Power resides on the sovereign
PAUL MANAFORT. For the past several months, that name has never been out of the US news cycle. He was the campaign manager of Donald Trump’s presidential run from June to August 2016, and that brief period ought to consign him to anonymity. But there is something about this globe-trotting lobbyist that separated him from the many who had exited the Trump orbit.
He is at the center of a special investigation on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. A few days back, a federal judge ruled that special counsel Robert Mueller has the authority to file charges against Manafort, a huge
legal setback for Manafort and the effort of the Trump administration to derail the momentum of the Mueller investigation.
Before the February 1986 snap presidential election that Mr. Marcos scheduled under duress (the Reagan people asked him to seek a fresh mandate to quell the dissent here), Mr. Manafort was a young, swaggering, Georgetown-educated executive of a well-connected PR firm who made Manila his base of operations. His Republican Partyconnected PR and lobbying firm
was hired by the Marcos people to guarantee that the Reagan administration would not abandon Mr. Marcos amid the popular disenchantment with his government.
But Mr. Manafort’s work, despite the strong ties of his firm with the top Reagan people and the entire Republican establishment, went to naught because of one thing. Mr. Marcos no longer had popular support at home. And even in Washington, DC, there was real unease over the viability of propping up his embattled government.
When the Republican establishment told Mr. Marcos to “cut and
cut clean” after the snap election, Mr. Manafort packed his bags and left. Shortly after, Mr. Marcos fled the country. The rest is history.
The lesson here is this: no foreign government, no foreign leader can extend support to a failing, unpopular regime. When the time is up, the unpopular leader will have to “cut and cut clean.” No lifelines will come, even from a paramount leader of a powerful country.
We can only hope that President Duterte was cracking a joke when he said that President Xi Jinping, the paramount leader of China, would not allow the ouster of Mr. Duterte from power no matter what. Because the fate of a leader is determined by the citizens, not by Mr. Xi or any other powerful global leader.
Vox populi, Vox Dei. This is the rule of all political universe.
Mr. Reagan, then the most powerful leader in the world, failed to save Mr. Marcos despite the sense of the Republican establishment that Mr. Marcos, a reliable ally of the US, should be protected at all cost. The decision to abandon Mr. Marcos was agonizing to Mr. Regan but what choice did he have.
When the push comes to shove, the unpopular leader is without lifelines. No one can save him or her from the wrath of the people and the wrath of history.
In the context of the unbelievable statements on Xi’s promise of support, people close to Mr. Duterte should tell him upfront about two universal verities. First, he should stop obsessing about ouster from power. Second, China is for China and not for Mr. Duterte.
Mr. Duterte is a popular leader right now and in the current political environment, DU30 does not need propping from any group or any personality to stay in power. Destabilizers only operate in the context of a massively unpopular leader. A leader with a modicum of support, given the general fatigue over the extra-constitutional ouster of leaders, will survive in the Philippine setting.
Filipinos loath bad leaders, Mr. Duterte should realize, but they loath destabilizers and powerhungry personalities even more.
Given his numbers, Mr. Duterte may not even face a single extra-constitutional challenge to his leadership within the next four years. Of course, the numbers can change. A hard push for charter change, which is very unpopular, may push the high trust and appreciation ratings to fall to low levels. But Mr. Duterte knows his politics and has demonstrated that he can shift gears and change positions depending on the public mood and sense.
China is only for China. Right now, China likes dealing with Mr. Duterte because of his declaration of an independent foreign policy, which is actually a code sentence for tilting toward countries such as Russia and China. And given the erratic, anti-immigrant leadership of Donald Trump, many Filipinos do not mind the shift of Mr. Duterte’s foreign policy.
But if Mr. Duterte expects a full- throated, unequivocal, noconditions loyalty from China, forget it. Once Mr. Duterte is no longer useful to China’s economic and military ambitions, China will drop him like a hot potato.
As Senator Lacson reminded Mr. Duterte, we are a sovereign country. At the end of the day, only Filipinos will have to decide what is good for the country, including our international alignments. The tilt toward China can only exist with public approval.
Vox populi renders the final judgment on leaders and all affairs of the nation.