Long talk with the President

One of the things a lot of Filipinos love about President Rodrigo Roa Duterte is how he acts toward the people and how he treats them all equally no matter what part of society they belong. We’ve seen a lot of leaders and politicians who wear two different faces, one for election time and one for when they’ve got what they need. They always present themselves as populist during election, but once they win, that’s when we realize that they give more importance to the elites or the rich than the ordinary people who put them in power. This is the difference of Tatay Digong from past leaders; there’s no need to sell him as the man of the people because the people themselves know that he is one of them and even when he has already won the presidency, he still interacts with the ordinary people the same way he has always done, like all of them is his family.

In his visit to Brunei Darussalam to attend the Golden Jubilee celebration of the Accession to the Throne of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, we arrived around 12 midnight last Friday; and though he’s already tired from the travel he still welcomed our countrymen who are working on the Sultan’s Villa to take a picture and chat with him. After chatting with them, that’s when the President noticed me taking a video of what’s happening, he called me and that was when our long and cheerful talk began.

I chatted with the President and Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez for about four hours. It was my first time to talk to the President that long, but most of our talks are not about politics, except when I asked him whether he was able to watch the Senate hearing on fake news. Yes, he watched the Senate hearing and he agrees that even when I’m a government official, I am still entitled to my own political opinion. When he told me this, I asked myself, is this the man some groups call a tyrant? How can someone who allows people to rally against him as long as they want; someone who stated that he will protect people’s right to say their opinion even when he does not agree with it; and someone who does not limit anyone’s right to speak, whether a government employee or not, be a tyrant? Isn’t it more fitting to call those politicians who want to limit what anyone can say or not say, the true tyrants?

We also talked about their childhood days (President Duterte and Secretary Sonny Dominguez) and their playful moments. Contrary to the President’s “bad boy” image, I learned that between the finance secretary and the President, President Duterte is the good guy and Secretary Sonny is the one who would always get into fights. In the four hours that I was fortunate enough to hear different stories of the President about his life, in a way I got to know him better and that’s when I realized that he’s truly an ordinary man. He gets hurt, angry, tired, and considering his age, there are times that he feels weak; but in our talk, I felt his love for the people and that is probably where he draw the energy to keep going, to keep fighting.

There are times when we always expect the President to do everything for us, we expect him to resolve all the issues in our country, but we seem to forget that the quest to change the country for the better is not a task for just one man but for all of us. President Duterte is already 72 years old and is not as strong as he was when he was the mayor of Davao, but regardless of this, he is doing his part in making a difference. He continues to fight his political enemies who are trying to destroy him, he’s fighting his enemies comprised of oligarchs, narco-politicians, and drug lords. He fights them, not just for himself, but also for the country’s sake as well because if he allows them to win, then we’ll probably go back to where we were before, nowhere.

So what can we do for Tatay Digong? First of course is to pray for him and then let’s try to bring change in our own little ways, hoping that all our combined efforts will bring us to a better tomorrow. Let’s have discipline in ourselves which would help in a lot of things even in the traffic problem of our country. Let’s not be a part of a corrupt system, or an indifferent society. When we see corruption happening around us, we must inform the authorities in order to stop it instead of turning a blind eye. If there’s a chance to stop corruption, I believe that now is the time to do it since we have President Duterte to support us in this fight. Let us also continue to be active in Social Media, because as what we are witnessing, the biases of some mainstream media are evident in how they report which makes me wonder if some of them are working to bring down this administration. In Social Media, we can be the media of President Duterte, let us continue to share our trusted bloggers and comment on different issues we’ve read so that we can have our sentiments heard. Let us help Tatay Digong in this pursuit to bring a better future for our children, for our countrymen working abroad, and for all the Filipino people. Let us help him because like what he said in our talk with him in Brunei:

“I think, with the help of the Filipino people, I will succeed.”