Unlike other presidential candidates, with Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, you either like him or you don’t. There is not much gray area. It’s black or white, day or night.
He is either the strong leader in the mold of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew who will reform the country the tough way, or the dangerous dictator who could bring the country into even more chaos. To dirty politicians and greedy businessmen, he is a threat to the establishment that they have long profited from. To the poor and the suffering masses, he is the bitter pill that can save them from the social, economic and political malaise that has prevented them from rising from poverty. To the criminals and drug lords, he is a scourge. To the common people, he is their hope. To the religious and the conservatives, he is immoral and sinful. To the oppressed and the helpless, they couldn’t care less.
Duterte has become the symbol of the people’s frustration over the way politicians have been running the country. He has become the voice against the status quo, against “business as usual” in running the affairs of government. His recent surge in ratings despite his late entry to the presidential race is proof that a majority of the people, representing a cross section of economic classes, does not believe that President Aquino’s “tuwid na daan” has succeeded in curbing corruption and poverty, two of his biggest promises during his presidential campaign.
The two latest surveys of the Social Weather Station attest to this. One survey said Filipinos will most likely vote against the candidate endorsed by Aquino. The President got a net score of -6 percent in a survey on the effect of his endorsement. The participants also gave negative scores to other previous presidents in terms of endorsing a candidate: Joseph Estrada (-6 percent), Fidel Ramos (-16 percent) and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (-34). This reflects disappointment on the way the last four presidents ran the government.
Another SWS survey showed the tough-talking Duterte way ahead of his more “decent” rivals in the presidential race in all socio-economic classes and in all geographic areas.
Nationwide, Duterte was the choice of 38 percent of voters against the 21 percent of both Sen. Grace Poe and Vice President Jejomar Binay. Former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, Aquino’s chosen one, received 15 percent and Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago got 4 percent. Only 1 percent of the voters were undecided.
In September, when Duterte was still unsure of running, he placed fourth with 11 percent. The September survey was topped by Poe with 26 percent, followed by Binay with 24 percent, and Roxas, 20 percent. Obviously, Duterte snatched votes from Poe, Binay and Roxas as soon as he filed his COC for president.
Among the upper and middle classes (ABC), Duterte got a commanding lead of 62 percent. In far second was Binay with 16 percent, followed by erstwhile front-runner Poe with 13 percent. Roxas, the Aquino administration’s presidential candidate, got just 6 percent and Santiago, 1 percent.
These figures show that even the so-called polite society is willing to gamble on Duterte despite his personal imperfections. Clearly, the frustration is no longer limited to the poorer sector of society, but to the upper and middle classes as well.
With Duterte’s surge in surveys, it can almost be ascertained that the Liberal Party’s campaign strategists would now train their sights on demolishing Duterte. Having destroyed Binay and close to disqualifying Poe, expect them to first try to disqualify Duterte on technicality. Duterte filed his candidacy for presidency as a substitute of the PDP-Laban to party mate Martin Dino, who withdrew his candidacy earlier. However, Dino’s COC showed that he filed as candidate for mayor of Pasay City and not for president, an oversight that is hard to overcome.
Duterte supporters’ hopes were raised on Monday when Comelec dismissed the petition of its own legal department to declare Diño a nuisance candidate, but the ruling does not mean Duterte is in the clear, since there is still a pending petition against him that the poll body will hear on Dec. 16. The ruling was only made because Dino had withdrawn his candidacy, rendering the petition moot and academic.
If the move to disqualify Duterte fails and Comelec upholds Duterte’s presidential bid, expect the black propagandists to focus on his alleged links to smugglers in Davao city. Rumors of his smuggling links have been floated for sometime and this could be blown up in the coming days. His admission of being a womanizer and that has killed criminals could also be exploited, as well as his tirade against Pope Francis.
Politics has always been dirty in the Philippines, and there’s simply no reason it would be different in the coming presidential campaign.
If the Liberals succeed in disqualifying both Poe and Duterte, the race will become a virtual one-on-one race between Binay and Roxas because of Santiago’s health problems that could prevent her from launching a nationwide campaign. Those who want to end the status quo are pinning their hopes on Duterte and Poe who now both face disqualification.
In such a scenario, the status quo wins and it will be “business as usual” for our poor country, meaning more of the same corruption, cronyism, criminality, political patronage and all the other ills that ail our country.
(valabelgas@aol.com)