A strong leader and the F disease

Whether they openly admit it or keep it close to their chest, people will almost always naturally go for the strong leader. To go otherwise defeats the very purpose and essence of submitting to leadership. A weak leader only creates a situation where it is every man for himself. A strong leader is he, or she, who walks the talk and owns up the consequences.

This is the reason why President Rodrigo Duterte continues to enjoy high ratings even up to this day, just nine months before he steps down. True, his ratings have started to slip, as ratings normally do as leaders wind up their terms. But what makes the ratings of Duterte remarkable is that even as they start to fall, they continue to stay afloat in positive territory. In fact still "very good" when the figures are translated into words.

The Philippines does not have the luxury of sentimentally romanticizing its concept of leadership. Its problems are too real, too pressing, and too difficult for anyone with buttery hands. The country needed a real man when Duterte kicked in the door in 2016. It needs another one to do exactly the same in 2022.

Actually, the elections of 2016 merely ended the process of installing Duterte as president. The process actually started a while back when Duterte, then mayor of Davao City, was summoned to a Senate hearing on rice smuggling. Before that appearance on live TV, Duterte only had an anecdotal existence in the tall tales some provincianos brought to the big city from Mindanao.

And then Duterte happened. There before the Senate, in front of the cameras, and into every living room, office, barbershop, store, or whatever it is that had a television set, Duterte made his stunning promise to every rice smuggler listening: "I will kill you. Do not do it in Davao or I will kill you." At that moment, every heart, in silence or out loud, was screaming, do it, do it. Possibility suddenly filled the desperate vacuum.

On hindsight, 2016 only seemed like a formality. The nation had long made up its mind, had long elected the leader it wanted, and was just waiting for him to appear. Nobody admitted it then, at least not openly, and nobody will admit it now, but most people who voted for Duterte voted for him because of that Senate hearing. Killing may be difficult to enunciate, but that is the general idea.

But even a Duterte is not perfect. And nobody will, including the next strong man, or iron lady, who will come after him. Like all leaders, strong or weak, the first two years will be devoted to "pakitang gilas" for country as well as for self. It will be time to build, set in motion, chart direction. The next two years will, depending on the first two, will be for consolidation of gains, or to repair whatever damage suffered.

Along the way, however, an intrinsically Filipino disease will be gnawing and festering, not really unnoticed but generally ignored. Then the symptoms explode anytime in the last two years. This disease has no name, so for purposes of this writing I will call it "everybody-on-boarditis." It is a disease that brings into leadership every friend, family, fan, financier. All of them will unwittingly kill the leader with friendly fire.

Duterte has gone after the country's known enemies the way people expected him to and is unrepentant because of that. But he failed to anticipate and deal with the F words above. And they don't even include the most obscene one. Pretty soon it will be 2022. We may still go with another strong leader but with none of the rough edges of Duterte. Tragically for all of us, the Filipino F disease will still prevail. It's in our genes. For it there is no vaccine.