Populist leadership wrong basis for Martial Law
We often hear the term populist leader used in many critical analyses of our nation’s political development. While the word “populist” originally referred to a member of an old American political group, it has, in Philippine perspective, somehow evolved to mean an association with the lower middle class of modern societies. It happens that this sector constitutes the more numerous in any given community. Is this term a colloquial of someone most popular in the entire population? In Cebu City, for instance, the informal settlers and daily wage earners can be generally placed in this category and I do not mean to cast aspersions on them. A populist leader therefore is he who gets the support of the greater mass, mostly the less privileged, of the society.
Many social scientists I have read call President Rodrigo Duterte, a populist leader in their writings. Unlike our past presidents, he literally galloped over his political opponents in the 2016 elections. After an initial hesitation, he ran for the country’s highest post without a political party. The Liberal Party, then the most dominant group, had long identified its candidate. The Lakas-CMD, the Naciolista Party and the Nationalist People’s Coalition which accounted for most lawmakers in Congress to constitute as their bases, did not consider Duterte as possessing with any ghost of a chance to win the presidency. Only the PDP-Laban, whose notable though failed electoral participation was in 1992 with then Sen Aquilino Pimentel running for Vice President, was accidentally available. It adopted Duterte as its candidate. Or was it Duterte who took advantage of a political party cover?
Duterte defied all political soothsayers. His personality matched the idiosyncrasies of the greater mass with his pronouncements appearing to personify their aspirations. He was carried on the shoulders of the citizenry and crushed all foes in unprecedented margins. The sixteen million votes he amassed, less from the A and B and more from the C, D and E economic crowds broke all records. That staggering political victory earned him the moniker “populist leader.”
This popularity of the president is not unlike the shrieking support given by fans to movie personalities. We were tickled pink upon hearing his promise to ride on a jet ski to the Spratleys to plant the Philippine flag there and drive away the Chinese intruders. We applauded him when he kissed the lips of beautiful women supporters in Central Luzon during the campaign.
Most recently, it is his populist leadership that makes him mock at the Philippine Constitution. If he did not feel that popular amongst our people, he would not dare order the military to take over a purely civilian office in the Bureau of Customs. No factual circumstance would offer any legal justification for this Duterte imposition of a Martial Law kind of administration outside of his perception of being extremely popular. Malacanang mouth piece said the other day that this army takeover is temporary but, pardon me, he is completely missing the point as if here we’re ignorant. I cannot find anything in our Constitution invoking temporariness as a reason for this constitutional adventurism of the president. Constant in our teaching constitutional law is the rigid requirement of the presence of invasion or rebellion or lawless violence before the president can place any part of our country, not just any office like the Customs Bureau, under martial law.
If there indeed is an invasion, as a martial regime requisite, it must be the smuggling of illegal drugs into our country thru the very ports manned by the president’s trusted men. The only kind of lawless violence required for a valid declaration of martial law assumed the form high officials allowing the inflow of these narcotics. Absent the required conditions for a military rule, the act of the president in placing the Bureau of Customs under Martial Law transgressed the Constitution and abused the weight of his perceived popularity.