Duterte's unique style of governance

President Rodrigo Duterte's critics bombarded him, left and right, with all sorts of criticism accusing him of indecisiveness and cowardice in resolving our country's territorial dispute with superpower China. Considering President Duterte's seemingly friendly relation with President Xi Jinping, they opined it would be an improbable thing to happen for President Duterte to tell China to back off or give up its claim of having territorial jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea.

Bloggers on social media platforms may feed unreliable sources of information to their followers or readers, giving them an impression that President Duterte appears to be unfulfilling in his campaign promise to ride a jet ski and plant a Philippine flag in the island occupied by China. But not for those who have an advanced view of the issue and imbued with in-depth knowledge about it based on reliable/documented facts provided by the mainstream media.

It is very clear that President Duterte acted wisely and subtly in finding out the right solution of the problem. What the president said in response to all his critics boiled down to something that needs to be understood in a way that the president wanted it to be.

In many of his speeches, President Duterte abhors war as the ultimate solution to settle our territorial dispute with China. David vs. Goliath may aptly be used if the Philippines resorts to war to put an end to China's bullying or incursion into our territory. But we are unprepared and ill-equipped with such kind of weapons of war to counter China's modern and state-of-the-art military ordnance. China's superiority in terms of military assets vis-a-vis the Philippines is out of question.

Now, we can then summarize the issue with these questions: If you were President Duterte, what would you do? Are you determined to go to war against China which is tantamount of committing suicide considering our less-equipped land, air and sea military forces? My friend, a wise and tactful leader cannot and will never allow his people to fight a powerful enemy that will surely destroy many lives in the end.

President Duterte, in essence, acted with Solomonic decision --that is, to remain calm and be friendly with China despite the fact we have been bullied several times in the past when its fishing vessels or militia ships entered and encroached on our territorial waters, even to the extent of preventing and denying our Filipino fishermen from catching fish in the disputed waters.

Except for his political nemesis, I, for one, still firmly believe in President Duterte's capability in managing the affairs of the government, be they internally or externally. His unique style of governance may be leveled but not surpassed. He has the guts and the courage to make things happen for the good and welfare of the great majority of our people, sans any second thought of being called a dictator by his critics.

Joselito S. Berdin

Lapu-Lapu City