Were the ASEAN lawyers bewitched?

While I listened to the Tony Bennett interpretation of "Bewitched" late afternoon last Wednesday, I chanced upon a television program that had President Rodrigo Duterte. He was addressing a large crowd composed of distinguished-looking personalities with almost all men in coat and tie and the ladies in corporate get-up.

For a while, I thought it was a replay of a previous appearance because he was talking of violent acts that I knew happened in the past. The passion of his speech made me imagine the events. For example, he mentioned he ordered the raid of the home of the late Ozamiz City mayor because the city chief executive was a narco-politician and ferocious drug lord. He also said Mayor Vicente Loot of Daanbantayan recorded in his SALN a P100-million net worth which, Duterte claimed, was beyond the mayor's earning capacity. So, in reckoning those events, I thought the channel repeated programs.

Then, a line in the song delivered its message rather coincidentally. I got "bewitched and bewildered." Towards the end of Duterte's speech, I found out the program was live. Indeed, it was a current event carrying a substance not unlike that of a replayed oratory. In fact, he was addressing the forum of intellectuals. Each one of those ASEAN lawyers carried the name of honorable organizations.

Due process being the heart of a lawyer's professional life, Duterte's attempt to provide a legal leg to his administration's war on drugs was relevant to his audience. He wove this constitutional concept with a milieu of highly controversial cases. There was this scene he painted of local politicians becoming untouchable drug lords. I sensed he chose to justify the bloody course of action as a methodology to fight drug addiction in his patriotic desire to preserve the country. Still, in this purview, due process, not extra judicial killings, worked.

On another channel, a regular television news program followed. Among the headlines was Duterte's address. I could tell the details that were forthcoming. After all, I just heard Duterte minutes earlier. However, one report focused on the exchange rate of our peso against the dollar. Nothing on this matter on Philippine economy came from the address. This news item must have been sourced somewhere unknown to Duterte. The report said the exchange rate was P51.77 to $1. I could discern the effort of the reporter to lighten the tremendous impact of the story even if he said this was the lowest rate of exchange in more than a decade.

To an ordinary mortal like me, it was more bewildering than comforting to hear news that Central Bank officials assured our economy was doing well. I could not quite understand how our currency has lost so much of its exchange rate yet our economy is faring well. I remembered that when foreign capital flew out of our country following the Aquino assassination, reducing the value of the peso to P25 to $1. Financial experts claimed then that our economy was sick. How could P51.77 to $1 be better than P25 to $1?

If Duterte only decided to speak on the economy instead of reprising on the brutality of his war on drugs, he could have probably bewitched his audience of ASEAN lawyers more than bewildered them.