It starts with fear
THE Duterte administration must be happy with the way they’ve been able to condition people’s minds so far. Talk about fish swallowing hook, line, and sinker.
They’ve succeeded in hoodwinking the common people with their saturation propaganda about eliminating corruption, getting rid of the drug menace, and making government work for the people.
First to believe were the gullible. Previous administrations helped condition the masses through their own exploitative styles of government. Public officials stole from the public treasury as if it was their personal bank account.
Too much corruption involving government projects was allowed to go rampant, such that it became a way of life and earned a name for itself: SOP – standard operating procedure.
The government bureaucracy had been the hardest place to do business with, instead of the other way around. Public servants treated common people shabbily. Service agencies were not scandalized by kilometric queues of ordinary people seeking clearance for the simplest things: Licenses to drive, birth certificates, and the like.
The common people dutifully queued. But there has to be a limit to their patience.
When someone came forward with the promise to eliminate all that and more, the hapless people grabbed at the chance to see change in decades. They voted into office Rodrigo Duterte who promised something close to Paradise. Or Davao City.
When he was mayor of Davao City, Duterte was king there. He had every citizen under his thumb. The people there didn’t complain as long as they was peace and order.
Duterte’s friends on the national scene had seen what he had done in Davao City and, properly impressed, urged him to run for president. The rah-rah boys included luminaries like Fidel Ramos and Aquilino Pimentel the Elder.
Duterte of course won in a lastminute surge of popularity. But it was just a plurality win, not a majority mandate. But that didn’t bother the winner. Or his fans.
Soon the feudalistic Davao style of governing was on display on the national stage. Soon, the personal style of cursing, abusive language, humiliating “jokes,” inappropriate treatment of women, and other objectionable behavior came to the fore. Extra-judicial killings – EJKs – have shocked Filipinos who value human rights.
Those who supported him in the election don’t find any of that objectionable. They loved him for it because, someone from mainstream media has claimed, it made him “authentic.” He’s been on a roll since.
But what has made it work in the first place is the intimidation that comes with the behavior. It starts from instilling fear in people’s hearts.
All the abusive language and vulgar outbursts wouldn’t work without the intimidation. Duterte would just be a common buffoon without the fear that he’s able to put in people’s hearts. His reputation from Davao had preceded him to Manila.
That’s the key to Duterte’s ability to remain in power so far. People are scared of him. It’s an old paradigm of governance that went out of style centuries ago because it’s undemocratic but, rather, autocratic. But it still works in relatively backward countries like the Philippines.
How long Duterte can stay in office despite his oppressive style will be up to the Filipino people. The international community of civilized nations are appalled by the way Duterte is running the country. But the Filipinos cannot wait for the global community to take action. We have to do it ourselves.
*** Tantrum Ergo. And so they did it. This past Thursday, Sept. 21, anniversary date of the imposition of Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law, Filipinos of all stripes came out to protest Duterte’s way of governing. Just recently, groups from the ranks of lawyers, clergy, former government officials, and others have been formed to provide dissent against the President. He’ll say he’s not scared. The people will just have to continue until he is.