Duterte is man of the hour

I should have been in Spain last Friday to look at wines and food products. Spain has become top of the class for food products. That was the plan but things went awry. Instead of Spain and good food and wine I went to San Fernando, Pampanga to join the assembly for Duterte for the vote rich provinces of Tarlac, Pampanga and Bulacan. I have seen Duterte mobbed and hugged by frantic women so I expected the same.

But I wanted to know how the Duterte campaign was moving. I am glad to say, here in the most effective media system today – the social media – that the Duterte campaign is doing well and growing in leaps and bounds. A hall that could easily have a capacity of more than 2,000 was filled to the brim. And guess what they were, not Filipinos who were hakot in buses or came in their cars. They were the masa, some marginalized, others middle class, but all determined to change how we elect and govern our country. The crowd came from all ages, families brought their children but I was pleasantly surprised that there were a big number of young people in their twenties and thirties. This means that the message is finally getting to the young people that they must not confine their fingers on the keyboard for games but get involved in the politics of the country. They can change their lives by using the keyboard, especially Facebook to get their messages and dreams across to thousands, maybe millions of Filipinos and Netizens, whether foreigners or Filipinos like themselves scattered all over the world. They have organized into the Friends of Rody Duterte and Global Friends of Rody Duterte.

I stayed on from early morning till late at night to listen to the same message he has said over and over again. He is so angry with the way our government runs the country, he pities the poor and asks why Filipino families have to be separated because either the mother, the father, or children have to look for jobs in other countries. And the country is not poor. It is rich and has resources. Its greatest resource is its people, those unknown talented Filipinos who do not have the means for education. All they need is opportunity. This is not understood by the politicians we have voted year after year because they are not poor. On the contrary they become candidates, cheat and then use their positions to steal from the hard earned taxes of the people from the National Treasury so they can become even richer and the poor even poorer.

But Filipinos are a happy people. Thanks to the organizers they understood that so the day was filled with serious talk and entertainment. I like the belly dancer until I was told the good looking lady was a man – ha ha ha.

It was getting late and I had to travel about three hours to Manila. I was quite tired and so I thought were the thousands of other people in the hall. We were told Duterte was coming at 2, we waited. Then at 3 we waited, then at 4 we waited. Finally he came and the hall was as full as it was in the early morning when I arrived. Nakakatawa I said. Duterte was looked at as a rock star and he was not even handsome, not even tall, and his speech was not spectacular. Why? This, I told myself is the mystique of destiny. As BayanKo adviser Jose Alejandrino said – whoever Pampanga votes for will become the President. Good afternoon, President Duterte and the crowd roared with applause and raised their banners of Tarlac, Pampanga, Bulacan.

That is why when I read that some Netizens wanted the word Duterte banned from Facebook. Hilarious. This is the true freedom of speech and they want to stop it. I asked some of the men and women around me how they traveled to San Fernando – di nag jeep, di nag tricycle. They came on their own to show that we now have a man of reform, of change and we will not let him go or allow PCOS cheating to stop it. Of course, he said p..i.. several times when he wanted to emphasize his anger and determination to fight criminals, drug dealers and crooked politicians.

So sorry to Netizens who want to remove the word  Duterte from our posts. His name cannot be removed because he is already the heart of Filipinos aching for clean and honest government.

We will repeat his name again and again because he is our only hope for change, real change. I was in San Fernando to hear it and see the adulation for him. it. Duterte kami. Never mind his baluktot English or his Taglish and Cebuano all mixed in one speech. We understood him and we will work as hard to make him win. He comes from us, we the people. No cheating can stop him because his popularity will be his protection. Never mind the paid Aquino surveys. He has already won.

MISCELLANY: While looking for some files, I came across an article on Belgian Ambassador and Mrs. Remorteele in 2013, The Remoerteeles are old friends of my last husband Ambassador Alberto A. Pedrosa and myself. My husband was ambassador to Belgium, the EU and Luxembourg during the Ramos years.

And wonder of wonders, from Manila he was assigned to Singapore where my son lives so we never really lost the friendship as it so often happens with diplomat friends. I saw him recently and said to him you are the right person to represent Belgium because of the troubled Laguna Bay project he worked hard for.

When Aquino became president, he cancelled the project thoughtlessly after documents were signed on the agreement. Although it was between a Belgian private firm the Belgian government filed a suit and that is where it stands today. Remorteele is the best man to represent his government because he is a good friend to Filipinos. He and his wife Sylvia have done many good things for the Philippines especially during the Haiyan floods without fanfare and publicity.

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And lastly but most importantly, I wonder why Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, both Aquino favorite appointees, are fighting hard so Grace Poe is not disqualified from the presidential race even if it is unconstitutional. Is there something behind it that we do not know? This is a teaser which a young investigative reporter can work on and tell us why. Once the story breaks out, it will be in this column.