‘Murmurings’
“No leader, however strong, can succeed at anything of national importance or significance unless he has the support and cooperation of the people he is tasked to lead and sworn to serve. It is the people from whom democratic governments draw strength and this administration is no exception. That is why we have to listen to the murmurings of the people, feel their pulse, supply their needs and fortify their faith and trust in us whom they elected to public office.”
--President Rodrigo Duterte, in his inaugural speech, June 30, 2016
The Filipino people believed in the President’s vow when he assumed office a year ago. But now, they are asking, to quote a line from a popular song: “Do you know where you’re going to, do you like the things that life is showing you?”
It’s a question often avoided by leaders hounded by their own conscience, leaders who do things they don’t understand and who are being dictated by outsiders who pretend they are his “subordinates” when actually they are the “invisible” grandmasters.
Chess is a game that is actually being lifted from real life situations of rulers and the ruled. Everyone knows that the rulers are nothing but pawns in real life situations. The grandmaster assigns titles to each pawn to make the game more life-like.
Perhaps this does not apply to all, but in this generation where everything is being manipulated by “unseen hands,” the “servants of the people” are wielding the power vested on them to oppress and rule over their true masters: the ordinary people. Just like what is happening now. With Martial Law, the voices of the “small masters” no longer matter. For example, today, more than ever the voices of the Lumads are being drowned by the thunder of militarist orders.
Civil liberties are dead, and the majority is ruled by the fear of the burst of the gun. Conformity is heralded as loyalty and betrayal of the people’s trust and mandate hailed as appropriate leadership.
A year ago, our hopes for better governance soared high when we thought a just leader had finally come to straighten things up. This even if we did not have illusions that things will really “change” like the way many were drum beating it.
We were then holding on to that little glimmer of optimism that was sparked by our experience of a Mayor Rodrigo Duterte who acted on his Davao City constituents’ behalf, served them for years and whose complaints he listened to.
We were amazed by his level of tolerance then. We admired his discerning leadership. He was totally acting according to his will to serve. Have we lost that revered leader?
Now we are facing only walls of intolerance, indifference and hardened posturing. He has been walled off to isolate him from his people. He can only hear and see bad things being done to put him down, that is why he is relying more and more on iron rule, as he is being made to believe that it is the only answer to the problems besetting his administration.
The President must realize soonest, before it is too late, that the Armed Forces alone cannot give him the whole picture regarding the Filipino people’s plight.--