That was a different Rodrigo Roa Duterte we saw on Monday.
For the first since he assumed power on June 30, 2016, President Duterte exuded presidential personae. The President delivered his third State of the Nation Address without resorting to rant-and- rave ad libs. Sticking to a speech that was strikingly simple but effective, President Duterte departed from the usual recitation of accomplishments. Instead he laid out legislative priorities and acknowledged shortcomings. He then asked the people to support him in facing challenges to his administration.
“I promised to give Filipinos a better life even if it means fighting interests,” said the President in his 47-minute speech before a joint session of Congress. Presumably, the “interests” he referred to was big business obstructing his reform programs to benefit the people.
A sidelight to the President’s Sona was the behind-the-scene unseating of House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez by more than 180 of the 290 members of the Lower House who declared the speakership position vacant in favor of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
The dramatic comeback of the Pampanga representative after four years under detention for alleged misuse of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office funds proved it’s hard to keep down someone with a strong political sense. No Speaker of the House has ever made it to the presidency, but there were those who tried: Eugenio Perez, Cornelio Villareal and Jose de Venecia.
Arroyo did it the other way around. She first became President and now Speaker of the House. Arroyo, an economist, is the first woman to occupy the House leadership.
What else is in store for the former president? Perhaps as Prime Minister in a federal/parliamentary form of government setup? Why not when there are women PMs in other parts of the world like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Teresa May, to name a few.
The Philippines is a country endowed with plenty of women leaders. We can expect such women like retiring Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and even Vice President Leni Robredo if she loses her poll protest against former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to run for senator in next year’s mid-term elections. If these three women win, it would be a refreshing change for the replacement of Senators Cynthia Villar, Nancy Binay and Loren Legarda.
Morales in an interview yesterday, said she is “not cut out for the political arena.” But her present sentiment could be changed if there is a signature campaign supporting her senatorial run. She is after all more than qualified having been a former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court prior to her appointment as chairperson of the Office of the Ombudsman.
The coup against Alvarez was long in the works. It reached its tipping point when he kept advocating a no-elections scenario next year. Most of the congressmen felt threatened they would be out of the loop in a federal form of government proposed in the draft Constitution. Some say Alvarez’s downfall really started when he feuded with presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte. There is a lesson to be learned here for the bellicose Alvarez. To win the war, a man has to choose his battle. Your concern is human rights, mine is human lives,” President Duterte said alluding to the thousands Filipino families destroyed by the use of illegal drugs. He was also conveying this concern to the thousands of demonstrators massed outside the Batasang Pambansa protesting the alleged extrajudicial killings of illegal drug trafficking suspects. The President warned that his war on drugs will continue to be relentless.
On Commonwealth Avenue where the militant demonstrators were gathered, placards painted a different picture of the state of the nation. Nothing much has changed: The prices of basic commodities are rising blaming, the Duterte TRAIN Law is increasing VAT and excise tax on fuel prices. The President’s weak response to China’s aggression in the West Philippine Sea was also denounced in placards carried by the protesters.