Farewell, Mr. President
AS President Duterte descends the stairs of Malacañang today after turning over the vast powers of the presidency to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., he should be happy to realize that the biggest and hardest job in the country utterly failed to change him as a man. After winning the presidential polls in 2016, he vowed to be “prim and proper” once he becomes president. “I need to control my mouth. I cannot be rude because I am representing our country,” he said.
However, after his inauguration, the 16th President of the Philippines deliberately shunned donning his presidential clothes. In his mind, he is the national mayor who attends Malacañang functions in barong with rolled up sleeves. He remained simple and unassuming, never severing his ties with the masses, and speaking in a manner that they understood. But he curses in public when he is angry over the activities of corrupt government personnel and drug offenders.
Mr. Duterte is arguably the most politically incorrect president. He says exactly what he thinks without trying to be polite. There’s wisdom in his words, but you have to follow his line of thought because he usually jokes; he loves to pepper his talks or speech with witty wisecracks. And the national mayor can slander any global leader… except Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump.
His boldness made him a “rock star” in foreign affairs. Time magazine, which labeled him “The Punisher,” featured him on the cover in 2016. The magazine again featured him in 2018 as one of the “strongmen,” alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Mr. Duterte did not like the magazine’s “Rise of the Strongmen” article. “Hindi naman ako strongman,” he said.
No Philippine president has ever lambasted an American president. But after calling President Barack Obama a “son of a whore,” Mr. Duterte accomplished something no Philippine president was able to do—the return by the US of the three Balangiga bells after 117 years.
Outgoing DFA Secretary Teddy L. Locsin Jr. describes how President Duterte fully trusts his lieutenants: “After I was sworn in, the President walked away. “Uh, sir,” I mumbled. He turned around. “Any orders?” He answered: “I tossed you the ball, play it as you see fit.”
President Duterte constantly looks after the people’s welfare. In his fourth SONA in 2019, he warned several government agencies to simplify their processes, threatening to kill them if they didn’t. “Pag di niyo pa nagawa ’yan ngayon, papatayin ko talaga kayo.” He tagged the BIR, LTO, SSS, LRA and PAG-IBIG as the top five agencies that needed to overhaul their systems and drastically improve their services. This kind of bravura is what endears him to the masses.
Mr. Duterte leaves office with unusually high approval and satisfaction ratings. In a recent survey conducted by PUBLICUS Asia Inc., 75 percent of respondents strongly approved Duterte’s job performance during his six-year term. Atty. Aureli Sinsuat, PUBLICUS executive director, said these numbers indicate that President Duterte will leave office as the most popular president of the post-edsa I era. “No other president who served under the 1987 Constitution has ended his or her term with majority approval and trust ratings, much less a supermajority of public support,” he said (Read, “Duterte ends term as most popular post-’86 president,” in the Businessmirror, June 27, 2022).
The men and women of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, whom he fondly calls “my soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines,” will regard President Duterte as the most loved and respected commander-in-chief.
Mr. Duterte’s leadership focused on the maintenance of peace and order in the country. He repeatedly warned criminals: “If you destroy my country, I will kill you. If you destroy the youth of this country, I will kill you.”
Mr. Duterte will be remembered as the president who placed the interest of Filipinos first and foremost. He has no record of corruption. You can call him anything you want, or accuse him of anything, but you can’t call him corrupt.
As Mr. Duterte reaches the curtail step, or the step at the bottom of the Malacañang staircase, we can almost picture him heaving a sigh of relief. He has done so much for the country. We know he will not look back at the place where he lived for six years because he will now start missing the comfort of his own bed in Davao. He will be thankful he is no longer required to sleep in Malacañang because, he once admitted, “takot ako sa multo.”