Duterte and Mantovani

While most of the vinyl long playing records in my small collection are those of balladeer like John Gary, I also keep the records of the instrumental music of Annunzio Mantovani. Last Tuesday afternoon, I played a few of Mantovani LPs on my antique Pioneer components. His “cascading strings” (that is how his music is described by connoisseurs) added depth to his orchestra’s interpretation of “Where Is Your Heart,” the theme from the original Moulin Rouge. John Gary is my favorite singer, and Mantovani is my conductor of choice.

What is the function of a conductor, anyway? In a characterization that I took from the internet, “a conductor serves as a messenger for the composer. It is the responsibility (of a conductor) to understand the music and convey it through gesture so transparently that the musicians in the orchestra understand it perfectly.”

I had to dig for an expanded concept of a conductor because while playing the Mantovani records, I remembered that Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo talked about a conductor. I wanted to understand why the vice president said that “Over a year into the pandemic, Philippines must now have someone to pilot the Philippines' COVID-19 pandemic response like how a conductor would lead an orchestra.” Hers could be an expression of disappointment or a wish for something.

In our government system, there is this doctrine of qualified political agency to emphasize the chief executive status of the president. Accordingly, all heads of the various departments of the government are mere adjuncts of the president. For example, the Secretary of Health, while an alter ego of the president, can be reprobated by the latter anytime. In laymen’s term, everything the health secretary does in his department is subject to the eventual direction, control and even the whims and caprices of the president.

While in the fight against COVID-19, the health department is supposedly the main frontliner; the president orchestrates all other departments in doing different functions. He directs all available forces, not unlike a Mantovani of sort, who, in a concert, signals the muting of trumpets, gestures a crescendo of the violins and staccato of the base and so forth and so on. That is why Robredo calls Duterte a conductor because we see the police enforce lockdowns, the social workers identify the beneficiaries of cash assistance and finance people make sure funds are available, to name a few presumably all at the instance of Malacañang.

Unfortunately, according to the ASEAN Studies Center, as reported by News 5 Digital, Duterte is a dismal failure. This report shames our president and slanders our government. In a figurative manner of speaking, it portrays that the baton Duterte wields produces discordant sounds. His team, assuming it to be COVID-19 orchestra, is shrieking out of tune. It is horrible to think that of the 10 ASEAN countries, the Duterte leadership in the fight against the pandemic is the worst. Here is what I have read to be the ranking from the best performer to the tail ender: (1) Singapore 32.7%; (2) Vietnam 31.1%; (3) Thailand 7.4%; (4) Malaysia 2.4%; (5) Laos 2.2%; (6) Brunei 2.1%; (7) Cambodia 1.6%; (8) Myanmar 1.1%; (9) Indonesia 0.9%; and (10) Philippines 0.5%. Pastilang grabeha!

Because I have claimed in many other articles in this column that I am an incorrigible optimist, I want to refuse to accept this report as factual. I certainly hope that this reported ASEAN study is far from the truth and our president is, in orchestrating the struggle against the virus, more equal to Mantovani’s conducting a great symphony.