Thinking president according to Locsin

Icould not agree more with the way the country’s current ambassador to the United Nations, Teddy Locsin Jr., described President Rodrigo Duterte--as a thinking president.

Locsin was said to have issued the following statement about Duterte: “Let us make the effort to think as hard as he does. He is old. I sense he is tired. But he is resolved that while there is breath in him, (he would) not just talk change like past presidents but make change. And die in the trying.”

The erudite and eloquent Locsin, who wrote the speech delivered by then president Corazon Aquino before a joint session of the United States Congress seven months after the dictator Ferdinand Marcos was booted out of the country, may be unlike Duterte in this manner yet in many ways they actually belong to the same pea pod.

Their seemingly similar temperament, their use of acerbic language when it is needed to be spoken, and their patriotism have undoubtedly brought these two men together and this is what makes them tick with the Filipino people.

In the same manner that I admire Locsin’s journalistic prowess and miss listening to his editorial segment titled “Teditorial” in the nightly newscast, The World Tonight, on television, I say I am also a strong supporter of President Duterte and his administration.

It should not surprise anybody, therefore, that Duterte continues to enjoy a high satisfaction rating despite his controversial statements like, “God is stupid” or that “there are many rape cases in Davao City because of the many beautiful women living there.”

Quite a number of people and some sectors of society may have been offended by his language and political opponents may have taken advantage of this by lambasting Duterte, but is being presidential in language more important than thinking about what is good for the country and its people?

This is what is paramount to every well-meaning president and fortunately Duterte’s dedication and competence cannot be questioned, thus he continues to receive a high satisfaction rating because majority of Filipinos never gave up their belief that the President could turn around the country for the better under his watch.

Perhaps, Locsin was right when he said further, “If we do not take advantage of this man’s leadership, we shall miss our last chance of real change.”

What a foreboding thought, indeed.--Jesus Sievert

Criminal city

Your front page headline last Oct. 6, 2018, read, “Criminal City.” Surely, a more appropriate headline would have been, “The Wild West.”

The story depicted by the headline surely resembles the public shootings, the killings by sheriffs (police) and the proliferation of drugs in the old Wild West in the United States.--Max Telford