El Jefe, La Iglesia Catolica y La Familia

Boy, El Jefe is certainly shaping up to be the real "change" President. Federalism? Charter change? Getting rid of the sixty-forty? Duterte seems like the kind of candidate keyboard jockeys on the internet have been dreaming of.

Recently, Duterte did what no other President before him had the guts to do. He called out the Catholic church as a bunch of hypocrites. I guess he can do that now that he's won but still, it's amazing. Conventional wisdom always had it that you don't want to go against the church. Hence. many candidates do not take the controversial positions like pro-divorce or pro-abortion. This aura of power stems mainly from the role the church played in the People Power movement.

A legacy of Sin, so to speak. (He called distributing condoms "intrinsically evil", BTW)

I've always been skeptical about this. Sure, groups like Iglesia ni Cristo do wield actual power since they have no qualms about playing the game and vote by bloc; their members voting according to the orders of their leaders. But the Catholic church? It doesn't exactly force people to vote the way they want to. The best they can do nowadays are passive-aggressive statements of fatuous moralizing. But is the fear that they can whip up enough people to march on the streets still a valid one? Personally, I think their power has waned. People were frustrated enough of the status quo to elect Duterte, an alleged killer, into office and the church is as "status quo" as you can get. Nevertheless, with Duterte's recent comments and his commitment to family planning, the church's power will be tested. We shall see.

Speaking of family planning, I'm not fond of the idea the RH Law has, as I have written before. Not because of some religious concern, mind you, but because I think government has no business subsidizing people's sex lives at the taxpayer expense. Let people buy their own goddamn condoms. You mean to tell me if drunkard Pedro decides to bang his wife four times a week, the Philippine public has to pay for it? I also have doubts of its effectiveness since it merely gives free stuff and doesn't use any coercive power on families to control their size but I digress. 

You know, family planning has been done before. During Martial Law, the Population Commission was created to do pretty much the same things we want to do today. So what happened? Has it made any impact? Surely there would be data by now to show if its methods were effective. Did they stop? There was a point where they were operational so what's the data on that? Did they reduce population growth because it seems like they didn't. I can't pull facts and figures out of nowhere and it's not easy to simply get data on this but I think it would be valuable.

That's worth looking into.

Fanboy Tommy

Tomas Osmena is Mayor again and already he's running his mouth on how he's going to promote the kind of "justice" Duterte is known for. Taking the election of El Jefe as a sign that vigilantism is now socially acceptable (possibly), he's trying to pick up where he left off. Recently, he promised fifty thousand pesos to policemen for each criminal killed. 

Mind you, this post isn't so much about the killings as it is the distasteful and unbecoming attitude of our newly elected Mayor. If you ask me, I think he's a poser and probably compensating for something. He's like an entitled brat playing tough guy. He may do what he thinks he must, but he'll never have the charm and charisma Duterte has and that's really not saying much. He's just a fanboy who wishes he was like his idol. What a joke.

Today, a suspected robber was killed by a policeman and already Tomas is boasting how he's going to pay the officer a reward. When asked by reporters about where this blood money comes from, the Mayor simply responded that it was "none of their business". Wow! Ka isog! Well, if the money comes from the public coffers, it kinda is our business, Tommy. Perhaps by saying it's none of our business, he's implying he's paying it out of his own wallet? In that case, I respect him for being willing to personally bankroll vigilantism; putting his own money where his mouth is.

Already Tommy is publicly bragging that it's one for Tommy and zero for Duterte in the imaginary scorecard for kills. How cringe-worthy. He's like that kid in class who thinks he's the hot shit but you just end up feeling embarrassed for.

Perhaps I'll write about my thoughts on vigilantism tomorrow.

Leadfoot

You know what irritates me to no end?

Leadfoot taxi drivers. I run into them at least 80% of the time.

What are they, you might ask? There are many taxi drivers out there who drive their cars without any sort of finesse whatsoever. What they do is slam into the pedals instead of slowly pressing or slowly releasing them. Leadfoot drivers stomp on the gas then stomp on the brakes then stomp on the gas again.

Stop-go-stop-go-stop. The worst part is when they have to slowly come to a halt. Instead of slowly stepping on the brake, they just step on it multiple times. Stop-stop-stop-stop. I thought my head would separate from my spine.

I need a massage or something.

El Jefe

Looks like it's in the body bag for Duterte. It wasn't even close. He enjoyed a comfortable lead of about five million. Poe and Mar have conceded. Yup, we're heading there. I'm thinking that since I call Pnoy "El Presidente", I should have a monicker for our new overlord chief executive. How does "El Jefe" sound?

Heading where? Who knows exactly but I'm glad that the answer to my question will be revealed. See, I've always wondered if Duterte is some kind of cunning ultra-pragmatist who's only putting on the tough guy act for the rubes and that his strongman style leadership in Davao was more out of necessity than desire. Maybe he wasn't really serious about the whole "kill'em all" promos and the statement about abolishing Congress (I wish) and that he would become more like a statesman as he comes into power. We shall see, won't we? Already there's talk of a liquor ban and curfew. Ha! How fast can you say, "buyer's remorse"?

Vice-President is neck and neck between the Marcos and Robredo. Maybe Marcos going on about how martial law was so cool and other statements of blatant revisionism hurt him? Perhaps putting a Marcos next in line was a bridge too far.

If Robredo wins, the yellows will have one of their own next in line. It would only be a matter of removing Duterte for them to grab power again. They deny this but come on. They'll probably try.

Will they try to impeach Duterte immediately? Even a dummy like Pnoy might realize that's poor form. The man won by a relatively big margin. The people have spoken and trying to impeach him is like giving a gigantic middle finger to the populace. Sounds like a perfect job for Trillanes.

What if Duterte is killed? That would be ironic but I think that's ridiculous.  

The next six years are really gonna be something.

Desperate Times

Yesterday, in an act which can only be described as desperate, Mar Roxas made an appeal for him and Poe to "unite" to save the country from a Duterte presidency. Unite? Does Mar not know that only one of them can win this thing?

No other message could be implied from his act other than one telling Poe to step aside to let him win. To Mar, perhaps the act of rolling over for some other guy seems like normal behavior seeing as how he did that himself, but I hope Mar realizes now that not everyone is an extreme doormat like him. Besides, what guarantee is there that Poe's votes would redound to his benefit and not just end up as more for Duterte or even Binay? 

They're frazzled. They're not thinking straight. No wait, they're not thinking at all. The now very real possibility of them losing their grip on power is just hitting them. Pnoy and Mar are cranking up the fear-mongering past eleven. To hear them tell it, if Duterte wins, the Philippines would instantly sink to the bottom of the Pacific.

If the people want to elect a possible murderer, let them. That's how democracies work. Sometimes you just got to let these things happen. Duterte might turn out to be a great president... or an unmitigated disaster but hey, that's the way it works. That's the way this system, which Pnoy's mother had a hand in designing by the way, works. So suck it up, El Presidente and stop acting like a nervous wreck. You're embarrassing yourself more than you usually do. I thought the people were your "bosses" or does that no longer mean anything?

Come to your senses.