One year after

A year ago I wrote a post on Facebook about my initial thoughts on the incoming Rodrigo R. Duterte administration. As a person I tend to be very trusting and given to allowing a new person the benefit of the doubt. And reviewing his speeches, taking away the cursing and the personal attacks, I thought I heard him say the following which I liked. I wrote then:

I think we are seeing a form of genuine leadership action with the [Duterte] government.

1. He is inviting us to go where we have never ventured before. Sounds familiar? Star Trek!

He is willing to try what has not been tried and he knows mistakes will be made. We must raise the real question of the price that must be paid in doing so and the accountabilities that must be imposed for these mistakes.

2. He is actually asking us to help in building the roads and/or the bridges as we go along, a feature of leadership — leader and followers perceiving problems together, defining them together, deciding what needs doing together, and executing the solutions together. We have tried many means before to achieve the desired ends and wound up disappointed. We need to try new approaches but must have the perspicacity and the ability to back away from mistakes and try again.

3. He is asking for our active and attentive engagement as responsible citizens and he is laying open communication lines direct to him. Let us use this opportunities to create the country we desire.

Clearly, a healthy skepticism is necessary but detachment and non-participation are destructive of engagement in nation building.

It has been over a year now since I wrote these thoughts. I was hoping that I would be making equally optimistic statements and feeling happy over what should have happened. I am not.

I had hoped that while the big “wars” against illegal drugs, graft and corruption, traffic and transport and criminality would not let down, that the very good ten-point program approved by the NEDA board would be transformed into productive actions so that the problem of poverty, unemployment and lack of livelihood would be addressed, finally. This was my major beef against past administrations that had swallowed the neo-liberal bait, hook, line, and sinker.

I am still waiting to see the programs for these “wars” and the strategies underpinning them. And while big strides have been made in the war on illegal drugs, the war is far from over and rife with controversy. There is no coherent program for addressing the out-patient requirements of the light users; to address the in-patient handling of the heavier but as yet not hopeless addicts; and the provision of more humane facilities for the hopeless cases.

The traffic problems remain largely unresolved. One hardly needs “proper documentation” of the problem as millions experience it everyday not only in Metro Manila. And criminality, while it has toned down, remains in places where the presence of government is not evident. Graft and corruption? It is evident even in the highest places in government — the to-do between Speaker Alvarez and the BoC lawyer is an example. Add to that the Ilocos Norte incident involving the governor and six of her staff. That several senior senators and representatives rushed to her rescue is telling. To be sure, President Duterte himself may not be involved but the buzz about people around him cannot be all the result of “Dilawan” rumor-mongering. To the extent that he seems not to be bothered by these is troubling.

In the meantime, proof of implementing the ten-point program have been sparse and often comes in anecdotes. Meanwhile we get reports of the need to import more rice and that agricultural productivity “likely grew 5%.” These are not news to rejoice over.

In the meantime, we are told from multiple sources that contracts relate to the President’s “golden age of infrastructure” and the “build, build, build” program are delayed as government agencies and Congress decided to change decisions on PPPs and the nature of the projects themselves on the questionable notions that, one, the government needs to see “better studies”, and two, government (especially our government given its sterling record!) can and will build these projects much cheaper.

Then Secretary Pernia admitted that Chinese loan offer is “not yet a done deal” but “is still under consideration.” Meantime, the Japanese offer is firm.

I see too many government operations and tactical moves with no underlying strategy, at least not as I understand the concept. The consolation I have is NEDA has a strategy for the ten-point program. My dismay is that given the personal attention President Duterte has given his “wars,” I would have expected him to ask his staff to coordinate the crafting of good strategies. I am not sure that he has.

I can almost hear several of my Facebook friends say, “He has! You just don’t understand it!” I have asked them To explain before. The explanations never came.

One important work of the leader is to engage followers toward common goals. In many ways, President Duterte has done that in the case of the “wars” he has declared. Where he has been less than successful is in engaging all sectors to determine what principles and processes we will follow in pursuit of the goals. His obstreperousness in wanting to do things his way and his way alone has contributed in no small measure to this. I can see that it worked several decades ago in Davao. But Davao is not the Philippines.

While there seemed to have been moves to bridge gaps, they have not been sustained as ego and personal sensitivities are allowed to get in the way of reaching a higher, nobler purpose, that of building a nation. In many ways, I do not lay the blame completely on the President. His leadership team is supposed to help him work on this. I am not sure they know how as some of them seem to have difficulty working out challenges with one another. There is talk of rifts among the groups that composed the alliance that got President Duterte into office. The Marawi disaster is a classic case of failure of coordination at many levels in so many ways.

And he has to be told that some of his allies are likely to bring down his programs with their vested interests and corrupted behavior.

No, I am not implying impeachment. That would be very divisive and therefore not in the best interest of the country and our people. I am asking, begging, that changes be made in the way we are governed by this administration. President Duterte has to be made aware of the shortcomings of his way of managing us — more like a warlord than a president. His people have to have the guts to tell him when his definition of words and phrases, of issues and challenges, are not only lacking but even counterproductive to his wishes.

President Duterte still has four years to go. There is enough runway for change towards effective governance and real change. Next year, I would like to be able to write a more optimistic review of the year that passed… if President Duterte will change.

Mario Antonio G. Lopez is a member of Manindigan! a civil society group that helped topple the Marcos Dictatorship.

maglopez@gmail.com