It is not easy to be the president of 110 million people
Yesterday's Labor Day celebration was marked by protests against the president for his failure to sign the executive order on contractualization. Those people do not really know the travails of being president.
For those quick to point accusing fingers at President Duterte, put yourselves in his shoes. To govern a nation of 110 million people, with more than five million jobless, homeless, and hopeless, 15 million underemployed, and 5,000 leaving each day for dangerous, dirty, difficult, degrading, and deceptive jobs abroad. You have 7,100 islands (during high tide) to defend from China and other predators, and a vast body of troubled waters being encroached, with limited wherewithal and budget, how shall you move at a pace demanded by a global environment that is becoming too demanding, and people who are becoming impatient and agitated?
It is not easy to be president of a very demanding nation, especially if you are a 72-year-old provinciano who never dreamed of leaving his Davao comfort zone to come to this godforsaken metropolis with too many drug addicts and human rights activists (I hope these two groups collide and neutralize each other). The mayor who cleaned up Davao is suddenly pushed to govern an undisciplined nation 20 times bigger in size and population. It is easy for socialites in Forbes and Ayala Alabang to criticize him because he does not dress like the elite or talk with the finesse of Harvard graduates. He curses like he is talking to a durian vendor in Bajada, or a taxi driver from Toril. But he is real, not wearing a mask, unlike another president who loved to regale people with nothing but lies in high-sounding Tagalog.
It is a formidable task to govern a nation of many poor people who always complain and blame the government. They demanding free housing while the middle-class pay for PAG-IBIG religiously. The KADAMAY group even forcibly entered government housing for the police and military and claimed them. I understand how it is to be homeless, but I struggled hard, studied hard, and worked as a janitor and houseboy to be where I am. I never thought of forcibly grabbing private property or government housing. And the president is governing such a nation.
It is easier to govern a richer, smaller nation like Singapore where one in every three families is a billionaire, with an area smaller than Bohol but with an economy ten times bigger than that of the Philippines. It is easier to govern Malaysia where no citizen openly maligns the head of state. It is easier to govern Brunei, smaller than Mactan with a population of only 300,000, equivalent to one barangay in Quezon City. The president is a simple man. He has few needs. He does not steal because he can eat ''buwad'' or "ginamos'' against the advice of his doctors and the vigilant eyes of Bong Go. He did not dream to govern this nation of demanding people like Trillanes and Hontiveros who have not even tasted "ginamos'' with ''sili'' and "suka" and "puso nga tapol."
President Digong is a simple man which politics snatched away from his Davao comfort zone to discipline a nation with too many complaints and endless expectations. Let us, at the very least, understand him.
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