As President Duterte started his second year in power, the World Bank lowered its economic growth forecast for the country to 6.8 percent in 2017. The expansion is still considered robust, and the WB retained its 6.9 percent growth projection for 2018.
Duterte correctly sees his first year in office as a ride on a roller coaster, but at least the country’s macroeconomic picture is on a steady course.
The challenge faced by his predecessors, however, persists: sustained growth is still benefiting mainly the political and moneyed elite. Laws, taxes, systems and regulations are designed to benefit them, their family businesses and those of their cronies.
Duterte is outside this privileged circle, but he’s not exactly a man of humble roots. His father Vicente served as Davao governor and acting mayor of Danao, Cebu; their family is related to political clans in the Visayas. But because the President talks, dresses and acts like a kanto boy, the masses have embraced him as one of their own. And expectations are higher that he might succeed where his predecessors have failed – in making growth inclusive.
Remember, Duterte did invite the nation to join him for “a rough ride.” After a year of shouting ourselves hoarse and wanting to get off the roller coaster, his ratings are slipping. Impatience is setting in among those who thought he would grow into the job or be mellowed by the realities of the presidency.
At this point, those who are eagerly looking forward to five more years of Rodrigo Duterte are mostly his original believers. I chatted with one of them last week as his first year in office drew to a close, and I’m presenting you a believer’s take on President Rody, Year 1.
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Martin Andanar, press secretary and head of the Presidential Communications Office, did not get the job due to the Villar-Aguilar clan, contrary to public speculation, although he’s also known as a son-in-law of Las Piñas Mayor Vergel “Nene” Aguilar, brother of Sen. Cynthia Villar. The senator and her billionaire husband Manny helped bankroll the Duterte presidential campaign.
Instead Martin was one of the early believers in the presidential potential of then Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte. The two met in 2014, when Duterte was part of a group that was espousing federalism. Martin also happens to be related to Duterte, although several times removed, on the Roa (Maranao) side.
Martin, who turns 43 next month, was working as a broadcaster at the time and began extolling the virtues of the tough-talking mayor on radio. Davaoeños liked what they were hearing and he soon attracted the attention of the mayor himself.
As Martin narrated to me, he finished college in Australia and was working on radio at the Special Broadcasting Service in Melbourne when he decided to return to the Philippines in 1999, encouraged by the state of the country at the time. That was during the presidency of Fidel Ramos.
In 2009, Martin was summoned by the Australian embassy in Manila and told that he would have to choose between Philippine citizenship and his permanent residency in Australia. Martin picked his native land.
Disappointment, however, began creeping in. By 2013, he told me, he was frustrated by the inability of the government to deal with the crime problem and traffic in Metro Manila. Nothing was moving, he said. The pork barrel scam also dismayed him.
Then came Duterte and his pitch for federalism. Martin was captivated. He was once derided for likening his first encounter with Duterte to meeting Jesus.
During the presidential campaign last year, the Duterte camp considered bringing in Martin following spokesman Peter Laviña’s blunder on the candidate’s bank deposits. But the camp decided that Martin could help the campaign better in his job as a News 5 radio and TV broadcaster.
On June 2, just weeks after Duterte’s election, he offered Martin the job of press secretary. The conversation, Martin recalls, lasted five minutes.
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He has since been stripped of his role as an alternate presidential spokesman following his own gaffes, but Martin harbors no ill will and remains a believer in the President.
Asked to assess Duterte’s first year, Martin said that unlike the paralysis of the past, things are now “undeniably” moving, despite the “noise” about human rights and other problems. He cites the executive order for freedom of information, the peace process and the drop in the crime rate as Duterte’s significant early accomplishments.
Martin does not miss his broadcasting days since he’s in charge of the government’s mass media network. And he doesn’t miss the relative peace of being in the private media.
“A press secretary is not the most popular person,” he told me, citing some of his predecessors. “It goes with the territory.”
He notes that the critics’ favorite punching bags, aside from himself, are his assistant secretary Mocha Uson as well as Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre and Philippine National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa.
Martin has learned to live with the flak. Even his daughter, 17, and son, 14, are used to the bashing, probably because they belong to a political family. His daughter says the bashing “is normal” and she doesn’t mind that millennials are generally anti-Duterte.
The fact that Martin’s principal gets even more flak but remains hugely popular probably helps put the bashing in perspective.
What does Martin consider to be Duterte’s weaknesses? “Every president is unique. Different strokes for different folks,” Martin told me.
Spoken like a dyed-in-the-wool believer.