Mayor of the Philippines

As midnight approached on election day and the unofficial quick count showed Rodrigo Duterte headed for an unassailable landslide victory, we planned to use his initial reaction as our headline. The betting in the newsroom was that it would be something like, “@#$%!, I won!”

Of course as we have seen, Duterte in victory proved more circumspect in his remarks than some of the contenders for the vice presidency.

Instead his camp informed the nation that in the wee hours of May 10, shortly after Sen. Grace Poe had conceded to him, Duterte headed for the tombs of his parents. The tough-talking “Punisher” is at heart a softie and mama’s boy, the nation was told; he wept unabashedly as he asked his Nanay Soling for her blessings.

Any sane person would probably weep, too, as the weight of the presidency in this dysfunctional democracy dawns on him. And any free spirit would weep, too, if he suddenly finds himself tossed into a fishbowl.

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The profanity is gone, at least in public. And while Duterte is not embracing his former rivals in reconciliation, the insulting remarks during the campaign are also gone.

It’s not quite a reinvention of Dirty Rody – the trash-talking Davao City mayor still promised a “double hanging” for those who commit multiple crimes. But you can see that Duterte is making an effort to grow into the job of president.

The last time I saw such a reinvention was in the case of Fidel Ramos, who is said to be a strong influence in Duterte’s decision to seek the presidency. When FVR was military and constabulary chief and then defense secretary, reporters avoided interviewing him. He was cantankerous and snapped at reporters. Admittedly, journalists can often ask stupid questions, but we can also avoid interviewing cranky officials.

But when FVR decided to seek the presidency, he underwent a dramatic transformation, becoming the approachable and even humorous Steady Eddie, surprising even his wife Ming with public displays of affection.

So it’s possible for Dirty Rody to remake his image.

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Like Joseph Estrada when he became president also by a landslide, Duterte is being denigrated for “small-town” ideas. But Erap’s San Juan when he was its mayor was a small municipality. Davao City is one of the nation’s largest urban centers in terms of both land area and population.

Perhaps some of the policies that have worked for Davao City will also be good for the rest of the nation. Being the chief executive of a large city should serve as a good preparation for the job of national chief executive. We’re expecting President Rody to act local even while thinking global.

This means that while he won’t pursue an isolationist policy for the country and will understand the value of alliances along with the requirements for global competitiveness, he will always put the ordinary Filipino’s interest foremost in his heart.

At the very least, we don’t expect a repeat of the shutdown of the entire Roxas Boulevard and Intramuros for several days and periodic shutdowns of EDSA and the SLEX just because foreign governments demanded it for the safety of their presidents, and just so the privileged one percent of the population can party.

I doubt if Duterte will withdraw the country’s case filed against China over maritime entitlements before a United Nations-backed arbitral tribunal, which is expected to hand down a ruling in a few weeks that most quarters believe will favor the Philippines. But the Chinese have said they expect an improvement in relations with the Philippines under a Duterte administration.

Davao is one of the more business-friendly cities, together with Taguig, the turf of Duterte’s running mate Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano. Taguig has been picked in surveys as the easiest place to do business in the Philippines. The measures that made this possible must be applied all over the country.

Duterte’s promise to lift economic restrictions on foreign investments as well as make the country a safer place for business have also helped calm market jitters. In fact the shares of businesses with interests in Mindanao have gone up since Duterte’s victory.

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Where Duterte faces an uphill battle is in his plan to restore capital punishment. It requires legislation, and powerful forces are uniting to make sure the plan is aborted.

His only hope, short of abolishing Congress – which I dismiss as campaign bluster – is to rely on surveys to see if there is strong public support for the return of capital punishment. Surveys consistently showing overwhelming public support for the Reproductive Health bill helped persuade lawmakers to finally approve the measure.

In any case, Duterte has been imposing capital punishment on thugs, so perhaps he doesn’t have to engage in too much wheeling and dealing with lawmakers to revive the death penalty.

Another area where he may stumble is in his promise to give no favors to relatives and friends. I’ve heard different versions of this in the past. But even P-Noy’s daang matuwid has its set of cronies or KKK: kaibigan, kaklase at kabarilan.

Erap famously promised “walang kama-kamag-anak, walang kai-kaibigan” in his inaugural speech. We all know what happened.

Even P-Noy’s mom Corazon was criticized for the activities of her “Kamag-anak, Inc.”

Duterte, in the selection of his official family, has also picked former classmates. I think this in inevitable in any new administration. A president cannot recruit into his team people he doesn’t know or trust. What a president must guard against is giving classmates, friends and relatives undue advantage or illegal and improper favors in dealing with the government.

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Obviously, only time will tell if Duterte will turn out to be a dictator, as President Aquino and the Liberal Party have warned, or a competent chief executive. As the Singaporeans have pointed out, there’s a difference between a government run by a strongman and a strong, efficient government.

These days Duterte still has the look of someone stunned that so many people picked him as president. He’s responding with sufficient expressions of humility and gratitude.

The best expression of gratitude, as he surely knows, is competent and honest service to the nation.

Filipinos expect no less from the Mayor of the Philippines.