DU30 has won some points, he shouldn’t squander ‘em
FRANCISCO S. TATAD
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has certainly earned for himself some brownie points for telling China to “temper” its warnings to Philippine aircraft and vessels passing through the South China Sea, saying it cannot create islands where none exist and claim ownership of the sea around them and the airspace above. It was DU30’s first pointed statement on China, ever since he set aside a July 12, 2016 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague which upholds the Philippines’ sovereign rights over contested areas in the Spratlys.
The statement apparently caught China by surprise, and drew a strong response. While respecting other countries’ freedom of navigation and overflight, China said, it “has a right to take the necessary steps to respond to foreign aircraft and ships that deliberately get close to or make incursions into the air and waters near China’s relevant islands, and provocative actions that threaten the security of Chinese personnel stationed there…China urges the relevant part to meet China halfway and jointly protect the present good situation that has not come easily in the South China Sea.”
The exchange creates an opportunity to a more extensive dialogue. But it allows DU30 to recover a little from the increasingly hostile public reaction to what some critics have called a “sellout” of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity to China, which has turned the Philippines into “a province of China,” and DU30 into a “personal protectorate” of President Xi Jinping who, he claims, will not allow him to be ousted by any hostile force. This new posture on China should help stabilize DU30’s hold on the presidency.
The health question
And yet, this is not what seems to be happening. Following DU30’s August 14 disclosure of the possibility of his stepping down before the end of his term in 2022, all sorts of health-related rumors have surfaced and continued to pour in. These rumors have tended to distract the public from its most pressing concerns.
Spiraling consumer prices, which have sent inflation to its highest level in five years; a degraded Philippine peso sinking every day as joblessness rises; unmitigated drug killings which have prompted the Archdiocese of Cebu to issue an “oratio imperata” (mandatory prayer) against a spate of 122 murders in Cebu alone, in seven months; a problematic tax reform (Train) law that has become a disease rather than a cure; and massive corruption under the nose of the very people who are supposed to curb it; the paralyzation of international air travel to and from Manila, after a Xiamen Air carrier skidded at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last Thursday, taking the government not less than 36 hours to remove the stranded Boeing 737-800 from the NAIA runway, etc. None of these could divert the people’s attention from rumors about DU30’s alleged poor state of health.
There had been reports, prior to his SONA (state of the nation address) that DU30 had been coughing very badly, but there was apparently nothing there which a visit to the pulmonology, cardiology and neurology departments of the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan or to the alternative medical center in Tarlac could not take care of. Now, Jose Maria Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and DU30’s former political science professor, posted on Facebook a story from Utrecht, the Netherlands, saying DU30 had gone into a coma. If true, this meant the President was dying.
This prompted DU30’s special assistant Christopher “Bong” Go to interrupt his ongoing senatorial campaign.
“Nasa kama, nagpapahinga sa kama si Mayor” (the Mayor is “in bed, resting in bed”), but definitely not in a coma, said Go. My own independent sources in Davao said he had just come from Balut island, and was taking part in the Kadayawan festival in Davao and would be meeting with the League of Cities in Cebu the next day. This coincided with Harry Roque’s statement yesterday. The reports of his dying, therefore, are “grossly exaggerated,” to quote Mark Twain.
Public admission, a mistake
But we have to expct more of these rumors in the coming days, weeks or months. This is not only because DU30 has publicly talked about his various ailments — his constant migraine, his Buerger’s disease, his Barrett esophagus, and his constantly taking the painkiller Fentanyl. It is more because, in a moment of weakness, the strongman has admitted to being tired and wanting to step down. He should have learned from Marcos. Even after it was widely rumored that Marcos had contracted “lupus” and had undergone a secret kidney transplant, which I helped to uncover after I left the Cabinet in 1980 and returned to journalism, he never once intimated that he was considering passing on the torch to anyone. He never dropped his guard.
A short anecdote is worth repeating here. In 1982, I went to Harvard for a short executive course on government enterprises (parastatals). On one visit to the Coop (the Harvard bookstore), I bumped into the late Ninoy Aquino, who was on an extended medical furlough in Boston. He was accompanied by his wife, Cory, who quickly disappeared among the shelves as Ninoy and I began to talk. He talked about a letter he had just received from a “mutual friend” of ours (a dentist), who said Marcos had fallen ill. The doctor apparently described it as a welcome opportunity for the opposition. Ninoy seemed to savor the news, until I spoke.
The economic factor
I said that even before he left Manila for Boston, Marcos had already begun to have some physical ailments. None of them were life-threatening though, so it would be a mistake for anyone to base their political plans on Marcos dying. This was enough to turn Ninoy on.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” he exploded. “I’m not that crazy. I don’t intend to go home and fight Marcos now. That would be stupid. No one can bring him down now. He’s in control of everything. Until the economy crumbles, no one can bring him down.”
Ninoy’s assassination in 1983 sent the economy into a tailspin. Marcos was already too sick to prevent those responsible from carrying out the assassination, and the economy was already too weak to withstand the immediate effects of the murder. The government had to ask for a moratorium from the foreign banks on the servicing of its loans, and then the military-assisted civilian uprising came.
DU30 could learn, and should learn, from all this. Not only has DU30 intimated his tiredness, possibly boredom, and his willingness to step down, which Marcos never did; the economy is also in trouble and could end up in a far worse situation, if he does not listen to his economic managers, who have warned him against the perils of railroading his inverted federalism. But there may be time still to avert any catastrophic disaster. DU30 must stop playing with the Constitution, and playing with the Filipino people.
Honest elections
He has promised clean and honest elections in May 2019. Let him make good on that promise by thoroughly cleaning up the Comelec, getting rid of Smartmatic once and for all, stopping the wholesale vote-buying by candidates and their operatives, and helping ensure that only the best qualified candidates run for public office.
Let him not insult anybody’s intelligence by saying that the Comelec should deputize him to supervise the elections. Right now he should order that all of Bong Go’s premature advertising be dismantled, and that all the rules and regulations on political campaigning, which had been routinely set aside in previous elections, be resuscitated and enforced with utmost vigor and strength.
And let him find something worthwhile to talk about if he must say anything at all. The Constitution absolutely excludes the President from any role in proposing any constitutional revision or amendment. I have been pointing this out ad nauseum, but he does not have to listen to me at all. All he has to do is read what Article XVII, Amendments or Revisions, is saying. No law or jurisprudence contradicts this provision. But everything DU30 has done with respect to his proposed federalism project is illegal; he must now recognize this fact, if possible with some contrition.
A looney campaign
Even if the federal project were constitutionally tenable, which it is not, his economic managers have made it absolutely clear it would wreck the economy without achieving anything in return. At the same time, Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has declared that between now and the 2019 election, there is not enough time to amend or revise the Constitution. DU30 should conserve his energy for better things instead of wasting it on an unconstitutional and looney campaign, which he believes he should lead, for federalism.
fstatad@gmail.com
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