Time most difficult enemy for Duterte

Nobody can deny that Duterte is moving heaven and earth to finish his Build, Build, Build project as well as put universal health care in place, change the 1987 Constitution etc. etc. He remains popular because Filipinos have not had a President who would work as hard to deliver his promises.

But time stands in the way because of the presidential structure we have with term limits.

Our presidential government with terms limits is too short for a good president and too long for a bad president.

Under a parliamentary system, former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino should have been removed by a no-confidence vote before his six-year term ended.

Duterte often alludes to his old age and yet he has taken up projects that need time. He is a man in a hurry and that can be perilous for an “old man” as he describes himself.

Malaysia’s Mahathir is slated to visit the Philippines from March 6 to 7 on the invitation of President Duterte. I hope that their talks will include the issue of time. How long does it take for a leader to fulfill his program for his country?

Malaysian Premier Mahathir is a good example of the relevance of time. He governed Malaysia for more than two decades. He has come back to power at age 92 with his work as prime minister now in peril.

The two leaders met in Kuala Lumpur earlier during the boxing match between Sen. Manny Pacquiao and Argentinian Lucas Matthyse.

When I interviewed Mahathir Mohamad in 2015 he was already regretting why and how he supported PM Razak against his own protege, Anwar Ibrahim. I had come for the trial of Anwar Ibrahim which found him guilty of sodomy. It meant that Anwar’s political career was finished.

Mahathir’s influence on Malaysia’s political life is huge. He became world news when he attacked George Soros for meddling in Malaysia’s economy and politics.

But in our conversation which was more on Philippine politics, we were able to veer to Malaysian politics as well. And even then I knew Razak was in trouble. When and how it will depend on the 92-year-old Malaysian leader who would be called “the world’s oldest prime minister,” in a stunning electoral victory recently.

In a posting showing my picture with former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir, I wrote he would lead a crusade against incumbent prime minister Najib Razak whom he considered corrupt.

Now Razak is in deep trouble. The Wall Street Journal released documents showing nearly $700 million of deposits went into his personal bank accounts. The accounts have now been frozen by Malaysian authorities.

Razak founded the state investment fund Malaysia Development Bhd and heads its board of advisers. The fund amassed $11 billion of debt.

“If you take credit for the loosely managed fast growth years then who should take the blame for the subsequent devastating crash?

This is why Najib’s government is doing such “strange” things which include imposing “cooling measures” and limit bank loans to cool down and limit growth in the property and car sales even though it will affect the current economic growth.

If you really wanted strong growth, all govt can do is to encourage speculations, make loans easily available, change back the stock market to T+7, and allow foreign speculators to come in. And of course the party will eventually end again with many people hurt,” he said.

When I asked for the interview he was on his way to the airport and it was his confidential assistant, Sufi Yussof who is now my FB friend, who accommodated the request because I was the mother of Veronica Pedrosa, then the head anchor of Al Jazeera in Kuala Lumpur. Hmm. It was good to have the right connections for something like asking for an interview with Mahathir especially. At the end of the interview I requested Sufi to take a picture. He remained seated so I had to bend my head toward him.

The bone of contention between Anwar and Mahathir was the role of currency dealers and the power of international financial institutions like the IMF. When I asked him why he said Anwar differed from his policies against currency dealers he vent his anger on George Soros who became famous because of the money he made – $1 billion – when he predicted that the British pound would fall. He became famous as an “expert manipulator of currencies and made his fortune on this.”

Anwar did not take the same view as Mahathir about currency dealers. Naturally those who defended him were the Western countries and the currency dealers to the extent of exchanging harsh words in a meeting in Hong Kong with Soros calling Mahathir a moron. They have since made up.

Mahathir Mohamad now 92 is the oldest prime minister in the world. But this was the way chosen to get Anwar Ibrahim to be prime minister.

I asked Mahathir which is the more superior form of government – parliamentary or presidential. You cannot turn around an economy in six years, especially in a country like the Philippines where politics means destroying nation building by putting down whatever government is in power. Even democracy can be harmful when we need a strong hand in government.

It is to his credit that he was able to steer his country out of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. He was able to hold on his own attacks against international financial institutions like IMF which he regarded as unhelpful. He campaigned for other countries like Singapore to support him in modulating the power of institutions like the International Monetary Fund.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the feisty Malaysian leader has not lost his verve.

“Currency trading doesn’t create any jobs or spin off any business. What we should do is stop this silly thing called currency trading. This idea that the market should fix the exchange rate is a new thing.

“There’s no point in treating a currency like a commodity, devaluing it artificially and causing a lot of poverty among poor countries.”

“I achieved too little result from my principal task, the task of making my race a race that is respected, a race that is honorable, a race that is highly regarded.”

And it rested on the will of Mahathir when he changed his mind about siding with Najib and realized the scope of his corruption. Anwar was freed. Even if it  took 15 years for Mahathir to change his mind.