resort to graft and corruption. As I said, the people deserve the people they elect.

It all boils down to poverty, the biggest problem in the country. And you need a strong leader to end it. Is this possible? Why not?

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