Will Duterte survive?
This far into the campaign, a candidate’s supporters are already deep into their beliefs and are committed to their choice. With the ratings often being statistically tied, campaign strategists will use every trick in the book both dirty and good. These are the times when the wiliest of them will teach you that even bad news or bad publicity can be used to keep their candidate in the limelight, confuse an even bigger audience, especially in social media where the “Truth” and “True Journalism” or news sites are created and shut down every hour.
I suspect that Duterte’s strategists are playing the “sensationalist” card in keeping with his many sensationalist statements that tend to attract media who won’t put on their thinking caps because Duterte is a political advertiser and a rich source of “sound byte” that keeps audience tuned in. Media is not being objective in this instance, they are simply taking advantage of the material and its source. As a result, Duterte’s strategists are convinced that he can’t do anything wrong even if he tried such as demonstrated in the “rape joke.”
One can surmise that his advisers believe that for every person that gets pissed off when Duterte attacks the Americans, the Mexicans, Mar, Grace or P-Noy, there will be a counterpoint population who would agree with Duterte. Everything is also very calculated so that the hit and collateral damage is limited to people who won’t or can’t shoot back or sustain a counter attack. Duterte’s camp is not being stupid and actually proved it by attacking the Pope and the Catholics did not lynch him. No one declared him as “persona non grata” for advocating a swapping arrangement for islets with China. The leftists have not hounded Duterte for human rights violations the same way they do Bongbong Marcos at most debates or rallies and Gabriela has hardly been seen or heard as far as Duterte’s actuations and pronouncements towards women are concerned.
When Duterte said his “rape joke” members of the media particularly broadcast, were preaching, counseling but visibly and audibly restrained and controlled with what they had to say on the matter. They were pathetic, not for failing to condemn Duterte but for applying a different rule to Duterte than to people whom they crucified for being in “sex videos,” for making anti-gay comments, and acting lasciviously or being involved in a “twerking video” such as members of the Liberal party. Ironically, Duterte is now the principal endorser of Francis Tolentino who became the sacrificial lamb for the twerking incident.
Duterte and his campaign team are being calculating and picking on the “cultured,” civilized people who they know won’t fight back or get even. He actually even gave the “cultured people” special mention clearly indicating he did not care about their sentiments or of the church. He called Mar “bakla,” but did not dare go against the LGBT because he and his posse know the LGBT have more balls than all of them combined. He won’t comment or criticize the Abu Sayyaf or Muslim fundamentalist terrorists because they already gave him a sampling on what “Muslims” can do to the Davao Airport with RPGs and bombs on Davao Port.
You might be tempted to assume that Duterte only picks on people that are easy targets, actually, Duterte et al, are simply stoking and adding fuel to a burning fire that increases the rift between the haves and have nots, the educated classes and ignorant masses, the cultured and the crass. In other words, Duterte is riding on a class war or what has been termed a non-violent revolution of the poor.
When asked who they would vote for, a Sakada or transient farm worker in Negros said: Sir sa experience
namin sa election, lagi na lang “tarantado” ang bino-boto ng mga mayayaman. Kaya ngayon kami naman ang pipili ng tarantado. Si Duterte na yun!” (Sir, from our experience, the rich always votes a hoodlum into office. So this time we will choose our very own hoodlum. That would be Duterte). The historical-political equivalent of that statement would be: “He may be a Son of a Bitch, but he is our Son of a Bitch.” This is what the current state of our Presidential campaign is all about. The Outsiders against the Insiders in Philippine politics and economics placed in an arena called social media and Philippine broadcast.
But will it all end on May 9? Don’t bet on it. What I see in Digong Duterte is a potential replay of the Erap Presidency that could turn bloody or very unpleasant for all concerned.
Duterte and his boys have managed to insult or threaten gender, politics and personalities as well as moral sensibilities while dismissing institutions of their role and value. Duterte now displays the winner’s confidence that is fueled by surveys and popularity just like Erap. Duterte is now riding on the “Mahirap,” speaking their language, stirring up their wants and indirectly reminding them of their pain.
The poor are desperate; the rich are anxious and fearful of losing their freedoms and their profits. So far, Duterte’s team has failed to convey and sustain a message of unity, a realistic plan put together by real experts and not publicists. Their campaign has been divisive, combative and exactly going down the same path as Erap who was deemed as a threat or an insult by the church, politicians, business groups, leftists and even the international community of diplomats and investors at the time. We are now witnessing version 2.0 with Duterte.
True or false, right or wrong, the groups with vested interest staged the bloodless coup. By God’s will and to his credit Erap chose to walk away and returned to redeem himself. Duterte may win the battle but will he survive the war? Email: utalk2ctalk@gmail.com