The president just wants to know the facts first

If you don’t have the facts, you better shut up. You cannot make decisions based on spontaneous feelings of outrage, especially when you are the president of 110 million people.

Those who have no personal knowledge about the alleged ramming by a Chinese vessel against our fishermen's boat better hold their peace and stop muddling the issue. The president cannot be pressured to pursue foreign policy based on emotions. It is far too easy for the so-called opposition leaders to issue statements that add fuel to the fire of rage. They are not the head of state. They aren’t the prime foreign policy architect. They have no overall responsibility. They are just, to borrow Cherie Gil's hackneyed remarks again, plain “second-rate, trying hard copycats” who are perennially fixated at hitting the president, just to look intelligent or sound nationalistic kuno.

Those people who open their mouths and say a lot of bad things against President Duterte's comment on ''that ordinary maritime incident'' should remember that all they know are hearsay narrations. They were not present in the actual collision, and so, based on my knowledge on the science of evidence, all those nasty critics are not competent witnesses. All they say are mere opinions. And opinions cannot be the basis of an informed judgment. Rumors and subjective views are not acceptable basis of foreign policy. A good leader doesn’t move impulsively. He must get the facts. All we are hearing are one-sided versions of the truth.

We don’t have the complete facts. We are not in possession of the entire truth. What we heard are one side's version of the incident. The president is a lawyer, and every lawyer is trained to hear both sides first before making a judgment. Even our worst enemies are entitled to the right to be heard. The president wants to hear both sides. For a start, he wanted to go to Mindoro to meet the fishermen and hear the story from their wives, not from the so-called opposition, much less from the activists and so-called progressive partylist politicians. He wanted to meet the fishermen but their captain arrogantly refused to see the head of state. It is the number one leader of the land who should feel insulted by the rebuff.

The president cannot govern this nation based on reckless impulse. He should know what really happened, his staff should gather all documents and give the president enough basis to make an intelligent and correct statement to the people and to the world. That is why I also bewail the careless statements of Secretary Panelo at the first few hours after that incident. And also the (pardon the word) irrelevant remarks of Secretary Manny Piñol. As agriculture secretary, he has no business interfering in foreign policy. He should focus on rice smuggling and food security. He should not make ''paki'' on matters outside his mandate.

The president's men should not embarrass him by making statements that contradict, vary, or dilute the strength of his pronouncements. They shouldn’t open their mouths when he is still waiting for facts. They are mere alter egos. They aren’t independent opinion-makers and carry no burden of leadership. They should keep their mouths shut.