Honeymoon

Some people I know are thinking of reporting their neighborhood troublemakers, suspected to be drug pushers, to Camp Crame, headquarters of the Philippine National Police, in hopes that the lowlifes will be “neutralized.” Or, in the words of the new PNP chief, that their birthdays would be changed to Nov. 2, the day of the dead.

I also know certain folks who have started replying to SMS ads by saying the senders ought to be among the lowlifes eliminated by President Duterte.

The new President is aware of the popularity of his tough stance on drugs and criminality. At the dawn of his administration, he can even get away with calling the head of the Commission on Human Rights an “idiot” – and the CHR says only that it is ready to work with him.

But this is a litigious society where human rights advocates have a strong voice. Duterte has several months to show the wisdom of his iron-hand approach to criminality. If people feel safer, he will continue to enjoy a license to kill. But if after a few months of continued executions of crime suspects, people still feel unsafe in the streets and at home, if women worry about being raped in taxis and parents worry about their children being mugged for their mobile phones, this brutal crackdown can quickly lose its luster. Especially if bereaved relatives begin emerging, giving a human face to the “lowlifes” killed.

There are also people wondering if Duterte will be just as tough on the corrupt. Why are petty thieves who steal P1,000 killed, while those who steal P100 million and more from taxpayers accorded due process? Why do petty pushers get neutralized while the suppliers of party drugs in upscale clubs and large-scale shabu manufacturers get away with business as usual?

Maybe Dirty Rody is just getting warmed up. He’s supposed to be enjoying a 100-day honeymoon from critics, and today is just Day Four-and-a-Half from noon of June 30.

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The honeymoon would be easier if he didn’t pick a fight even before Day One with the media. And it’s not just him. A foreign journalist who went to Davao told me that he sensed hostility toward his team from all of Duterte’s aides.

Duterte will probably say the media – and the foreign press in particular – can go to hell. But if a head of government gets bad press from generally neutral, credible quarters, if tends to reflect badly on the nation that installed him in power.

Noynoy Aquino often complained that he was not accorded the 100-day honeymoon from carping critics. In fact I can’t remember any post-EDSA president who did, if by honeymoon you mean being completely spared from media criticism for 100 days.

With the pervasiveness of social media, criticism has hit unprecedented decibels, and the critics are unrelenting. But even within mainstream media, there is never any rest from critical reporting.

Such is the nature of a free press. At his inaugural, Duterte told human rights advocates to “mind your work and I will mind mine.” The press is also minding its work, and that work is not to sing hosannas to those in power, although we do give praise when it is deserved.

The best that a new administration can hope for is some breathing space – a period to implement policies and show initial results, with minimal criticism.

This is consistent with the public mood at the start of a presidency, especially one that has given ample warning about the new style of governance. Duterte promised “real change,” and people expect him to make good on his promise. The press isn’t going to be a spoiler of high public expectations.

It’s going to be a rough ride, Duterte warned, and it looks like he means it. In the first months of his term, he will enjoy the benefit of the doubt, or what he described at his inaugural as “a level of governance that is consistent with our mandate.”

As Duterte has probably noticed, some of his harshest critics during the campaign are expressing guarded support even for his controversial policies.

This is as far as the honeymoon will go. He must take full advantage of this grace period to pursue difficult policies, before the knives are pulled out and people begin feeling his back for the best spots to draw blood.

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AWARDS: Speaking of mass media, it was truly a mere coincidence, the audience was told, that the 2016 Journalism Awards ceremonies of the Rotary Club of Manila were held on the same day that Duterte was inaugurated.

From bantering with journalists for two hours after midnight, President Duterte has swung to the other side of the pendulum, shutting out the media after foreign press freedom groups called for a boycott over his comments about corrupt journalists getting killed. As far as I know, no local media organization went along with the boycott – we tried it during the Cory Aquino presidency, as I’ve written, and it didn’t work.

One day soon Duterte will have to settle on a middle ground. He must resume facing the media, but under a regulated environment, as other heads of government do, with his press secretary or spokesman supervising the question and answer. He will have to grow into his job and stop throwing silly tantrums whenever he feels slighted by pesky journalists.

I thank the Rotary Club of Manila, headed by Ebot Tan, for my second award from the club, and I congratulate my fellow awardees.

A special posthumous award was given to the 32 media workers who were massacred in Maguindanao in 2009. The best gift they can have is justice, but there are fears that the late Joker Arroyo might not have exaggerated when he said that litigation of this case, considering the state of our judicial system, could take 200 years.