No quick fix

“All this will not be finished in the first 100 days, nor in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration. But let us begin.” — John F. Kennedy

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Roa Duterte has realized that there are no quick fixes, and Davao City is not the Philippines. After six months, President Duterte stands tall, and remains popular and trusted by 16 million Filipinos, although he is temporarily blocked, sandbagged, challenged, opposed, and persistently criticized for his merciless war against drug trafficking, drug addiction, and extra-judicial killings of which he is not entirely culpable.

Thus, with the mindboggling maze of laws, tedious legal processes, corruption in the judiciary, procrastination, and politics, the administration is swamped with litigation, delays, and frustrations which President Digong Duterte has to reluctantly accept.

First, whenever President Duterte, for example, announces or declares sudden changes in policy, the slow moving and scrambling bureaucracy is invariably caught flatfooted, clueless, and confused.

Moreover, the President tends to be both prosecutor and judge when frustration catches up with him.

Except for the narrow focus on the drug warfare, there appears to be a disconnect between what the President says with alacrity and the slow reacting bureaucracy.

To the credit of President Digong Duterte, while his fearsome and intimidating war against drugs has been called by Bishop Socrates Villegas a “reign of terror,” the crusade has had positive and collateral effects on corruption and criminality which have substantially and visibly been reduced.

Second, the nation expects the administration to render reports on the cases filed, the volume of drugs seized and their whereabouts, and the status of the people dispossessed by the drug war.

The public would also like to know what has happened to the five narco generals, the prosecution of Sen. Leila de Lima, the assassination of Mayor Espinosa, the Jack Lam bribery case, the Jee Ick-joo kidnap-for-ransom-cum murder, and the Duterte list of narco suspects which should either be made public or purged, or cleared if justice is to be served.

Third, it will neither be wise nor productive for the administration to be declaring “war,” so to speak, on many fronts which will be wasteful and costly.

It has been said that one cannot soar like an eagle if one is surrounded by turkeys.

Thus, President Duterte may have to widen his scope of acquaintances, think out of the box, and cast a wider net for the best and the brightest other than San Beda classmates, dorm mates, Davao classmates, and party mates if the President truly wants to be the president of all the people.

Last, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte needs to review and re-assess his supermajority in the House and Senate whose members are of ambivalent loyalties and vested interests.

You be the judge.