Duterte

IAM biased in favor of Duterte as other Mindanaoans, especially Davaoenyos. I admit he says crazy things but he gets things done. His pet peeves are drugs and petty thievery. He once told me: “In ten years that I was city prosecutor of Davao, I was not able to keep one drug pusher in jail.They have plenty of resources and connections. Our laws are inadequate But I weigh the profits of these drug pushers against the lives or our young men and women. Once on drugs they are condemned to a living death. I therefore hate drugs.”

I don’t know Duterte that well. I once asked him in Cagayan de Oro:” Is it true, Mayor, that you were thrown out of Ateneo de Davao?” His answer was: “That is not true. That is a lie. The Jesuit fathers went to my father and asked him to take me out.”

He was a stormy petrel. His father was a Cabinet member who then brought him to Digos and then to the University of Mindanao. He did his law studies in San Beda. Somewhere along the line he got straightened out. His mother, “Nanay Soling,” was basically a saint and probably prayed a lot for him. He must have encouraged his daughter to take up boxing as her PE elective in UP.

His main agenda is peace and order. He has shown that he is good at that in Davao. My cousin Doctora who is an obgyn specialist in Davao, tells me that when she has a call at midnight she is not afraid to jump into her car, stop by the gas station, and go to her patient’s house without fear of holdup. She also claims that she can wear her jewelry in the market and public places with no fear of snatchers. This is the second pet peeve of Duterte the petty thieves and snatchers. He tells them that if they want to do foolishness, they should do it somewhere else and not in his territory.

I had an employee who was also a Sitio leader. He noticed there were a lot of visitors to an apartment regularly. He reported it to the mayor’s office. It stopped. He suspected it was a drug den. After a year the line formed again. He reported it again. Again it stopped. A third time it was reported it stopped permanently. What did the Mayor’s office do? I don’t know, But they gave whoever was fooling around three chances.

Why do Mindanaoans love Duterte? If not love, at least feel that things will get done. If Duterte gets elected president, the Mindanao problem will be solved. And Mindanao will carry the whole nation to the prosperity that it deserves. The good statesman Ting Paterno used to say : “Visayas has with too many storms and Luzon’s absorption capacity is at a peak and cannot process any further development. If the country is to move forward it has to be the development of Mindanao. The insurgencies both of the NPA and the Muslims will be solved.

The development of power sources, especially hydro resources, which abound in Mindanao. Luzon has developed Binga and Ambuklao and other sources will be done. Mindanao has at least twenty potential large hydro powers, like Polangui five’s potential 500 megawatts, that can be developed according to Ernie Aboitiz who studied the matter. Then comes the mineral resources of Mindanao that can be developed. The gold, copper, nickel, and other precious metals are left in the ground while people have no jobs and suffering from hunger.

It was only recently that the enclaves of Mindanao, that face the sea, were connected to make Mindanao one economic community. A railroad to connect Cagayan de Oro to Davao, and Davao to Zamboanga would help. Once unified with roads and resources harnessed, Mindanao can be the source of bumping the nation into industrialization

and prosperity.