Honoring Duterte

IBy F there’s another aspect of Rodrigo Duterte’s public record that his critics tend to miss or gloss over, it is his refusal to accept honors and awards that organizations seek to bestow on him. He apparently dislikes such kind of attention.

Lest we forget, Duterte ordered the Office of the President and asked the public to stop using the honorific “Your Excellency” or “His Excellency” when addressing or referring to him. He just wanted to be called Mr. President or President Duterte.

It might be useful to remember this as the furor rises over the decision of the University of the Philippines’ Board of Regents to confer an honorary degree on Duterte, “in accordance with tradition”.

Duterte could be the 14th president to receive a UP honorary degree. If UP retracts the offer or if President declines, he would join Presidents Estrada and Arroyo as the only presidents not to accept UP honors. (Yes, UP awarded Marcos in 1966 and has never taken back the honors.)

The politicization of the UP’s decision to confer the honorary degree on Duterte is to be expected. It is happening in an atmosphere of endless political combat between and among pro-Duterte, anti-Duterte, unaligned and other citizens.

The broad opposition — from the rabid Yellows to critics of individual Duterte policies like the drug war or the neoliberal economic policies —would always take advantage of any or all opportunities to advance their causes.

On the other side, the army of Duterte fans would of course welcome and defend any honors for their idol, lord, and savior — whether he deserves it or not.

The thing is, the UP honors may be the wrong issue to either use against or for Duterte. Right now, the protests are centered on UP — and rightfully so. Citizens have every right to ask UP’s regents about the process and substance behind their idea of honoring Duterte, beyond saying it is part of UP tradition.

The UP honors could be the wrong issue to use against Duterte because he apparently didn’t ask for the honors. Neither are we certain that he would accept it. The only way this issue would be useful is if he accepts the honorary degree. Because that would make him the center of debate — quite aptly, if you ask me. He has lots of questions to answer: from the policy of extrajudicially killing drug suspects and political dissidents, to his rhetoric about fighting the oligarchy but implementing an economic program that actually strengthens the oligarchy, to his adoption of a foreign policy that makes the Philippines a puppet thrice over (US, China, and Russia). There are many other concerns.

Duterte may also possibly delay his decision and prolong the agony of not just the UP regents, but the warring pro- and anti- partisans. He can do that. There is also a possibility that he would accept the idea of the honorary degree but on the day it would be bestowed on him, he would change his mind, respectfully decline it, turn it into a public spectacle with a message about humility or some other beautiful thing that his enemies cannot possibly reject. (I would hope he declines it on Graduation Day, and instead honors UP back. By unveiling before the UP graduates and the nation the final details of tuition-free college education in all state schools. And by abolishing the Socialized Tuition System in UP, and all tuition, miscellaneous and other school fees in all state colleges and universities. If he could order a full, immediate and unconditional refund of all the tuition, miscellaneous, and other school fees paid by the Class of 2017, that would be epic.)

I have no words for the club of adoring Duterte fans. Their squeaks of glee over the UP honors are expected. Tradition and the presidential appointees to the UP Board of Regents favor them. In short, power favors them.

The trouble, in my view, is with some in the opposition and how selective or choosy they are in promoting “standards” for bestowing honorary degrees. They gloss over certain, important facts: that it not the first time UP awards an honorary degree; that UP and other prestigious higher learning institutions have also awarded such extraordinary honors to other extraordinarily-evil recipients.

Twenty years ago, on March 11, 1997, UP bestowed an honorary doctor of laws degree on Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state who was among those chiefly responsible for the genocidal US war of intervention in Vietnam. If responsibility for body counts could be a standard, which many people still remember in the case of Kissinger, then by all means Duterte certainly “deserves” UP honors.

In 2011, UP awarded an honorary degree to a three-term congressman, former deputy House speaker, a oneterm senator, and son of a former president who after nearly a dozen years in Congress wasn’t able to shepherd any bill into law. He would later be known as leader in incompetence, ineptitude, arrogance, brutality, elitism, and lack of empathy.

The “trouble" with the furor now is that Duterte has the final say on this, not least because because he can decline the UP honors. He has all the power to dispossess his critics, especially the hyperpartisan ones, of the issue they are now using against him.

The promise is that between now and June 2017, when the UP honors would be bestowed, he could always choose to correct his course on the deadly drug war or the pro-oligarchy #Dutertenomics, or the tri-polar foreign policy of puppetry to three masters. As president, he can remake UP and the state colleges and universities into real academies for the poor. And he could do more, if he chooses to take patriotic and progressive steps until the end of his term.

Ultimately, this isn’t about UP being pro-Duterte. Or UP alumni being antiDuterte. It is about Duterte and the questionable choices he’s been making, and the better, greater choices he could possibly make. Follow me on Twitter @tonyocruz and check out my blog tonyocruz.com