The Duterte Code

He caused quite a stir but that's to be expected. Duterte is an extreme personality so naturally, he draws extreme reactions. He's no joke. While it's a given that Mindanao is pretty much in his pocket, the fact that he received a sizable chunk of support in Manila upon filing his candidacy, has the traditional Northern elite a little worried. The thinking is that the boost in support is temporary and as the voters know more about him and Duterte overexposes himself, his support will eventually wane. Hey, whatever helps one sleep at night.

This is gonna be a long post so grab a comfy chair.

I have a theory on why Duterte is enjoying a lot more support than people expected. When the human body is under attack by a virus, it will of course, react by sending antibodies. The Philippines has had years of terrible leadership under PNoy. PNoy is a pantywaist to put it simply. All he does is open his mouth and then promptly put his foot in it. He's incompetent, indecisive, and worst of all, indifferent. Couple all that with the general breakdown of law and order and the demoralizing fact that the Maguindanao massacre trial is still going on, you can see how a man like Duterte could enjoy such widespread support. When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally favor the strong horse. People look at PNoy and all they see is weakness. People see in Duterte a man who can get things done. His rise is but a natural response to the seeming inability of our government to do any goddamn thing. Must I go over the many times our President fiddled while the country burned? How are the Yolanda victims doing? Why don't we ask them what they think?

The rise of Duterte is born mainly from anger and frustration. Filipinos of course, are an unusually emotional lot. The arguments for Duterte tend to appeal to feelings about how horrible it is to be victimized by crime and so on. Filipinos are gullible too by the way. Why don't we go over this whole thing, shall we?

Death Squad

One of the selling points of Duterte is that he's tough on crime. "Tough" is an understatement. If you believe in his personal mythology, Duterte solves crime by simply killing the criminals without a trial. Trials are slow but bullets are indeed faster.

Summary executions, eh? I thought Filipinos hated killings and forced disappearances? Oh, that's right, it's OK when it's the correct people who are killed. We're such a bunch of hypocrites. It's alright to slaughter people only if they're criminals because fuck them, right? Well this whole thing with the death squads relies on two major premises: firstly, that Duterte will only use his powers for good and secondly, criminals and ONLY criminals will be killed. To believe in these is to be hopelessly and dangerously naive.

It's ironic that people who decry the justice system as irredeemably flawed (it has its many flaws to be fair) believes that a single man can be so flawless; flawless enough to entrust to him the power to play god. To say he's playing god is apt since it would take nothing but blind faith to believe that Duterte, a politician like any other, could do what he does perfectly and with nothing but warm and fuzzy intentions. Bullshit. If a man has that much power over life and death, it would be so tempting to simply take out your critics, rivals or anyone really, even if they haven't done anything. Wait, I forgot. Duterte is a god and can do no wrong, right? Right. I guess this is why arguing with his most hardened supporters is like arguing with a religious zealot. It's pointless since their trust in Duterte is based on faith and not reason. Well, Filipinos would know a lot about blind faith so it figures.

What if Duterte, as he gets even older, starts going senile and orders the wrong hits? Will anyone stop him? Suppose he dies, who'll be left with the finger on the trigger? Such are the perils of putting your faith in one man rather than an institution.

As to the second premise that only criminals will be killed, there's really no way of knowing with the whole lack of a trial thing. If a person was killed by Duterte's boys, how do we really know he was a criminal? Because they said so? I guess we'll just have to believe them. This is all pretty much a faith-based exercise at this point. Hey, remember the last time in Philippine history when the police and military were given broad and far reaching powers? What a great time that was! The authorities exercised their powers responsibly and there were absolutely no abuses whatsoever. There were definitely no innocent people illegally detained, killed or whisked away to God knows where in the dead of night. Nope, no sir! It's gonna be even better this time around now that we allow them to kill but ONLY the baddies! You see how juvenile this all sounds? You have to have a mind of a child to think roving death squads is the best solution to our problem.

False Options

It should come to no surprise that I'd rather there be due process. I'm a fan of it actually. I'm a fan of being presumed innocent, is that so wrong?

Supporters of Duterte will probably cry that I've never experienced the pain of being victimized by criminals. I have to admit that if a person murdered someone I loved, I'd probably go into such rage and grief. Being human, I would probably want the ones responsible to be killed.

But this isn't about how one feels. It's about society as a whole. This whole law thing with the due process, bill of rights, trial and hearing, evidence and all that? It exists for a reason. When we are ruled by raw emotion, we make mistakes. We gave government the responsibility of settling conflicts so that civil society doesn't descend into anarchy with people slaughtering each other for wrongs, real or imagined. We have trials and all that to make sure there's no screw ups leading to innocent people suffering needlessly.

The thing with Duterte is that he presents a false choice. Since our judicial system is so bad, we should therefore do away with it completely and resort to summary executions. I'm sorry but can I have a third option? Is this a joke? Is there a middle ground somewhere? How about we fix our system instead of scrapping it entirely? Do you burn your whole house to rid it of rats? Ah, fixing our judicial system is too much work, right? Better to just kill people and let God do the work for once.

Call me crazy but I think we should seriously explore how we can fix our judicial system. Of course, this administration won't do anything since they hate the judiciary. PNoy has had it in for the third branch ever since they struck down his Truth Commission and dared to actually (GASP!) disagree with him! None of the other candidates are saying anything about the justice system. Hence, Duterte is winning on this issue since nobody else is addressing it. The judiciary may be important to us mortals but for the politicians of the other two branches, it's an afterthought.

Filipinos are fond of shortcuts. There's an undeniable appeal to the thought of summary executions. Too little thought however, is given to justice and the best way to attain it. Fixing whats ailing with our system won't happen because it takes actual leadership.

Life is Feudal

I mentioned before than I'd support Duterte since he's into federalism. Yes, I support decentralization but I'd rather not have to bargain away my fucking rights for it.

I always assumed that Duterte was actually an intelligent person with a macho facade to fool the dumb masses. The extrajudicial killings, I thought, might just be due to extraordinary circumstances existing in Davao and existing only in that geographical area. Perhaps he was a cerebral Machiavellian type who does what's necessary. However, when Duterte opened his mouth and bragged about his sex life and cursed the Pope, I guess he's not so smart. Don't get me wrong, I'm not that devout, but how wise is it to essentially call the Pope a son of a whore in a nation that is predominantly Roman Catholic? His bragging about his girlfriends and extramarital adventures are negligible, however. It's tastless sure, but the people of this allegedly Catholic country already elected Erap so yeah. I'm beginning to think he's just a vulgar thug who got lucky nobody killed him before he got too powerful.

Sometimes I wish Duterte would talk about issues other than killing but law and order is his biggest card. Can't blame him for playing it.

My Stand

You might think that I'm against Duterte at this point. To be honest, I don't mind if he wins. I've already accepted the fact that our democracy is a sham no matter who wins, the people will lose.

You might think I'm against the idea of summary executions and I am. I, however, concede that there are people who support it and there's nothing wrong with that. People are free to have their own stupid opinions. Perhaps Duterte's greatest asset is Davao itself. There's no greater argument than success. People can elect Duterte if they want. Such is the magic of democracy. Just be careful not to slip on the blood.

A Duterte presidency might be good if he could seriously implement a policy of decentralization. If he wins, it would be fun seeing Philippine society unmasked for what it truly is. The most interesting thing for me however, is seeing the clash of narratives.

On the one hand, you have the human rights crowd who go on and on about due process and morals and all that crap. On the other hand, you have people who have given in to their cynicism so much that they don't mind people being killed and would vote for a monster. I've always wondered which of these points of view were correct. Idealism versus cynicism; a classic.

Always remember that your vote does not matter, it has already been decided and everything is beyond your control.