Duterte’s 1st 100 days, so far so good

Tomorrow is officially the 100th day of the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte and what a great journey Pres. Duterte brought this country into… despite the self-inflicted negatives that came from the mouth of the President himself. All in all, this President has done more in his first 100 days than the six years under his predecessor!  Perhaps at the core of this change that we can see is the effort by the Duterte administration to distribute the Hacienda Luisita to its rightful owners. Hacienda Luisita is the epicenter of our land reform program that caused the removal of a sitting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the late CJ Renato Corona.

That today there is an indefinite ceasefire between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), New People’s Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front is something that no President can brag or boast he could do in just a hundred days. While peace talks are on-going we hope and pray that this will result in a genuine peace so that we can reap the benefits of a real peace in this troubled country of ours.

That the Filipino people saw with their own eyes the President taking a Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight from Manila to his hometown in Davao City… allowing himself to be frisked at the security counters is something we never saw. In fact when his predecessor would leave the country or fly to the provinces there would be a “no-fly zone” effective for one hour, which often extends to two hours and worsens the traffic with airlines missing their scheduled flights.

You want to talk about the war against illegal drugs? If I discussed it here I will certainly run out of space. Suffice it to say that in a hundred days the war against illegal drugs has caused a dramatic decline in the crime statistics of our country, something that no one expected to happen. This is not to mention that another unexpected result is the thousands of drug addicts who surrendered to authorities in the hope that they can be rehabilitated. Wanna talk about Sen. Leila de Lima? Let’s not go there!

Of course because of this unexpected result Pres. Duterte sought for a six-month extension of his war against illegal drugs. But I warned the President that we should never put an ending date in this war simply because those drug lords will come back with a vengeance six months after the President puts that official date ending the anti-drug war.

Then there is that Freedom of Information (FOI) issue that was promised by his predecessor six years ago, months before the 2010 presidential election, but it was truly an empty campaign promise. But not to Pres. Duterte… as it was one of his first acts as President to approve the FOI in an Executive Order as he respects the independence of the Legislative Branch to do their own FOI law. I could go on and on and for sure I will run out of space.

But mind you, not all that Pres. Duterte promised during the campaign have materialized in his first 100 days. The issue of our shift to a federal form of government is still hanging out there, especially on the question of how we should amend our Constitution – via constituent assembly (con-ass) or constitutional convention (con-con). I’m still hoping that we could do this via con-con.

Then there is the issue of the return of the ROTC which was promised by Pres. Duterte, but he failed to pass it in his first 100 days. Of course, I totally understand that by the time he took over the reins of government, the school year has already began, so in a way there was no material time to put this in effect! But now there is an opposition to ROTC and it is led by Br. Narciso Erquiza, CEAP president who told reporters in a press conference that they plan to submit a position paper on their stand saying that it is “counterproductive!” Br. Erquiza says that the National Service Training Program (NSTP) is a better program. I dare say he is wrong!

The least that we expect from our Catholic school leaders to do is help strengthen our students with subjects that teach discipline… something that only the ROTC can teach. If we have bad traffic in our metro cities today, it is due to a serious lack of discipline by our drivers. Perhaps someone ought to pinch Br. Erquiza and shock him to today’s reality that the Philippines is under threat by China and its bulldog, North Korea.

Finally there is the issue of ending contractualization. If you ask me. the biggest culprit or violator of contractualization are the local government units (LGUs). Ask Pres. Duterte for he was mayor for many years where LGUs hire contractual workers many of whom remain that way for more than 10 years working for the government. This has to stop and I hope Pres. Duterte stops this ugly practice by LGUs. So far so good for Pres. Duterte!

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