Most popular

When he was in power, Barack Obama described one particular president as “the most popular politician on Earth.” Obama was not referring to himself, and he certainly was not referring to his Philippine counterpart who dismissed him last year as an SOB.

The US president was referring to his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose personal approval rating hit a stratospheric 87 percent while his government garnered 80 percent in his final month in office in December 2010, after two terms or eight years in power. Lula’s popularity dipped to 83 percent as he stepped down, but that figure is still dizzyingly high for anyone at the end of his presidency.

Lula rose from the working class, becoming a union leader and leading his country through sustained prosperity to become one of the emerging giants of the developing nations together with Russia, India, China and South Africa – the so-called BRICS. Lula managed to reduce inequalities in his nation. The success of his Bolsa

Familia social welfare program to ease poverty inspired the implementation of the conditional cash transfer in the Philippines during the Arroyo administration.

It’s good to remember how popular Lula was now that he has been sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for corruption in connection with the “Operation Car Wash” scandal that also brought down his handpicked successor Dilma Rousseff and has implicated current President Michel Temer.

President Duterte, in the latest Pulse Asia poll, enjoyed an impressively high 82 percent approval rating and 81 percent trust. But he’s not yet about to be described as the most popular politician on the planet since high ratings are common in our country in the first year or two of a presidency.

Lula’s fall should provide a cautionary tale to the Duterte administration about the fleeting nature of power and popularity.

In fact administration officials need not look as far away as Brazil. We’ve had presidents who started out immensely popular but ended up in detention without bail for several years, even if only in a hospital or a rest house. One died in exile and, depending on where political winds blow, might yet be kicked out of the hero’s cemetery once Rodrigo Duterte is no longer in power.

* * * All things must come to an end. Not even Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos could stay in power forever, although the Marcos clan has been fully rehabilitated with no one ever setting foot in a jail cell.

Last week there was a timely reminder from Du30’s chief legal counsel about a day of reckoning for those in power. The reminder applies to all, of course. It might have prompted the President to defend his predecessor Noynoy Aquino’s actions in the 2015 Mamasapano raid that left 44 police commandos dead.

The reminder should be heeded by any public official who is asked by superiors to disregard the law. It’s also prudent to remember the admonition that the higher they climb, the harder they fall.

A public official who readily breaks the law to please higher-ups must remember that when his protectors are no longer in power, he could lose all his friends, and his family will suffer along with him. If he becomes embroiled in a high-profile scandal, his children may need a name change, a new address and new school to avoid ostracism.

Admittedly, such officials could also end up in Congress or become a mayor or governor. The ex-presidents who were held without bail have successfully remade themselves in politics. One is said to be responsible for the recent fall of one of the nation’s wealthiest men. Noynoy Aquino need not fret; there’s life after detention in this country.

But such fate is for former presidents and their relatives. As in much of life in these islands, the small fry are the ones who end up behind bars. Making them rot in prison gives a false sense that justice still prevails and the system isn’t completely broken.

Even if we don’t have Brazil’s justice system, however, we are eternal optimists. Pinoys still cling to the idea that one day soon, justice will catch up even with the big fish and we’ll see the once rich and powerful behind bars. Not under hospital incarceration, and not in an airconditioned with a waterbed, sauna and recording studio, but in a real prison cell, with a plain cot and a septic tank, infested with cockroaches and mosquitoes.

* * * Popularity, of course, is indispensable in carrying out difficult policies and reforms.

Human rights advocates must be wringing their hands in despair over the Pulse Asia survey that showed Duterte’s ratings rising after he declared martial law and suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in Mindanao.

Those dizzying numbers assure Duterte of congressional support for his desired extension of martial law until the end of the year.

Duterte should thank his defense-military team (backed by police commandos) for public acceptance of martial law. After two months, soldiers in Marawi have given ordinary people no reason to worry about martial law abuses.

But public acceptance anywhere in the world is notoriously fickle. While he still enjoys popularity, the President should use it to the hilt to push his reform agenda.

Duterte can thank his popularity for the cooperation he is getting from Congress for several of his policies. Those ratings can further decimate what’s left of the political opposition.

He should also use his popularity in dealing with employees in several national agencies as well as local politicians and officials who are turning his campaign against corruption and red tape into a joke.

The coffee shops are awash with talk that some of his most trusted aides are now rushing to make hay while the sun shines. Not that Du30 is completely clueless; at least two of the officials, according to the grapevine, reportedly received a tongue-lashing recently from the President. The fate of another, who is being linked to drug dealers, is still being dug up by snoops.

Duterte can toss them out of his official family any time. As he enters his second year, he deserves a better team. And he will get public support.

The nation expects him to use his immense popularity to improve governance and the delivery of basic services, to level the playing field, narrow the yawning income gap and make inclusive growth a reality. Popularity is best used for the greater good, not to institutionalize impunity.