Rodrigo Duterte is president. Yes, he is president and not just a presumptive president. “Presumptive” is a term borrowed by local media from the US media which refers to Donald Trump who has so much bombast in his body it flows out of his ears and other orifices. “Presumptive” rings pretentious and Duterte is not at all pretentious. The longtime Davao mayor says what he means and means what he says. He is a WYSIWYG guy—what you see is what you get.
Duterte is not at all a presumptive president. That the local media calls him “presumptive” is a hangover of the colonial days when what sounded foreign or American sounded good. Trump started calling himself the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. On cue, CNN and Fox News also started calling him the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Local media, especially ABS-CBN, heard the word “presumptive” thinking it sounds good and safe and began calling Duterte the “presumptive” president. The correct word is president-elect. But since Duterte has been issuing orders and dicta and people, like taxi drivers, began complying with the new rules, then for all practical purposes, he is our president.
Now, outgoing President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III has started feeling insecure and is by now, a lameduck. Look at what the police did to the once powerful police general, Alan Purisima. He was met by his arresting officers at the airport upon his arrival on May 20 from a domestic out of town trip and hauled off to the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan to post bail in connection with a sweetheart deal that allowed a fly-by-night courier, Werfast, to be the exclusive courier for gun licenses. The incorporators of Werfast are the same people who own the forex dealer which helped launder $81 million in stolen money from the Bangladesh central bank.
Meanwhile, Noynoy has gone on a media barrage, talking with the New York Times and TIME and delivering speeches to make sure his so-called Daang Matuwid legacy is not forgotten and thrown, to use a cliché, into the dustbin of history. He has even told Duterte in no uncertain terms to toe the US line as regards the South China Sea, implying the president-elect lacks adequate briefing that is why he is soft on China.
In his early morning press conference on May 23, Duterte was asked about President Obama’s congratulatory call on May 17. The mayor shrugged and blurted, “it was just a simple hello.” Obama, Duterte related, talked about enhancing relations in various fields like terrorism, human rights, and the China Sea.
The White House version of the call made it appear the téte-á-téte was more substantial than “a simple hello.” Said a White House statement: “President Obama noted that the successful election and record voter participation were emblematic of the Philippines’ vibrant democracy. The President highlighted the enduring values that underpin our thriving alliance with the Philippines and the long-standing ties between our two peoples, including our shared commitments to democracy, human rights, rule of law, and inclusive economic growth. The two leaders affirmed their interest in seeing the relationship continue to grow on the basis of these shared principles.”
If that sounded like a lecture, it was. The reference to human rights and rule of law sounds like a warning to Duterte: “Please do not kill suspects without due process.” The mayor has said he will kill as many as 100,000 drug lords and other criminals and dump their bodies into Manila Bay to fatten the fish there.
For his part, Duterte assured Obama, “we are allied with the western powers on all matters, especially military, because we have the RP-US Mutual Defense Pact.” He told the outgoing American President: “I will agree with the multilateral [approach] but if there is no progress on the negotiations and [the talks] does not improve into something specific and good for us, after two or three years, I am willing to talk bilateral, perhaps even earlier.”
A guy who chalks up nearly 17 million in votes in a hotly contested five-way presidential fight and with an unprecedented 6.26 million more votes than the second placer, is certainly not a presumptive president. In fact, Duterte is so confident of his mandate he has said he won’t bother to come to Manila to be proclaimed the elected president or winner by Congress (the outgoing Senate and the House in joint session) sitting as a National Board of Canvassers. The Constitution is silent on whether the winning candidate needs to be present in Congress for his proclamation as the elected president. The deadline for Congress to begin the national canvassing is June 9.
Duterte seems to be having difficulty completing his cabinet. At this writing, he has not announced his secretaries for Trade and Industry, Budget and Management, Health, Agrarian Reform, Social Welfare and Development, Higher Education, Tourism, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel, Metro Manila Development Authority, National Anti-Poverty Commission, Tesda, and Governance Commission for GOCCs, as well as for the newly created Department of Information Communications Technology (DICT) which will cannibalize the Department of Transportation and Communications into simply a Department of Transportation (DT).
So far, two appointees have declined their nominations—Gilberto Teodoro, for Defense, and Peter Laurel, for Education.
The president has reserved the following positions for military generals—Immigration, National Penitentiary, and PDEA (Drug Enforcement). The Bureau of Internal Revenue post is still vacant.