PRRD, two years after
How did the general public regard President Rodrigo Roa Duterte at the start of his presidency?
He was trusted by most Filipinos, a record-high 91-percent trust rating. There was hope that he will be able to clean up communities ravaged by drug-related crimes, end “endo,” forge peace with rebel groups, and maintain the economic momentum established under his predecessors, among other challenges.
Moreover, Duterte’s passion and strong-willed leadership drew more than a few comparisons to Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew. Yet now it is quite difficult to point out any resemblance between Duterte’s brand of leadership and that of Lee. This may be because of the huge difference in the social and political milieu between Singaporean society during Lee’s early years and Philippine society at present.
Whereas Lee was able to summon a government team that earned its credibility “from a reputation of corruption-free governance, sobriety and growth,” Duterte found difficulty summoning the same from his appointees and allies.
Two years of the Duterte administration show that he is no different from his predecessors in treading the traditional path of distributing favors to keep himself relevant. There are those who still entertain the notion that Duterte’s brand of leadership, inspired by his idol the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos (but, in fairness to him, absent still the large-scale personal corruption), would bring the kind of transformational change experienced by Singapore or even Malaysia.
They may well have to consider the following observations by Southeast Asian observer and international political economist Hilton L. Root who had compared Lee Kuan Yew’s regime to that of Marcos.
He wrote: “The governments of both the Philippines and Singapore exercised continuous interference in the economy. However, in the former, interference was used to extract resources for the ruler and his clique, whereas in the latter, interference was used to enhance economic productivity.”
Root added: “Marcos ruled through a cult of personality in which state and regime were both entangled with the ruler’s personality so that the independent institutions of government such as the armed forces and the judiciary lost their autonomy. By contrast, Lee Kuan Yew’s rule did not destroy the independence of institutions or corrupt the administrative apparatus of government.”
Two years have passed and the promise of Duterte’s presidency is already at risk. While the expected passage of the Bangsamoro Organic Law will give Duterte a good card, still overshadowing the national discourse is the inflationary effects of the first package of tax reforms or the TRAIN law. Inflationary pressure is supposed to be matched by economic stimulus from the “Build, build, build” program but the latter has been bugged by slow progress and usual fears of becoming a source for massive corruption.
Duterte’s centerpiece program on the war against drugs, on the other hand, while appearing to have slowed down petty criminal activities, has no immediate solution to its direct effect of straining the criminal justice and penitentiary system.
As of this writing, Duterte has yet to deliver his annual State of the Nation Address (SONA). I’m curious about how he will use this speech to explain to the people what has transpired in the last two years and how he plans to move forward.
If he hurls the usual curses and insults, such rhetoric has begun to sound stale and tired. The fresh and crisp image of a leader willing to stake everything he’s got to battle against the forces of transformational change has now faded.
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