Incoherent

The day after President Duterte announced his “separation” militarily and economically from Uncle Sam, all his officials were running around like headless chickens, trying to explain the unexplainable to a flabbergasted world.

After returning to the country Friday night via Davao, Duterte added to the confusion by clarifying that he did not intend to cut ties with Washington because, he said, “the Filipinos in the United States will kill me.” I’m sure neither the Americans nor the Chinese are amused.

Du30, who promised to undergo a “metamorphosis” – only to say later that he saw no need to change his ways and we have to take him as he is – will find it useful to adopt two minor changes in his work ethic.

One is to read prepared speeches. If he can’t help it, he may confine his extemporaneous remarks, profanities and ejaculations of political incorrectness and uninformed commentary to small or localized gatherings where he knows the audience shares his sense of humor and is charmed by a cussing president. But even in such gatherings, and even outside the coverage of mainstream media, he must remember that smartphones and social media can still spread his remarks around the planet in real time.

Another useful change is to start consulting his Cabinet on matters of grave national importance. Obviously this is not happening. In the past days I’ve heard people who personally know some of his Cabinet members wonder how long the secretaries will last with a boss who takes them for granted, shoots his mouth off and then leaves them to clean up the mess.

Du30 should also consider the latent condescension in one of his favorite stories to regale an adoring Pinoy audience. He did it again in Beijing. Look at my Cabinet members, several of them childhood friends, he told the gathering of Filipino expats. The Cabinet men were valedictorians, overachievers, the best and brightest in their youth. And now here they are, he said, the “trabajante” of the underachiever who barely passed.

He tells the story to illustrate his belief in destiny, and to stress that God put him where he is now. So many atrocities have been committed in the name of God, and it’s always dangerous when someone starts believing that he has the mandate of Heaven. The last president to invoke God’s mandate was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Destiny surely must have been at work in their lives, and there are Pinoys these days who are saying that God must hate the Philippines so much. The government seems to be lurching needlessly from one self-made crisis to another.

This is kamikaze governance. Left unchecked, it could bring down if not the nation, then Du30’s government.

* * * Already, Du30’s motor mouth is costing him his credibility before the international community. And he should stop saying he’s not the president of the world, but only of the Philippines. Such myopia is dangerous for a country that is progressively slipping in international competitiveness. He should be encouraging Filipinos to become global citizens, to compete with the best in the world.

Being a lawyer, Duterte has to understand the importance of words, nuance and context. He claims weak proficiency in English and Filipino – something that is hard to believe for someone who has served as a public prosecutor and has three children by an American. But if the claim is true, this makes it all the more important for him to read prepared speeches.

Flip-flopping is never good for a world leader. At this point Du30 is still considered a world leader, but if he keeps up with his juvenile behavior, hyperboles, crude language, flip-flopping and clarifications of public statements, he might find himself regarded as an international buffoon.

If his incoherent foreign policy continues, we will soon become the laughingstock of the world.

* * * Du30 should consider that he might be putting even his preferred allies on the spot with his intemperate remarks.

After openly raising expectations of asserting Philippine fishing rights over Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, for example, there was deafening silence from Beijing, and Du30 came home empty-handed. There was no mention of the continuing Chinese occupation of Panganiban or Mischief Reef, over which the Permanent Arbitration Court has given the Philippines sovereign rights.

And while Beijing surely appreciates his “pivot” away from the US and into the arms of China, there must be enormous befuddlement – perhaps even snickering – in Beijing and Moscow over his announcement of forming a “triumvirate… against the world” with nuclear club members China and Russia.

For a president who keeps promising that his government will be clean, Du30’s choice of allies is baffling. Beijing is battling corruption at all levels. Apart from national corruption scandals, the venality in the Chinese bureaucracy has given the world melamine in milk and candy, lead in toys, killer toxins in pet food and cardboard in siopao filling. Beijing’s crackdown on corruption has been bad news for Philippine casinos; the expected influx of high rollers from the Chinese mainland has not materialized.

Russia, meanwhile, has been plagued by cronyism, inefficient state capitalism and gangster activities. The economy has faltered because of weak oil prices and massive defense spending for Vladimir Putin’s wars overseas.

Putin, whom Du30 has said he likes, has enough problems, both domestically and internationally. The Russian president must be dumbfounded to learn that his country is being made part of a “triumvirate… against the world.”

* * * Definitely the Americans have gotten the message that this Philippine President is no fan of Uncle Sam. But a recalibration of foreign policy can be done without pugnacity and with so much more finesse, so that the Philippines gains more friends instead of losing allies.

If Duterte is crafting an “independent” foreign policy, he should just do it, quit yapping about it, and show the world what he means exactly.

In refusing to be an American “puppet” – as he likes to describe the ties with the Philippines’ treaty ally – Du30 should avoid turning into a Chinese puppet.

It’s early days yet and the nation that sent Duterte to power by a landslide is still fervently wishing that he does well. The success of a president generally spells success for the nation. But cheering him on is getting harder with each passing day.

The President must not make it hard for a still optimistic nation to support him.