GRASSROOTS & GOVERNANCE
Duterte has the capacity to become a great president, if he does not mess things up
all its flaws, is allowed access to information, and is not prevented by force or political pressure to disseminate information that it considers the public’s right to know. A student of mine from Kota Kinabalu who was unhappy with the authoritarianism of then Malaysia PM Mahathir once remarked to me, “But professor, I think your democracy, it is too much.” My reply was that we had tried the other extreme and what we had was still preferable; and that we should do our best to protect and enhance it.
Since it will be difficult to control media content without threatening our democracy and arousing massive public protest, it might be easier to set up SOPs on presidential statements. The media people, especially the junior ones, can be overly sassy at times, in their desire to bait the President into a headlinegrabbing reaction; and they are getting precisely that. Since President Duterte is onion-skinned, he needs to process this matter with his Cabinet and old, trusted friends on how to handle press conferences. He might be too old to change. So, this is a difficult challenge for him and his friends to figure out.
To be fair, Duterte has been President for less than two months. And already, he has put together a worthy Cabinet, launched many initiatives including very bold ones at reform (fixing the traffic, accelerating infrastructure project implementation, reviewing tax policy, triggering moves toward federalism, etc.). Business sentiment is very positive and whether he admits it or not, is building on the gains of President PNoy’s macroeconomic accomplishments and international credit standing. I am all for President Duterte’s stated desire to make sure that economic progress is shared equitably. Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo on the grounds that there was not enough evidence, when there were practically truckloads of those, which they could not have read in the time they allocated to the case, etc.) I am not optimistic for the petitioners’ plea. But let us see what the aftermath will be.
The President’s bold statements to the police forces assuring them that he is behind them and will back them up in this war against drugs may have caused collateral damage. As we all know, there are good cops and bad cops. And some of the bad ones and their sponsors might be resorting to drastic means, including “extrajudicial killings” to silence potential witnesses against them. How much is too much? What is the value of a human life? There are no easy answers.
But the opposing points of view have to be allowed, if we are to remain a civilized country in the community of nations. We are, after all, one of the founders of the United Nations, without which, perhaps, this world would have been detonated by nuclear wars decades ago.
The world and our country will never be perfect, because it consists of and is ruled by human beings with all their flaws and frailties. Some wars have been caused by impulsive actions or words of political and military leaders. But we have survived the horrors of Hitler and other satanic rulers. There is still Assad of Syria. But we are in the main, getting better and more humane. We are, in fact, growing up. Little by little.