REPORTS and rumors have been rife lately that President Rodrigo Duterte’s health is deteriorating fast. There is no official medical bulletin, except for interpretations of the curious gleaned from his TV appearances. But the trickles of kuro-kuro is pervasive — perfectly normal against a regime of secrecy. A glimpse of a bandaged arm titillates the chismosos y chimosas to conclude a regimen of kidney dialysis. And his skin goes from pale to dark to yellowish. What is known is what the Deegong disclosed publicly — that he suffers from an autoimmune disease, a condition called “…myasthenia gravis…one of my eyes is smaller. It roams on its own. It’s a nerve malfunction. I got it from my grandfather….” Earlier, he revealed he suffers from“Buerger’s disease, an illness that affects the veins and the arteries of the limbs and is usually due to smoking.” He takes Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller to alleviate pain due to a spinal injury from a motorcycle accident.
Methinks the President is in good health. Except for his family and Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, no one is privy to his condition. So, all these speculations are hogwash. I believe the President, at least for people like us who’ve hit the second half of seven decades. But his and our minds are active more than ever, although many of us in the High School Class of 1960 at the Ateneo de Davao (the Deegong and Carlos “Sonny D” Dominguez 3rd were in class ‘61) are a little physically slow, but mentally and psychologically, we are alert, in high spirits and can hold our own. We still have, maybe, 30 more years before we meet our Maker.
The main difference, as Toti M. and Dinky M. aver, is that our bragging rights to our male potency are no longer believable. And so is the Deegong’s. But being the country’s president, he is given that much leeway, or at least his prowess is not questioned — in public, that is.
But this is not an article on the sexual proficiency of the elderly — a fiction at best, let alone a treatise on how to revive “it,” for those that have crossed the mid-70s. This column is about “what ifs.”
What if the Deegong suddenly gives up the ghost tomorrow by natural causes. Then we have a situation that is open to all permutations, subject to interpretations, depending on where you sit. Perspectives are always different from several angles and depending on one’s motivations, invite scenarios painted and perceived through the prism of ones biases. The following is the most possible of alternative realities.
Historical precedents
We have precedents in our history for such situations. President Manuel Roxas, the last president of the Philippine Commonwealth and the first president of the third Philippine Republic died of heart failure at the Clark Airbase in Pampanga on April 15, 1948. Two days after his demise, Vice President Elpidio Quirino assumed the presidency, taking his oath of office as the sixth president of the Philippines. It will be noted that the transition was peaceful and orderly. In the 1949 presidential elections, Quirino won as president, with Sen. Fernando Lopez (of the ABS-CBN clan) as vice president.
In the 1953 presidential elections, Ramon Magsaysay, Quirino’s erstwhile Defense secretary ran against him. A Liberal-turned-Nacionalista, Magsaysay won the presidency. He died in a plane crash on March 17, 1957 after only three years in office. He was succeeded by Vice President Carlos P. Garcia from Bohol. The transition, too, was likewise peaceful and tidy.
Alternative outcomes — dramatis personae
In our what if case, the default path to transition is the legal and legitimate one. Philippine constitutional provisions dictate a presidential line of succession and enshrined in Article VII (Executive Department), providing for a vice president to assume power. In this case, Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo assumes the presidency. And the beneficiary here is the rule of law in a democratic process.
Any scenario that short-circuits this is illegitimate and unlawful. In this very partisan climate, the hot-headed, especially those occupying sinecures in government, appointed by Duterte, will perhaps move to prevent an orderly transition from happening and agitate for a drastic alternative, unsure as to their fate in the coming regime. They will use as a pretext the tired line of the “illegitimate vice presidency stolen from Marcos.” They have the DDS or the diehard duterte supporters and fist bumpers to augment as warm bodies. In which case, chaos may reign, paralyzing government services, forcing the state to intervene and exercise its monopoly on violence.
Intervention of institutions
The police will have their hands full restoring order — if they are not themselves partisans. These are the first line of law enforcement that will be called upon. The better trained and disciplined Armed Forces of the Philippines may have to use force as back-up to intervene enforcing the letter and spirit of the Constitution — to which it is bound to protect.
Then again, the question arises on the homogeneity of the Armed Forces and the police. It is obvious that the Deegong has been stacking the civilian bureaucracy with former generals and officers of the military. Will they break their oaths to defend the Constitution? Do these former generals have the balls and the warm bodies and work on a parallel chain of command?
Focus would shift on the Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and the uncharismatic and unknown current chief of staff Gen. Felimon Santos Jr. and Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Archie Gamboa — perhaps expecting a reprise with a twist on the 1986 scenarios with Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and PNP chief Fidel Ramos playing the dynamic duo, absent the likes of Cardinal Jaime Sin and Corazon Aquino. The Roman Catholic Church this time will prove inutile and will just stand on the sidelines, the way they always behaved from the time the Deegong cursed them and God.
The bureaucracy will search for the next patron or padrino and the strongest group that can assume power. It will not be the Cabinet. This collegial body has long been inflicted, I fear, with political leadership catatonia. The two houses of Congress whose terms are still legitimate would have to seek guidance from their masters — not the electorate but the oligarchy. This is so far the next best group after the military that can enforce a certain modicum of stability. The oligarchy will not tolerate chaos, as this will negatively affect their bottom lines. But they will need the guidance and the deadly hardware of the silent overarching partner to all of these — they who will need stability in the country and in the region. China is not yet too entrenched in the political dynamics to make a dent. In the end, America will come to the rescue of their brown brothers, but with more airtight quid pro quo this time around. I foresee a military junta guiding Leni and the oligarchy through all of these.
The above is predicated on the Deegong’s exit by natural causes or even by the “Covid veerus.” But “what if” it is by assassination?
Then all bets are off. And God help us!
I HAD the privilege of an audience with the president-elect in Davao City for a courtesy call scheduled at 2:30 a.m. Yes indeed, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD) holds strange hours. I was accompanying a mutual friend, an American philanthropist whom he had invited long before his election. After the customary amenities, the conversation turned to a topic that intermittently crops up like a broken record and soured his attitude toward the United States government. I wrote on Dec. 29, 2016 in my Manila Times column:
“A point at issue then was the ‘Meiring matter’ that irritated the President, generating some sort of the lingering mistrust for the American government, reflected in his lukewarm attitude toward the outgoing US Ambassador Goldberg.
“Apparently, this was a case of an American who came in and out of Davao for years carrying explosives for unknown purposes. The hotel he stayed in burned down after an explosion in his room. He was hospitalised, but was whisked out of the country the next day, purportedly by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in a private jet to Singapore and subsequently to the United States. Richard Ricciardone, the US ambassador at the time, never did come up with a clear-cut explanation nor an apology. To President Duterte, this was merely one of the instances of America’s impertinent attitude toward the Philippines and its laws.
“The Deegong (President Duterte) since then has had a strong aversion for US ambassadors, regarding them as the proverbial ‘ugly Americans.’
Genesis of DU30’S US opprobrium
“Our second engagement with then President-elect Deegong was in June 24 [2016], when a group of around 40 US-based business executives, local industrialists, and former US and current Philippine diplomats flew to Davao from Washington D.C. and Manila in four private planes… We brought them to the ‘Malacañang South’…where the President was our gracious host. They flew back home that evening impressed with the President-elect and started mulling over plans for investments in the agricultural sector and power, especially in Mindanao.
“Then came a series of American, European and United Nations faux-pas on perceived human rights violations and the so called ‘EJK’ (extrajudicial killing), culminating in the US President’s [expression of] public concern and chastisement, and subsequent retaliation by President Deegong and his famous ‘p****g i*a’ reportedly directed at the US lame-duck President [Barack Obama]. Things went downhill from then on.”
In a microcosm, these two incidents depict what ails our relations with America today. PRRD’s unilateral decision to abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement could be his vernacular version of a personal “resbak” (revenge) for these slights. From his standpoint as an uncomplicated linear thinker, this mitigates the damage to the Filipino collective pride over the decades while paradoxically in a “special relations.” In a litany of misdeeds, one strikes at the core of the populist president’s grasp of this bilateral relationship. I wrote:
Little brown brothers
“At this point, a cursory review of the relationship with America needed to be examined and understood from the point of view of the President. In his monologue over the months as president, he has given hints as to his feelings about the ‘big brother.’ Admittedly, our close relationships with America reached its apex when we fought side by side during the Second World War. Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos died on Philippine soil defending America’s concept of freedom and democracy. But, shortly after the war and the succeeding years, the relationship has reached its nadir when the Filipino soldiers, who fought beside his American comrades, were soon subjected to some of the most humiliating experiences by having to prove to America their courageous participation in countless battlefields — before they could receive some sort of ‘veteran’s compensation’; while their American counterparts never had a problem receiving their entitlements. Horror stories abound with old and ailing veterans ‘begging’ for pittance even decades after the war.
“Contrast this with the way America treated its World War 2 enemies. Japan, under the Philippines’ ‘adopted’ [son], Gen. Douglas McArthur had more American treasures thrown at it in their post-war rebuilding. Germany is now the leading European economy and the fourth or fifth in the world, having been rebuilt immediately after the war with the Marshall Plan. The Philippines’ post-war reconstruction was in no way comparable to those whom we fought against — the Axis powers.
“As the closest of America’s allies and men-at arms, what did we get in return for keeping the ‘fires of democracy’ alive and help to keep America’s presence in Asia? …We did not get our own Marshall Plan.”
Nurturing a relationship
At this critical juncture we don’t even have a US ambassador to interpret this maverick of a president to US political institutions. Similarly, in 2016, at the start of PRRD’s administration, the US State Department was so irresponsible as to neglect assigning a US ambassador after Philip Goldberg was replaced. And his replacement, Ambassador Sung Kim didn’t appear in Manila until the end of 2016.
Petty things like the cancellation of the US visa of PRRD’s favorite senator may be the trigger, but this is merely the culmination of a series of aggravations and insults over time. A good US ambassador, knowledgeable of the Filipino psyche, should understand Duterte’s way of conducting diplomacy and could have averted all these complications. The absence of America’s man on the ground, as all other blunders, simply signals — in the dialect — “Binabalewala lang tayo (We are being taken for granted).” In retrospect, it is not even so much the absence of America’s representative, but the quality of one. The US needs to send someone who internalizes the sensitive element that the Philippines was the big brother’s first tentative stab at colonization in Asia, resulting in the shaping of this “special relations.” But the US State Department has been sending US ambassadors without previous Philippine experience and without deep knowledge of our country. Also, the State Department needs to send an ambassador with strong ties to Trump (who professed to like the Deegong immensely) and solid links with members of the Senate and House Foreign Relations committee, Philippine senators and congressmen, and the Washington foreign policy think tank community.
But rumor has it that the US State Department wants to send the Philippines another ambassador totally inexperienced in Philippine affairs; and that our Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. has agreed to this presumably without the knowledge of the Deegong or the rest of the Cabinet, or even our ambassador in Washington.
We should all be mindful of the near-debacle last year, when the term of Ambassador Kim was ending and social media was inundated with a photo of a comely Asian-American, purported to be the next US ambassador to the Philippines. She was presented at the Philippine Independence Day celebration at the Philippine Embassy in Washington with a senior State Department official, Brian Bulatao, escorting her. Turned out the 32-year-old Ms. Mina Chang had false credentials; subsequently, she had to resign from the State Department.
This continuing saga of incompetence by the US State Department does not augur well for the special relationship, which both sides need to continually nurture — not with the Philippines right smack in the front door of America’s last remaining worthy global competitor, China!
Duterte, who professes to be Islamic, when convenient, is the only Philippine president with the temerity to curse the Pope, Barack Obama and God. This blasphemy is unprecedented in a Catholic country, while the hierarchy stood by in disbelief with their tails tucked between their legs. But he has his long-time political ally Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, a Davao billionaire preacher who claims to be the “appointed son of God” — and boasts he can stop earthquakes.
Trump in four years has been known to have liberally told 3,000 lies, while nobody has dared count Duterte’s. Trump, a billionaire, is seen to be corrupt. He can redeem himself if he gets a second four-year term. President Duterte on the other hand is perceived to lead not exactly an ascetic life, but a simple one — and is not corrupt!
Lame duck presidency