Duterte’s law

Switching channels, I chanced upon Rodrigo Duterte’s talk before the Makati Business Club last Wednesday where he was invited to present his economic platform. But he spoke mostly about peace and order. Not law and order, mind you. The guy is not into the law, unless it works in his favor. What he told his incredulous audience amounted to what I call Duterte’s Law.

He declared that he is intolerant of criminality. He hinted but didn’t exactly say he would execute criminals outright — he was, after all, in polite company. But he warned everyone not to even think of getting in his way.  He told Congress, the Human Rights Commission and the Ombudsman, “Huwag nyo akong iipitin. Huwag nyo akong bara-barahin.” Because, “I have a task to do, a very important one.”

 “I am impatient,” he declared. “I am very intolerant of crime.” 

He said while he knows the “the nitty gritty of human rights,” we can forget about the laws of men and the rules of the United Nations, implying that the Constitution and international law are of no value when he deals with criminals such as drug dealers, child rapists and the like.

And he will tell soldiers and policemen to leave it to him (“Ako ang bahala”) when they are confronted by the CHR with human rights violations. He will instruct them to say, “Si Sir Duterte and nagturo sa akin.”

And, by the powers he believes would be vested in him by the Constitution, he promises to pardon them immediately for such violations. “I don’t mind giving 100 pardons a day,” he told the MBC executives.

He will remove all corrupt policemen, mayors and barangay captains so he will have a clean government. And it will be harsh.  Menacingly, he said he has slapped people in public and he is often at the firing range. And he won’t tolerate being sanctioned. “Huwag nyo akong iipitin.  Huwag nyo akong bara-barahin.”

“Don’t make me an inutile president,” he said. “Or just shoot me.”

And when he leaves office after six years, “I will pardon myself for the crime of multiple murder.”

Such arrogance in the name of security, without which, he said, there can be no progress.

Is this guy for real? Absolutely.  And totally amoral.

He also presented what an underachiever would call a platform of government.

At the outset, he rated his knowledge of economics at 78 percent.  “I really hate studying,” he said proudly. With grades bordering at 75 percent, he managed to graduate from elementary (after being expelled from the Ateneo) and high school, and even go to law school. He knows criminal law, he said, but he has no credentials. He is just “an ordinary person” who would be president.

Education, he said, is his number one priority, along with health care and agriculture. But he gave no details. He couldn’t stay on topic, quickly moving from one issue to another, from opening opportunities for investors, to fighting kidnapping by kidnapping the kidnappers to improving mass transit, (although that will admittedly take more than a six-year term to accomplish), continuing public spending on infrastructure, putting one doctor in every barangay, using Pagcor funds for hospitalization of the needy, continuing the Four Ps and giving a sack of rice per beneficiary family and one billion pesos per region, and discontinuing land reform because it has “failed miserably” and “has done nothing for the Filipino landlord and tenant.”

Without elaborating, he said he will not hesitate to adopt projects of Presidents Noynoy Aquino and Gloria Arroyo that redound to the public good. It was his only statement that drew applause from the underwhelmed audience.

“All that is needed is integrity,” he declared. But the businessmen were not impressed. 

Duterte spent more time and gave more details about his role in the hostage taking in Davao over 20 years ago than on his plans for government; and typically, he ended his story by talking about his libido.  You have to have heard it to believe it.

Although he drew a few ripples of laughter, the MBC crowd was not amused. When he failed to excite his audience, Duterte told the businessmen that they don’t have to vote for him if they don’t like him.

He rambled on aimlessly, going overtime so that when he finally stopped talking, there was no more time for questions.  It seemed like he planned it that way so the businessmen could not ask him about their real concerns, such as the weakening of the peso and the flight of foreign investors due to fears of instability under a Duterte presidency; his belligerence towards the country’s main trading partners; how he intends to end contractualization; why he advised businessmen to pay revolutionary taxes to the New People’s Army; and Senator Trillanes’ recent bombshell that in 2014, he had P211 million in a bank account that he failed to declare in his Statement of Assets and Liabilities, and why he won’t sign a waiver allowing the release of his bank records to prove Trillanes wrong.

The MBC was clearly not his kind of audience, and he was not their kind of candidate. Duterte’s usual one-liners fell flat. His cursing and uncouth remarks had few takers. He came with nothing to offer other than Duterte’s law, his quick and brutal solution to criminality and corruption and no vision of good governance. He did not inspire confidence or hope.