About this time last year, most of us were not able to imagine how Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte and his maverick type of leadership could change and improve our lives.
Relatively few who knew him well did. Mostly Davaoeños, inspired by and in love with him, relentlessly egged him to run for president until he consented. Quietly but passionately, they started campaigning for his candidacy in every opportunity that they could get.
Soon, more and more people from all economic and social classes of Philippine society supported him. By Election Day, they had become the most active, most fanatical, and biggest army of political followers.
Not surprisingly, Duterte took the lead from the moment the electronic counting of votes started on the night of May 9.
His followers stayed wide awake late that night until the wee hours of the next morning, jubilantly monitoring how his lead widened as each election return was canvassed live on national television.
Even those who didn’t vote for him joined his followers in celebrating his victory.
Considered already the presumptive president, Duterte continued uttering curses and wolf-whistling, threatening drug lords and criminals, warning corrupt government officials, and challenging established icons of the Roman Catholic Church, business groups, and the international community.
These things didn’t make us like him less, but they annoyed his already declining number of critics.
For us, they only reflected his minor imperfection, which we have already come to know during the campaign period.
What mattered was that his victory ushered real change, and it would soon improve our lives and continue to uplift us in the next six years of his presidency.
President Duterte’s June 30 inaugural speech impressed us with his resolve to make our government head for real change, which he expressed with simplicity, candidness, and forcefulness using the language that paid tribute to his Davaoeño and Visayan roots—
“Tinud-anay nga kabag-uhan. Mao kana ang tumong sa atong pang-gobyerno.”
Only a few days after he assumed office, real change has started to come.
On the day he took his oath of office last June 30, President Digong immediately addressed the needs of the country’s poor and marginalized sectors by signing his first executive order, which placed under ex-priest Cabinet Secretary Jun Evasco’s supervision 12 agencies that were “tasked to evaluate existing poverty reduction programs, formulate projects that seek to reduce poverty, and improve the lives of the most venerable sectors.”
In contrast, PNoy wasted a month after assuming office before signing his first E.O. on July 30, 2010, which created the Philippine Truth Commission to “investigate reports of graft and corruption of such scale and magnitude that shock and offend the moral and ethical sensibilities of the people, committed by public officers and employees, their co-principals, accomplices and accessories from the private sector, if any, during the previous administration; and thereafter recommend the appropriate action or measure to be taken thereon to ensure that the full measure of justice shall be served without fear or favor.”
Did this commission accomplish anything? Its final report was supposed to be published upon PNoy’s directive before Dec. 30, 2012, but who has read it?
On President Digong’s first Monday in office, he made clear that road discipline would be imposed along Edsa.
Senior Superintendent Antonio Gardiola, the Philippine National Police Highway Patrol Group’s new chief, deployed its 250 patrolmen to “bring back the glory days” of the HPG with his reminder that only they “should lord over Edsa.”
President Digong’s economic team knows that enforcement of rules alone is not enough to solve the traffic problem. The engineering solution must be employed, too.
Consistent with this approach, Finance Secretary Sonny Dominguez announced that same day that “unsolicited infrastructure projects would be welcome under the Duterte administration” including the possible use of presidential emergency powers to open up private subdivisions to traffic.
As he rationalized—
“We intend to take the traffic crisis by the horns not only because of the grave economic costs of congestion, but also because of its adverse effects on the health and quality of life.”
We like his economic team’s plan to undertake major infrastructure projects in Metro Manila around the clock or 24/7. As justified by Budget Secretary Ben Diokno, this would “ensure that roads and other major projects are finished on time” while warning us that “things will get worse before they get better.”
We are convinced more than ever that President Digong could eliminate illegal drugs, criminality and corruption in the next three to six months after he named five police generals who are involved in illegal drugs last Tuesday.
Every day since his election, drug users and pushers are surrendering voluntarily while policemen had been busting drug dealers and confiscating kilos after kilos of shabu. Unfortunately, offenders are being killed as they elude, resist and fight arrests.
Only a few days after President Digong assumed office, real change has indeed started to come, with his government prioritizing the restoration of social order preparatory to addressing our long-desired basic public services, economic development, and pension increase.