Cabinet labors under added thankless task: Duterte fact-checkers
During this week’s US presidential debate, Hillary Clinton summoned an unseen army of fact-checkers to countervail the effusive propensity of Donald Trump for, how do we diplomatically say it, terminological inexactitudes.
Here in Manila, the thankless job of clarifying the local version of Trump -- correction, Rodrigo Duterte is graphically and verbally more ballistic than The Donald -- has been added to the Cabinet members’ checklist of chores.
Consider, for instance, what President Duterte had said about the deterioration of the peso and who he thought was behind its growing weakness.
Lest Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr.’s nose grow by another inch blaming the Western media and their local stooges for their slant and alleged bias, here is how China’s Xinhua reported it.
Headlining the official Chinese news agency’s story with “Duterte accuses US of ‘undermining’ the Philippine peso,” Xinhua opened its reportage with this: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday accused the United States of ‘undermining’ the Philippine economy and causing the Philippine peso to tumble against the US dollar.
“The Americans are undermining us now. They are manipulating... the peso weakened,” Duterte said in a speech at the Philippine marine headquarters in Taguig.
Duterte, Xinhua continued, told the marine troops that “the Americans are bullying the Philippines,” adding the US has disrespected the Philippines. “The Philippines is a treaty ally of the US, with Manila depending too much on the US for military and other assistance,” Xinhua added, by way of background.
However, Duterte said the US “cannot understand a friend.” “Instead of helping us, they will attack you,” he said.
If the US will continue putting pressure and manipulating the Philippines, Duterte warned, “I will have new alliances of commerce and trade.”
He begged for the understanding of the marine troops. “This republic will rise. This Republic of the Philippines will continue to be great,” Duterte said, echoing the 1960s campaign slogan of Ferdinand Marcos, “This nation can be great again.”
The following day, the difficult task of correcting his bull-headed boss fell on Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, giving yet another press conference in Malacañang to re-pivot Duterte’s spontaneous pronouncements.
Lest presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo join Yasay in growing his nose by another inch by blaming anew the Western press, here again was how reported Diokno’s clarification:
Newly-confirmed Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Wednesday said there was no manipulation by the United States over the weakening of the peso against the dollar.
Speaking to reporters after the Commission on Appointments... his confirmation..., Diokno maintained the improved US economy was strengthening the dollar and thus, prompting short-term investors here and other countries to redirect their investments back to the US.
He said it was a “natural and rational behavior…not a manipulation on the part of investors.”
Diokno also said the US was not manipulating the peso because for the longest time it wanted to raise its interest rates but the economy then was not as good as it was now.
“So if you have money, you will put it where you will get a huge return,” he said.
The Xinhua report said Duterte’s acerbic statements against US President Barack Obama and the United Nations have nothing to do with the peso depreciation, with Xinhua quoting Diokno attributing the weakening of the local currency to “the strengthening of the dollar.”
What was more difficult for Diokno was his latest reality check on the presidential promise of salary increase for soldiers and policemen this year, first by August and then supposedly by December, with the Budget Secretary bluntly saying “there’s nothing in the (2016) budget.”
Even harder, Diokno clarified, the Duterte administration may not disburse funds “on something which is not authorized by Congress.”
For his part, Carlos Dominguez III, who had seen even more violent political and financial upheavals during his Aquino I Cabinet days, was able to persuade the Duterte-critical The Wall Street
Journal to spin its Manila-datelined report on Tuesday to “Don’t Be Scared of Duterte, Philippine Finance Chief Urges Investors.”
“Be ‘more sophisticated’ and focus on his investor-friendly policies,” the WSJ story said, quoting Dominguez.
“He is who he is, he says what he thinks,” Dominguez said of Duterte’s vulgar attacks on foreign governments and the United Nations.
Dominguez urged investors, the WSJ report continued, to look beyond bombastic remarks and focus on plans for tax cuts and infrastructure spending — developments he said would create investment opportunities in a global economy with fewer bright spots.
“Some foreigners haven’t gotten used to the idea’’ of an outspoken Philippine president, Dominguez told the WSJ. “We are in a period of change. Business likes a stable environment.”
Still, when pressed what the President meant when he said “I am about to cross the Rubicon between me and the US,” Dominguez to
WSJ’s Trefor Moss that he had “no idea” what Duterte meant.
Heard through the grapevine
President Duterte once again thanked Trust Trade, headed by government gun supplier Girme Gutierrez, for donating Glock 30 handguns which Du30 has been raffling off to police and military personnel during his visits to their camps.
Gutierrez, for those who hardly know him, could still easily pass off as a professional tango dancer, despite his age (UST High School class 1960) and his wearing a hearing aid.
Just check out how he lunges at and twirls with two seductive DIs at the Edsa Shangri-La, posted on YouTube.