For President Duterte: Lessons from the Trump midterm debacle

Midterm elections are usually used to gauge the incumbent president's popularity with the people. President Donald Trump succeeded, by the skin of his teeth, to defend the Republican Party's control over the 100-member US Senate. But he lost many seats in the House of Representatives, and many governorships. That should be seen in the US as a rebuff from the people against many of his policies, most especially those against the immigrants, his foul mouth, and his very adversarial and confrontational approach in dealing with his own Cabinet members and his own partymates and political opponents alike. But the economy is doing well and employment is at the highest levels, and joblessness at its lowest. Thus, he retains the Senate majority.

There is a whale of a difference between the US political system and that of our country. In America, the two-party system is very strong and impregnable. In our country, there is no more strong system of the old Nacionalista Party versus the Liberal Party. Today, traditional politicians do not adhere to the party system and do not rely on basic political principles. Tradpols change parties at the drop of a hat or at the batting of an eyelash. Politicians here do not have the principles of Claro M. Recto or Lorenzo Tañada. They only think of winning and retaining their turfs. Thus they jump from one party to another just like a bee or a butterfly.

Be that as it may, the just-concluded polls in the US should give President Duterte some important lessons in preparing for the 2019 midterm elections for 12 senators, over 300 members of the House, and more than 80 governors and vice governors, thousands of city and municipal mayors and vice mayors, and tens of thousands of provincial board members and municipal councilors, aside from a long list of partylists. Trump, by the analysis of CNN and other media networks in the US, lost many sectors, especially the blacks, Latinos, Asians, and the labor sector. Duterte should watch out. He might be losing many Catholic voters, youth sectors and urban poor settlers, and he should discern why his popularity is lowest in the Visayas, with Mindanao remaining very high and Luzon average.

Duterte's policies on drugs are being used by the reds, yellows, and his perennial critics to undermine the administration's popularity with the poor and the very poor. And the relentless attack against alleged human rights violations is gaining ground among the provincial citizens, as well as the Filipinos and foreigners abroad. The president's enemies and detractors have succeeded in using the chief executive's rather unsavory language and anti-Church diatribes to alienate him from the sectors like the Catholic Church and other religious organizations. All these will most probably be used in the coming 2019 polls. And these will connect with a lot of voters.

While Filipino voters are oceans away and are totally different from the Americans, there are some universal values that both peoples commonly cherish and nurture. These are respect for human life, love of God, decency in speech and in actuation, respect for women, respect for the saints, and respect for the sensitivity of people. The president, being a brilliant man, an astute politician and a smart power player, better remember all these in the coming polls.