Going nuts over the UN

It is truly amazing how easily President Duterte can drive people nuts. But what is even more amazing is discovering how many people you know are among them. It is really a sobering thought, this mental picture it gives, of people splitting hairs over some patently inane thing that Duterte may have said, even if he may not even be aware that he said it.

When Duterte threatened to leave the United Nations, it was the sheer number of people who took him seriously that flabbergasted me. I thought it was as clear as day that Duterte was just putting an exclamation point to his anger over what he believed was UN meddling in his anti-drug efforts. He may have been less than two months in office but the pattern is already clear — he picks up anything that crosses his mind and uses it to stress a point and woe to those who fall for the trap.

Some say he should be guarded in his statements because when he opens his mouth, he speaks with the authority of the presidency. That may be the case, but that is not a very reassuring proposition, especially for a nation that has long been dying for a leadership that tells them like it is. A speech spoken from within the limits of what one can say cannot be expected to be a very truthful and straightforward speech that the listeners can appreciate.

Duterte loves to speak his mind, including whatever crosses it, vulgar or not. But what listeners will have to put up in terms of profanities and other rough edges is more than compensated by its pure, if raw, honesty. No hedging, no sugar-coating, no mincing. Just what it is to the person that he is - which, in many instances, are also like us as we are, minus the put on, the refinement, the pretense.

As far as the United Nations is concerned, there is no leaving it, or at least leaving it is not as easy as being on the say-so of one person, even if he is the president. Most people know that, Duterte himself included. That is not to say that he probably would not, if he could. If it was all up to me, I would, because to me, the UN has lost its relevance.

But worse than losing its relevance is that it is trying to reassert what it has lost on countries that have no real relevance in the larger geo-political decisions being made by only a very few relevant superpowers. The UN can describe in the ugliest terms what it thinks of the Duterte anti-illegal drug campaign. But why pick on the Philippines when there are far more massive, rampant and sytemic savaging of the human race occurring elsewhere that the UN chooses to ignore?

The issue is not about the Philippines leaving the UN or not, or even whether it was Duterte who said it or someone else. It is the fact that of all the things that are going on in the world that are disgracing the sanctity of human dignity, it had to be the Philippines - where it is only the method that is being questioned but not the motive - that the UN notices.

Where is the UN now on Syria, Iraq and the Middle East? Okay, all things being equal, let us skip these areas because they are in conflict. But where is the UN on India, the world's largest democracy, where gang rapes and abuses of women remain rampant? Where is the UN even on the United States, where race tensions have never been higher since the 1960s?

Let us not go any farther. Let us go back to the Philippines. The Philippines recently won a favorable ruling from the UN's own permanent court of arbitration against China over their dispute in the South China Sea. But the UN cannot enforce a decision by its own court. And because it cannot enforce a ruling by its own court it also cannot protect the rights of tens of thousands of Filipino fishermen denied their rights to fish in their own waters as defined by, well, the UN.

We are not asking the UN to send in Blue Helmets to stop China from harassing Filipino fishermen from fishing in their own waters. But even a stern word from the UN never came, even if only to lend substance to the ruling by its own court. Not even a word of commiseration came from the UN for Filipino fishermen and their plight. Then, from out of the blue, it suddenly makes all this noise about our anti-drug campaign? No need to leave the UN. It is going, going, and nearly gone.

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