UNDER normal circumstances, election fever sets in around this time of the year as a prelude to the campaign circus coming to town. But these are extraordinary times. Covid-19 cases are surging, people are dying and the economy is collapsing. Coming out from a year’s lockdown, perhaps the world’s longest, the National Capital Region (NCR or Metro Manila) reverted to a stricter one. Since early March, Covid-19 cases now average 10,000 to 15,000 daily from February’s 1,800 to 2,000. While waiting for the vaccine rollout, a pall of helplessness, fear and death hover.

On the other hand, there is no vaccine against the election virus ravaging the body politic, diverting us from what is important. For the opposition, this could be the perfect time to grab the political narrative focusing on the pandemic, providing the government some modicum of solution — if only it can get its act together.

Not this time around. The opposition has been so damaged and demonized that they are bereft of personalities within their ranks with the credibility to lead. The once formidable Liberal Party, now a caricature of itself, never was able to fashion any coherent alternative to the current regime except to take ineffective potshots.

Yet, oblivious to the contagion, only names of potential successors mostly from the majority alliance appear, all waiting for signals from the patron who people suspect may himself be in a political stupor of late. Watching Duterte’s IATF press briefing, he seemed to be unhinged, rambling and incoherent, jumping from one topic to the next, unable to complete a train of thought or a sentence (“PRRD addresses the nation,” March 24). I thought the President, who understandably is under tremendous stress, might, like the coronavirus, have mutated from a dominant alpha male to a lame duck.

Perceived leading actors
Two sets of names float around the outer perimeter of Duterte’s circle. Akin to centrifugal forces, Lacson and Gordon, relatively more independent-minded are playing too careful a game, unable to cut their apron strings from the President by thrashing him where he is so vulnerable – his handling of the pandemic. The other names could be those of Grace Poe and Bongbong Marcos, still popular but moribund after their respective 2016 presidential and vice-presidential runs. The centripetal forces drawn to the center are those closest to the President who could be the tools to extend his regime. The DDS or diehard Duterte supporters and their cohorts have woven the storyline that Covid’s interference somehow disrupted the country’s trajectory towards fulfilling the Deegong’s legacy. Thus, the need for time extension.

The blueprint for any regime to extend itself is to do either one of the three formulas. The first is obvious — run for reelection. This just happened recently in the United States election of 2020. President Trump lost his bid to do his “unfinished business,” but his rejection of his defeat with delusional arguments that his election was stolen from under him, despite evidence to the contrary, has marked the man as raving mad. In the Philippine scenario, the Deegong is neither delusional nor irrational. Presidential term limits prevent his reelection, and this alternative path is closed. He knows this.

RevGov
The second track is one preferred by totalitarian regimes and the primary path of choice of the Duterte fanatics and those out to protect their sinecures and prerogatives. Declare a revolutionary government, which in effect is a coup against itself. But this involves the acquiescence of the military component, which is doubtful despite the two dozen or so former senior military personnel seconded by Duterte to this government. More importantly, the Filipino, at times seemingly accommodating, may not see this as an alternative worth espousing. Also, Duterte has lost the taste for such adventurism.

Election of surrogates
A third avenue is for the regime to skirt the constitutional term limits and go for election with some twist. Field the surrogates to the highest posts. In this case, Duterte allows his daughter Sara to run for the presidency with him as the vice president. This foolish idea seems to be the preferred solution of the presidential sycophants. This scenario rests on a presumption that the Filipino electorate is gullible and as ridiculous as those who advanced this idea. Despite the popularity of PRRD, the idea of a daughter or his gofer with him in the same ballot is idiotic. Even many of the people from Davao, loyal to the Duterte père et la fille will find this combination nauseous. Davao people are not that stupid. But this is gaining traction among the carpetbaggers of the PRRD’s nominal party — the PDP Laban.

Which suggests that this scenario is simply a red herring, a diversion concocted by the genius strategist himself preventing a lame-duck status. In the end Sara must be his choice as successor, feeding the fiction of supposedly preserving a legacy, a family’s unfinished business, but more importantly as protection against political retribution or even against possible repercussions of human right violations earning PRRD an indictment in the international courts.

Possible permutations
The President will not depart from traditional political practices. What better security than imposing a political dynasty with the unquestioned loyalty of the successors with a gofer for a spare tire. Sara may have to be paired perhaps with the moneyed progeny of the Villars or Marcoses as VP — not Bongbong but the smarter Imee, in keeping with the traditional Luzon or Visayas combination with Mindanao. And this woman-woman combination will be a first and a formidable one.

That leaves the PDP Laban president and popular billionaire boxing hero an odd man out as the potential spoiler. The tragedy of politics in this country is that these entertainers run on their popularity counting on name recall for votes, not so much on what they stand for and a clear articulation of their vision. Pacquiao intuitively understood this coyly releasing a tastelessly done “poor- man- from-the-masa-who-did-good-and-can-go-further” video.

The rest of the gang will just have to mill around reacting simply to the vicissitudes of the regime. Lacson, Gordon, Poe, Marcos and even the reluctant and qualified businessman, Ramon Ang.

Minimums the Deegong can do
I wrote two columns on “Duterte’s time running out — monumental failures” and “A case for repairing his legacy”(The Manila Times, Feb 10 and 17, 2021). It is too late for people to still hold him accountable for his promises prior to his ascendancy when he pompously declared “Change is coming — ‘Ang Pagbabago’ — war on illegal drugs, elimination of corruption in government, and federalism and Charter change.” On this, he has already shown himself a monumental failure. While not detracting from his triumphs and some peripheral successes, he can still do two things — seriously repair a tattered legacy and be judged kindly by history.

“He needs to decouple from the ugly maelstrom of politics now engulfing his presidency; for one, the singular ego-driven thought that he alone can finish what he started.” If he is compelled to name a successor, he needs to choose beyond his kin and coterie.

But more importantly and immediately, he must solve this biggest anomaly — the pandemic!

Last of 2 parts

SINCE the dawn of time, one object that has dominated man is that orb in the sky. The sun’s movements were ever changing yet immutable — a conundrum that man learned to live with yet left him astounded. By being observed over the eons, the sun revealed the secrets behind the daily occurrences and phenomena that governed and gave meaning to man’s life. The sun liberates man from the dangers of the dark, giving him warmth and comfort when it appears at dawn, slaying the dark. It sustained life. Without it, plants will not grow and there would be no harvests.

At night, man started to parse the stars, tracking its movements corresponding to the vagaries of the seasons. And when the sun appears unfailingly, heralding the day, over the year, its path began to follow a recurrent cadence — the song of the universe, the rhythm of life pervading all earthly wonders and those unearthly ones too. Man personified the sun to venerate it properly. Thus, the sun became a god. The giver of life.

Since 10,000 BC the sun held the primary place among the pantheon of gods, depicted in carvings and writings, engraved in stone. It appears in the pyramids of Egypt, the stelas of Mesopotamia and the carvings in the temples and pyramids of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica (Aztec, Inca and Maya).

The zodiac
And this god became the center of the oldest conceptual icons — the zodiac. The first people after the Egyptians to observe and track the sun’s interminable travel across the heavens from season to season; the intermittent eclipses of the moon and the ominous intrusions of comets; codifying the same were the Babylonians in 2000 BC. They mapped out the fixed stars, noted the relations with the seasons, the solstices and equinoxes and grouped them into the 12 constellations, following the 12 months of their calendar (which depicts too the 12 disciples of Horus, Mithras and Jesus). The ancients interpreted its movement through the heavens as influencing man’s affairs — determined by one of the 12 zodiac signs under which he was born. To establish intimacy, these symbols were anthropomorphized with elaborate myths woven around their movements establishing the relationship between them and man’s fortunes.

The god-sun has many names in many cultures. In Egypt he is Amun-Ra. But the more popular one worshiped over time in their mythology was Horus. He had an enemy, Seth, god of darkness; so, every morning, Horus fights Seth conquering him, and, in the evening, Seth vanquishes Horus sending him into the underworld. This is the metaphorical battle between night and day — light against dark — good versus evil.

The star rising from the East
The brightest star in the night sky is Sirius, the star in the East. Seen from the northern hemisphere, after midnight it rises from the southeast seemingly lingering in the south until dawn. In the constellation of Orion’s belt are three bright stars. At the winter solstice, marking long days and short nights, the three bright stars, called the “three kings” are perfectly aligned with Sirius. Thus, the three kings look towards the star of the East. All four stars point toward the sunrise on December 25.

Paradoxically, another phenomenon occurs from the summer to the winter solstice when the days become shorter and colder. The sun travels south and by December 22, it reaches its lowest position in the sky. For three days — December 22, 23 and 24 — the sun seemingly stops moving. During those three days, the sun resides in the vicinity of the Crux constellation. It is composed of four bright stars in the southern sky forming a cross. The ancients looked at this as the sun’s demise. But on the third day, December 25, the sun rises a degree north, foreshadowing longer days of warmth and spring continuing its travel towards the summer solstice — the sun’s rejuvenation, the anastasis.

Mythological structure
Over time, the interpretations by the ancients over these predictable behavior of heavenly bodies were incorporated into a corpus of primitive knowledge and concepts of divination explaining how things work as the machinations of “some others” greater than themselves. Thus is explained the common attributes of the gods — differentiated only by nuances among different cultures. The sun god or progeny of the sun — Horus, Mithra, Krishna, Jesus — must be born of a virgin woman as these beings are gods and should not pass through the process of impregnation through natural carnal sexual acts.

All were born on December 25 depicting the sun’s rebirth. The three bright stars aligning with the star in the East — signifies the three magi paying adoration to the “rebirth” of the god-sun or the son of god. It is easy to infer the crucifixion of these gods through the star Sirius seen around the constellation of the same name. The death of these god-suns for three days, and their resurrection, are thus the ancients’ translation of the sun emerging from the winter solstice.

The biblical Jesus
The narrative of Jesus Christ and his divinity was formalized in 325 AD in the First Council of Nicaea. After years of tumultuous religious disagreements over the centuries, particularly within the church of Alexandria, between St. Alexander with Athanasius against Arius and Arianism, the consensus of the bishops and archbishops upheld Jesus as the begotten son of the Father by his own being and therefore co-equal with God the Father for eternity.

The Nicene Creed
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God; begotten not made, one in being with the Father.”

This was acceptable as the Christian statement of faith by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and many major Protestant churches. Another version was later simplified into the Apostle’s Creed (used with the holy rosary) in the Roman Catholic Church.

“I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.”

With the promulgation of the Nicene Creed, the astro-theological literary hybrid depiction of the attributes of the gods were in effect eradicated by the collective agreement of the leaders of Christendom — thus by fiat, headed by Emperor Constantine, the Christian Roman Emperor in 325 AD, who was once a Roman pagan.

Horus, Mithra, Krishna who existed 3000 to 500 years before Christ, were relegated to the dustbin of religious history and remained just part of a constructive mythology.

IN the Christian tradition, commemorating the Passion of Jesus Christ from Palm Sunday to Black Saturday is the holiest week of the year. In between, Christ presided over The Last Supper with His 12 disciples, repairing to the Garden of Gethsemane, where He was betrayed by Judas and arrested by officials from the chief priests and tried before the Sanhedrin. He was brought before Pontius Pilate, who convicted Jesus for treason. Consequently, He was forced to walk the “via dolorosa,” carrying his wooden cross toward Golgotha. There He was “crucified, died and was buried. On the third day, He rose from the dead.”

The resurrection of Christ is the linchpin of Christianity, its core belief — without it, Christian faith is meaningless, and Roman Catholicism, a farce. Thus, it is imperative that every facet of his life be examined and held to be unique as befits the Son of God.

Parallel narratives
He was born on December 25 of a virgin mother. At the time of birth, a star rose in the East, where three kings followed in adoration. Not much was known about this child’s younger years, but at age 12, he was considered a teacher. He was baptized and later did his ministry at the age of 30 assisted by 12 disciples. He performed miracles, healing the sick and walking on water and was known as the “Lamb of God, The Light, The Good Shepherd,” etc. He was crucified, was dead for three days and resurrected.

This was Horus, an Egyptian god venerated in 3000 BC. Isis, the virgin gave birth to Horus when the god Osiris impregnated her. These images in hieroglyphs also portray the annunciation and adoration of the Magi etched in stone in a temple in Luxor, an ancient city in Upper Egypt 15 centuries before Christ.

Mithra (1200 BC)
Mithra was born of a virgin on December 25 in Persia. He performed miracles and had 12 disciples. He was dead for three days and was resurrected; referred to as the “Truth, the Light,” etc. Sunday was his day of worship.

Krishna (900 BC)
A major Hindu god in India and the eighth incarnation of the god Vishnu was born of a virgin, Devaki. At his birth, a star rose in the East. He performed miracles, he died, shot by an arrow and was resurrected.

Yeshua Hamashiach (Anno Domini)
A Hebrew, he was born on December 25 of a virgin, Mary, wife of Joseph in Bethlehem. At the time of his birth, a star rose in the east where three kings came to adore him. Not much was known about this child’s younger years, but at age 12, he was found at a temple sitting, listening and debating among the teachers. He was baptized and later did his ministry at the age of 30 assisted by 12 disciples. He performed miracles, healing the sick, walking on water and raising the dead Lazarus. He was known as King of Kings, Son of God, Alpha and Omega, etc. He is better known as Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

Common source of narratives
These similarities in narratives and godly attributes permeated many of the world’s culture and religion spanning 3,000 years and perhaps further back to primordial times when early man began to understand his surroundings, the dangers of darkness and the uplifting warmth and security of light. These cannot be dismissed as mere coincidences. From the time writing was invented, these depictions have been preserved, some in cuneiform and hieroglyphs; no doubt passed on from oral traditions. This suggests that there was a common source embellished over the millennia in the retelling, appearing eventually as myths, strong primordial forces to explain natural phenomenon.

Books of the Bible
Our knowledge of Jesus Christ is exclusively from the gospels. Biblical scholars have proven that the writing of the New Testament was an initiative of St. Paul (Saul of Tarsus), the head of the Pauline Church faction decades after the crucifixion, through the four canonical gospels of Mark (66-70 AD), Matthew/Luke (circa 85-90 AD) and John (90-110 AD). These writers never met Christ himself. These names were simply added in the 2nd century. What we have today in the Christian Catholic and Protestant traditions reflect Paul’s perspective after the internecine religious conflict and custodianship of the biography of Christ over the Jerusalem Church faction headed by James, the brother of Jesus (TMT, “Holy Week reflections, Part 1 and 2,” April 17 and 24, 2019).

The Bible is a compendium of selected writings by various people over a period of more than 1,000 years between 1200 BC and 1 AD. The Church included them in the canon (God-inspired, thus, theologically legitimate). But the editing continued until perhaps the late 300 AD. The debates over which books were theologically legitimate continued up to the 16th century.

The current Bible
The Roman Catholic Vulgate contains 39 books of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) while the New Testament contains 27 books. Thus, we have 66 canonical books, but hundreds more were discarded (outside of the canon) by various Church authorities and councils. But biblical scholars, experts and academics, not necessarily of the faith, regard the books of the Bible as simply the work of fables and legends by fallible men. Intriguingly, they could be works of plagiarists over the millennia copying the written work of authors writing about gods and deities of the ancients. How then to reconcile the attributes of Jesus Christ that were also the exact portrayal of deities and gods from Horus to Dionysus that preceded the Christ by 3,000 to 500 years ago.

If Jesus Christ were the point of reference, five features pervade analogous storylines: the virgin birth, December 25 birth date, a star rising in the East, dead for three days and resurrection. The simplest explanation is that these are more than 3000-year-old myths passed down through the millennia. And that these written records, including the current Bible, are simply astro-theological literary hybrid (Wikipedia); meaning these attributes are the barest and simplest explanation by the ancients of natural phenomena, day versus night, the changing of the seasons and more importantly the role of the sun in the heavens, conceptualized by the ancients into mythological structures. And these are collectively embodied in Jesus Christ as the basis of a religion followed by 2.3 billion people on earth today.

To quote Thomas Paine: “The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun and pay him the adoration originally paid to the sun.”

The belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God may be true in the sense that He in fact, like Horus, Mithra, Krishna and the others before him, are depictions of the Sun God!

Next week: Jesus Christ – God-Sun
This series of articles has drawn heavily from “Zeitgeist the Movie” (the main source) and Timeline-World history documentaries. This columnist claims no profound scholarly work except to titillate the reader to do his own research — thus, no Church imprimatur is needed . . . or the devil’s.

Last of 3 parts

THIS is the last of a trilogy on EDSA 1986. Looking back, people on both sides of EDSA have interpreted its meaning over the years through the prism of their own deep-seated beliefs, values and biases. Today, the perception of the winners and losers of EDSA are as convoluted as it was in 1986. No one is neutral on EDSA save perhaps today’s millennials, whose collective ethos has no intimate bond with the realities of those days.

Nonetheless, mindful of Santayana’s dictum — those who participated at EDSA may not be allowed to forget their roles, but remember them lest they be condemned to repeat the same. But we may set on paper our memoirs of those events as lessons to be passed on to the coming generations. They may take or leave them. No matter. And they could be right as time has a way of deleting extraneous details leaving only the substance.

One interpretation of EDSA
These are my best interpretations of the events telescoped within the four-day period, a culmination of the seething anger and frustration of many of the actors that started years back. And I don’t claim this as the definitive narrative of EDSA where its supporters then proudly wore “yellow” as their color against the Marcos ‘red and blue.’

– The mantra that this was not a revolution as there was no structural change that ensued could be right. Nonetheless, the upheaval was euphoric for the Yellow forces of Corazon “Cory” Aquino, Cardinal Jaime Sin, supporters of Fidel Ramos and perhaps even those of Juan Ponce Enrile and the RAM, who tied yellow ribbons on their weapons. What should not be forgotten in this equation are those in the provinces and cities outside of Metro Manila, nongovernment organizations, civil society, students and the youth, and even those abroad who were part of the struggle and whose aspirations were congruent with those physically at EDSA. EDSA transcended the avenue, its essence becoming the driving force for this phenomenon. Thus, this is forever etched in our consciousness as the “spirit of EDSA.”

– The upheaval was an immediate consequence of Cory’s decision to bring the fight to the people on Marcos’ fraudulent declaration that he won the Feb. 7, 1986 snap election.

– The actual EDSA event started as a putsch by an elite military faction — the RAM led by Marcos’ own defense minister, Enrile — simply vying for power, with the Filipino citizenry and the Yellow forces not even part of the calculation.

– The coup plot was leaked to Gen. Fabian Ver forcing RAM to hold out at the Defense department headquarters.

– RAM and Enrile were joined by another bloc — General Ramos’ Philippine National Police (PNP). Ramos was the main rival of Ferdinand Marcos’ top uniformed and ultra-loyalist General Ver.

– The people’s anger at Marcos stealing the election propelled them to trickle to EDSA. Many of those that came first were the usisero, vendors eking out a living — a motley group of ordinary Pinoys. Cardinal Sin began to call the faithful to protect Enrile and Ramos and gather at EDSA. They heeded the call — the bulk of these were seminarians, priests and nuns, the youth joined by the hordes, including the NGO communities and civil society, the elite and organized neighborhood associations, students and their school councils sympathetic to Cory and against Marcos.

– The communists who were boasting that they speak for the masa were nowhere to be found. They sat this out on the sidelines.

– Filipinos from all walks of life made this a full-scale upheaval against a dictatorship.

– Ramos established his ascendancy when Enrile’s faction crossed EDSA Avenue to the PNP HQ and both recognized Cory as the legitimate President. Enrile and the RAM had no choice but accede reluctantly to the Yellow forces of Cory, Cardinal Sin and Ramos.

Cory Aquino, the legitimate president
The Enrile and Ramos factions rode on the seething anger of a citizenry that had long suffered under promises and abuses of what was once a competent leader, Ferdinand Marcos. A classic study on John Dalberg-Acton’s dictum, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

Marcos misreading the factions’ strength with the surrounding hordes of civilians hesitated while the factions at the cusp of being annihilated relied on Ramos’ psywar initiatives and the call of Cardinal Sin and eventually Cory’s.

Cory appeared at EDSA during the latter part of the gathering, as she was stranded in Cebu. The people, particularly the Catholic Church, carried the momentum for her, wresting the initiative from both military factions.

Cory Aquino, Cardinal Sin and General Ramos are the recognized architects of the People Power Movement.

Post-EDSA
Part 3 therefore could be a road map, a point of departure, as it were for the next generation or two to redefine EDSA’s unfulfilled promise. It could take this long to erase whatever lingering animosities are attached to the events of 1986. Taking out the old actors from the equation, filtering out their motivations that produced the hurts, grudges, including the murder of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. at the tarmac and their symbolisms could leave behind a residue of a simple but pure articulation of the Filipino dreams and aspirations acceptable to all; “…that the hopes of the majority of the EDSA participants are — to free the Filipino from the shackles of poverty, injustice and the grasp of the oligarchy and the traditional practices of politics.”

In a parallel sense, time will filter out the Marcos, Aquino, Enrile, Ramos, Sin components, including all of us, the bit players, and leave only what may have been our ultimate motivations. By this formula then, we will have internalized that 1986 was no revolution in the classic definition but an unfinished one — an upheaval of some sort awaiting a finale.

In any case, those days in 1986 were the times when the seeds of change were drastically planted now awaiting a set of new players untainted by the conflicts at EDSA, biased only towards the restructuring of Philippine institutions in the body politic; and therefore, will nurture its growth. And this growth may not be watered with blood — as it was not during the events of EDSA when all forces capable of spilling blood, including Marcos, did not.

And what could be passed on to these next generations are the possibilities, passing on the torch to a leadership that is without its socio-political warts and connotations of failed promises. Whatever lessons and recriminations the past gave them, they must be subsumed to a larger purpose; the emancipation of the Filipino — the true meaning of EDSA.

Postscript — gift to the world
Many Filipinos will not agree with the above narrative. This is fundamentally the Centrist Democratic point of view and held as a credo by the Centrist Democratic Party. Others will have their own stories to tell. And we may debate the nuances of the circumstances before, during and after the EDSA People Power revolution/upheaval. But one thing is ineradicable. The EDSA People Power Movement was a gift of the Filipino to the world.

IN the first part of this series last week, I critiqued President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s three pledges as monumental failures. “Operation Tokhang,” his flagship program on war on illegal drugs, left in its wake thousands of dead Filipinos, meriting him a possible indictment at the International Criminal Court at the Hague. But in fairness to PRRD, “universal values” permeating human rights are slanted towards Western cultural prejudices, distorting Asian standards.

But his pompous declaration of eradicating graft and corruption, his second pledge, turned out to be a politician’s bold-faced play to the voters telling them what they want to hear. There are many facets to corruption, but what is familiar and pervasive to our Philippine experience is the inherently defective systemic political structures that undermine good governance and democracy.

Political patronage
To better understand these concepts, we go back to our historical and cultural roots. Patronage was a feature in our society and existed in pre-Hispanic times when traditional filial ties inevitably morphed into dependence on a benefactor, the “patron,” to an even extreme relationship of subservience between maharlika/timawa and alipin sagigilid. In our political ecosystem, we evolve a complicated practice of political patronage where the people we elect to power dispenses state resources rewarding the populace, principally the voters for their support allowing their continued stay in power.

Neither an upright leader presiding over systemic structural defects will succeed, nor would an immoral leader over a structurally sound one. A moral man paired with a good system under the rule of law are the fundamentals for good governance. Duterte and the system fail on both counts. To be fair but flippant, “…even if you put Jesus Christ on top of the Philippine bureaucracy, he would fail.”

His third pledge — revisions to the 1987 Constitution — signaled his intentions that systemic restructuring and political reforms are a must. On this he miserably failed, too.

The rule of law
I quote excerpts from my column years back clarifying the Deegong’s role under the rule of law: “In a democracy under which we claim we practice, prudent laws are its foundation and the glue that binds a civilized society. It is imperative that the laws laid down by government must be followed by all its citizens. The simplicity of the concept of the rule of law is oftentimes made complicated by those authorized to uphold it. And the President by virtue of his ascendancy granted by the Constitution also has the primary guardianship of that Constitution conferred on him. He must therefore uphold its principles.”

This is key to advancing the President’s legacy — a purposeful grasp of the mechanics of the rule of law. He need not employ histrionics as adjuncts to his image to enforce the law. He is already feared. He just needs to be respected. Braggadocio doesn’t enhance great leadership, humility does.

His successes
Admittedly, Duterte has had many successes. I count among them his elevating Filipino pride severing our umbilical cord from Mother America. Not that we are ungrateful, but his pivot away from America toward an independent foreign policy posture perfunctorily terminates US colonial presence since 1898; although Western cultural influence remains pervasive still.

But this choice too is double-edged. We were handed a potent international legal weapon at the arbitral courts negating China’s nine-dash line. But for reasons only known to Duterte, he set this aside. By default, China could drive us inexorably back to America’s embrace.

Poverty, health and the economy
Duterte reduced poverty incidence in the country from 23.5 percent to 16.7 percent by the end of 2019 — a significant 6.8 percentage point reduction, or 6.1 million Filipinos. Covid-19 canceled these gains.

Economic reforms, particularly the Tax Reform Law (Train), allowed middle- and low-income citizens to keep more of their income for consumption and savings. Tax was shifted to goods on sugar-sweetened drinks, cigarettes, cars and fuel. still burdening the poor while relieving the lower end with cash transfer assistance. The Rice Tariffication Law removed monopolistic rice importation pressuring prices downward, the biggest budget item in food consumption. But while this greatly helped the populace in the urban areas, the effects on rural palay farmers may turn out to be adverse.

The poverty-stricken were alleviated by the enactment of the Universal Health Care Law allowing the poorest Filipinos access to hospitals and medicines. Added to these are free college education and increases in pay for teachers, policemen and soldiers.

Infrastructure
Aware of the need for the country to grow and invest in the future, an aggressive infrastructure was put in place; power, telecommunications, roads, and bridges under the Build, Build, Build program. These were financed from borrowings from institutions with complete trust on the Philippines’ capacity to pay. The country achieved its highest ever credit rating — BBB+ in April 2020, despite Covid-19.

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles recited a litany of accomplishments, including the construction and rehabilitation of thousands of kilometers of roads, bridges, flood mitigation structures and classrooms. The information superhighway connects the internet to people and provinces, providing opportunities for economic growth.

The endgame
These achievements, with many still in the pipeline, indeed enhance Duterte’s legacy. But in the next 15 months, more still has to be demanded of his leadership. He needs to decouple from the ugly maelstrom of politics now engulfing his presidency; for one, the singular ego-driven thought that he alone can finish what he started. This thought process is fed by the enablers and sycophants who have been presenting a scenario for succeeding himself in the next administration. The permutations are infinite: as mentioned, daughter Sara runs, with him as her vice president; then, son Polong will run, or son Baste or eventually another family member.

Off hand, the Deegong’s legacy must not involve the perpetuation of his political dynasty. This was once central to his belief in changing the constitution. John Raña, his close friend, has this to say: “A Duterte-Duterte tandem will be seen as the ultimate political dynasty…while there are precedents in the case of the Macapagals and Aquinos, there were long intervening periods between the terms of parents and offspring….”

As initiated by Congress, constitutional amendments are possible only for inputting liberalized foreign direct investment or FDI provisions to attract quality investments. Congress will not allow constitutional revisions for federalism, parliamentary government, and other critical political reforms. The center has won. The Centrist Democrats (CD) and the periphery have lost. Perhaps another time, beyond our lives.

Gauging performances is a subjective exercise. Maintaining 80-percent approval rating is not a mark of greatness — just a sign of popularity any actor can achieve. But the Deegong is to be judged harsher than a mere mortal — in exchange for our gift of the presidency. To date, his monumental failures on unfulfilled promises far outweigh his achievements which by reason of his ascendancy are expected of him. Boy Scout merit badges are not awarded for triumphs but failures demand condemnation. Such is the burden of leadership.

In the end, with his legacy repaired, this Davaoeño may yet surprise us — not as an ordinary president but perhaps a great one. But that is a long shot!