Power is fleeting

Today is the first day of office for the newly-elected officials of the country. Today tells us once again how fleeting power is.

Today is the day President Rodrigo Roa Duterte can be called former president. He leaves behind a legacy that is not easy to match or surpass. He leaves with a bang, because his popularity rating remains very high even up to the end of his administration.

What stands out in the minds of his supporters was his war on drugs. That war was controversial, but it was well-received. The ordinary people know the evil effects of illegal drugs. Total sense of helplessness stared us all in the face --until Duterte came.

Will President Bongbong Marcos continue this war? Or will he continue the war using a different method? We don’t know. What is undebatable is that we cannot turn a blind eye to the problem of illegal drugs without endangering the future of the youth.

It is true that Duterte was not able to completely solve the problem. What is also true is that he has diminished it to an acceptable degree. Our collective duty is to continue the fight against this societal menace.

And, by the way, as Duterte takes his exit, one may now ask what will happen to his political party, or more particularly, the party under which he ran as president, the PDP-Laban. My humble forecast is that it will meet the fate of every administration party as a new president comes. It may put up a fight to avoid insignificance, but its number will surely be reduced significantly.

That happened to Liberal Party of Noynoy Aquino, LAKAS-NUCD of GMA, and Partido ng Masang Pilipino of Erap. Even if we assume that Duterte remains popular after his presidency, that is of no moment to politicians who are pragmatists and whose chief concern is political survival. And to many of them, political survival means you have to belong to the administration party.

What makes matters worse for PDP is that it does not have the highest officers of the land, President Bongbong Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte, on its side.

We do not have a stable party system. That is the problem.

Of course, it is only logical that the political party under which Bongbong ran will plot to expand and solidify to become a real force to reckon with. But we expect resistance, particularly from major political parties, the kind we have not seen in recent memory.

Bongbong will have to do a tough balancing act. We have to remember that what, to a large extent, sealed his victory was when the major political parties decided to support his candidacy.

Will Bongbong put the interest of the people above the interests of the political parties? We have yet to see.

As a son of a former president, he knows that power is fleeting. There is no need to please everyone or every interested group.

Many are optimistic that Bongbong will do great things for his country, in part because it is his way of redeeming the name of his family which has been badly tarnished, fairly or unfairly, all these years.

Part of his inaugural speech he said, “I fully understand the gravity of the responsibility that you’ve put on my shoulders. I do not take it lightly but I’m ready for the task.”

I wish our new president the best of everything.