I WAS one of the most severe critics of Rodrigo Duterte as a presidential candidate. But now that he has assumed the presidency, I believe he should be given every chance and every reasonable support to succeed. And, boy, will he need a lot of support!
In my own limited way, I’ve faced the challenges of a presidency. Obviously, those posed by an ad agency or even a national organization in the United States are miniscule compared to what the chief executive of the Philippines must confront. But there are parallels, one of which is that, in spite of a cordon of advisers, a leader has to personally and singularly make the hard choices – the critical decisions – and be prepared to face the consequences, if any.
Whether you lead a company of 200 people or a country of 100 million, the harsh realities are the same: success has many fathers and failure is an orphan. President Harry S. Truman said it more bluntly: The buck stops here.
We know that candidate Duterte had a bad habit of overpromising, over-dramatizing and putting his foot in his mouth, but, by now, he has likely undergone a reality check. In fact, he has begun to scale down his bluster and to backtrack on some of his more dazzling campaign promises. At this point, I think we should grant him the benefit of faith in his sincerity and his determination to do a good job. We should also be prepared to concede his limitations.
One cannot help recalling what the late comedian, Dolphy, said when asked why he didn’t want to run for president. Was it because he was afraid that he would lose? No, he was afraid that he would win – and would then not know what to do.
This is not to compare Duterte, as president, with the capabilities of Dolphy as a comedian. As a hands-on mayor of Davao City, Duterte is certainly better prepared to face the challenges of the presidency than Dolphy and, as we eventually found out, better, too, than Benigno S. Aquino III.
And speaking of Duterte and Aquino, there appears to be a world of difference in the character of both men – as well as many similarities. Duterte has shown that he is prepared to accept responsibility for the consequences of his actions and decisions. His classic boast is that he doesn’t care if he is impeached, as long as he believes he is doing his job. In contrast, Aquino bared a tendency to wash his hands and pass the blame on to others. Just as bad was his tendency to claim credit for policies and programs initiated by his predecessors.
Where I think Duterte and Aquino are the same is in their bullheadedness and their twisted perception of right and wrong – and that doesn’t end with Duterte’s insistence on giving Ferdinand Marcos a hero’s burial.
When a friend and former advertising client asked me to help in the presidential campaign of Noynoy Aquino, I told him that I was not impressed with the credentials of his candidate. I was assured that Aquino would have the support of the best advisers on every aspect of governance. I was also assured that, because of his heroic lineage, he would be the exact opposite of outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo whom the media had succeeded in portraying as the epitome of corruption.
I could only argue that the best advisers in the world would not necessarily agree with each other and that, in a crunch, Aquino would have to make the hard decisions himself. But I allowed myself to be persuaded and, in fact, lent my support.
In retrospect, I believe that Aquino, as president, tried his best to live up to the high expectations of those who gave him a rousing mandate to lead the country. I believe that he himself tried his best to keep his promise of clean and honest governance by applying that vow to himself. But he had no control over the culture of corruption, incompetence and impunity that had become the norm – and still is the norm – in a transactional environment – an environment where mediocrity is acceptable and compromise is inevitable.
I recall that, whenever the late President Cory Aquino was described to me as being near-saintly in her honesty and integrity, I would draw an analogy with a housewife who kept herself meticulously dressed, coiffed and perfumed, but whose household was a mess and whose children were undisciplined. How could she be characterized as an ideal housewife?
To her credit, Cory appeared to be aware of her personal limitations, as well as her mandate as a revolutionary head of state: to restore democracy to the country. She did that. And as soon as her term was over, she did not hesitate to step down.
But I think she had a narrow perception of her mandate. She should not have left the country in a state that made it vulnerable to retrogression to its pre-People Power condition. But could she have done better? She had to cope with the “damaged culture” that American journalist James Fallows wrote about. The same culture that Noynoy Aquino had to deal and compromise with. And the very same one that Duterte must confront.
In this regard, Duterte’s attitude appears to be different. He is aware of the damaged culture and appears intent on repairing it, even if it means doing it over the dead bodies of those who would stand in the way. The 16 million-plus who voted him into office should be cheering him on, except for the fact that many of them have been part of the root cause of that damaged culture.
That includes Duterte, too. For instance, by tolerating the crimes of the NPA in his jurisdiction as mayor, in the name of ridding his city of the more traditional crimes, he bared the kind of weakness that has bedeviled president after president in our hapless country. Compromise.
And yet compromise is the bitter pill demanded by politics. Regardless of any Utopian promises that Duterte has made, in the privacy of his presidential quarters, when all of his Solomonic advisers are asleep, he will have to accept the fact that solving one problem of nationhood may require tolerating another problem.
There are other realities that Duterte has to deal with. During the Marcos regime, Imee Marcos aptly described Malacañang as a snake pit. It still is. Who among Duterte’s closest confidants are among the snakes? He will soon find out. One thing is certain – in dealing with the CPP-NPA, he will be dealing with scorpions.
The other reality is that, reforming a country is like trying to scale the steep face of a mountain. For his cabinet officials and other appointees, it will be challenging, exciting and inspiring at the outset. But soon, some will begin to tire and fall off. Others will seek short-cuts. Duterte himself, if he manages to maintain his zeal, will soon realize that he has fewer and fewer support. Msgr. Juan Hervas, moving spirit of the Cursillo, pointed out that every organization or movement eventually has to depend on a few hardy souls to keep it alive. He described them as martyrs. Duterte will find that out before his term ends. Unfortunately, he may also realize that the martyrs left to scale the mountain with him are Jose Maria Sison and the CPP-NPA.
If we don’t want that to happen, then we must be willing to scale the mountain with Duterte and help him succeed. Truman was wrong. The buck does not stop with the president. If Duterte fails, we all lose. ([email protected])
