The demand for Duterte

Early in 2015 when the clamor for Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte was still in its infancy—almost a fanciful pipe dream among a few supporters still then limited to those fascinated by the peace and order brought to a city surrounded by constant war and violence—comparing him with other frontrunners, we had shot from the hip and labeled him as nothing more than “Wyatt Earp.” To complete the analogy, we wrote that the Philippines, with its myriad problems ranging from geopolitical tensions to an inept and incompetent Cabinet and all the way to a bungling presidency, was not “Tombstone.” 

Such perspective depended on what we thought were requisites needed on a national level arrayed against similarly national-level concerns.

While the expectations grown out of those remain valid, they missed the mark on otherwise intimate concerns that were not only very real to a good number of people but critically relevant to the ordinary voter.

Shooting from the hip was easy. The reputation that surrounded Mayor Duterte had mostly to do with the question of human-rights abuses. There was little on the national stage that we falsely conceived could be extrapolated from his successes in Davao that might reflect on the national relevance of his unique talents as a city mayor, save for an advocacy for federalism limited to citizens mostly from Mindanao’s Christian population.

The drug problem was not yet in our immediate neighborhood, the way it is among despairing and destitute constituencies subsisting in Manila’s hovels. Unlike Taguig and other suburbs that are reportedly inadvertent hosts to illegal drugs traded openly in flea markets, exclusive residential communities do not have such in its parks and community centers.

The rampant criminality that snuffs out lives just outside the high walls and steel bars latticed around windows remained irrelevant for many residents in gated communities in Makati. But that is not the case in the sprawling squatter communities of Quezon City where its officials first nurture and then eventually harvest votes from the permanent slums these officials allow to infest tax-paid government land.

The profound fears of people against a persona such as Duterte’s, brazenly flaunted and exaggerated, for the most part, does not emanate from direct personal, experiential nor even empirical foundations. Rather, they are fears founded on long-held character, principles and values that declare that human rights are critical to a civilized society; that life is sacred, that fidelity and family are important, and due process, one of the most important tenets of the law.

Some of these are basic pillars of character. Others, pillars of the society we strive for. Utopian? Perhaps.

But simply take a moment to pause, reflect and allow reality to intrude into our Utopian reverie, there to brusquely awaken us to the stark and stinging truth that constant complacency and convenience have so far insulated us from and made us both innocent and ignorant of issues relevant to the greater and more vulnerable public.

Under this administration’s anointed presidential candidate, the Cabinet-level department in charge of institutions responsible for peace and order has allowed its law enforcement agencies to be an efficient redistribution channel for illegal drugs. It has also, by dereliction, effectively consented to extrajudicial killings on one end, and on another, transformed law enforcers into a tax-paid criminal syndicate.

Geopolitics, the global economy, taxation, employment and other national issues we would ordinarily find critical to a presidency are, understandably, not intimately relevant to a good number of people. Peace and order, determination and political will are. If only our current leaders had balls larger than garbanzos and specific candidates with at least a pearl forming between their legs, then a Duterte presidency would not have appealed as much to those cowering in fear, albeit so far insulated inside gated communities, as those already downtrodden and long victimized outside.