Duterte’s second chance
As the water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it, so a wise man adapts himself to circumstances,” advised Confucius, the poet of ancient Chinese bureaucracy. Far from a rigid disciplinarian, he emphasized the indispensability of unremitting dynamism in governance.
Confucius was acutely aware of the fluidity of life fortunes and the fallibility of human thought. As much as he emphasized obedience to authority, Confucius also underscored the importance of personal thoughtfulness and self-awareness.
Self-discipline and reflexivity, above all, apply to the ruling class and no less than the emperor himself, who could lose the “mandate of heaven” if he fails to reflect and preserve cosmic harmony in his realm.
In short, Confucius warned against the dangers of what David Foster Wallace, two-and-half millennia after, termed as “blind certainty.” The Chinese sage knew that no single person, no matter how gifted and experienced, could fully anticipate the vagaries of life and the vicissitudes of governance.
We all make mistakes, sometimes over and over again, yet adaptation and evolution are our best weapons against living a wretched life. And when leaders make mistakes, the effect is compounded by several orders of magnitude, given their power over the destiny of countless souls.
Halfway into his presidency, Rodrigo Duterte has had enough time to reflect on his fallibility and policy mishaps. This isn’t to say that he hasn’t overseen commendable achievements, ranging from the passage of the Bangsamoro Organic Law, a major step in the direction of just peace in Mindanao, to the continued modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
The Duterte administration should also be credited for restoring frayed communication channels with our most important neighbor, China, while nudging the Americans toward returning the Balangiga bells to their rightful owners.
Recent years have also seen the highest levels of infrastructure spending and tax collection, thanks largely to the great efforts of competent bureaucrats at the Department of Finance, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and the Department of Budget and Management.
Yet, it’s hard to argue that Mr. Duterte’s signature policy, the so-called “war on drugs,” has been a “success” by any sound, credible set of indicators. Sure, surveys suggest that the majority of residents in Manila and elsewhere “feel” more secure. Well, good for them—but at what cost?
According to the Philippine National Police, there were more than 23,000 deaths under investigation in the first two years of the Duterte administration. You can fill up a whole coliseum with that number of victims. How can a country be safer, or be seen as such, with such a mind-boggling surge in homicide rates?
Even more bizarrely, the same surveys, conducted by the Social Weather Stations, consistently show that the majority of Filipinos want drug suspects kept alive, and that they themselves are fearful of being victims of extrajudicial killings.
So, how does all of this add up? The seeming dissonance in public opinion only shows that the vast majority of Filipinos may agree with Mr. Duterte in principle, but not necessarily with his methods.
Up until today, we are yet to have verifiable data that show a significant and sustainable drop in the number of drug dealers in the country. If one were to follow Mr. Duterte’s numbers, which have no verifiable sources, the number of drug addicts seems to have even increased!
Not to mention, the dearth of “big fish” among the mostly nameless, poor and marginalized victims of EJKs, or those in police incarceration. And what about the large-scale import of illegal drugs from abroad?
As former Colombian president César Gaviria warned almost two years ago, “Throwing more soldiers and police at the drug users is not just a waste of money but also can actually make the problem worse.” Gaviria neutralized the global drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, but at the expense of his country’s destruction.
As the American philosopher John Dewey once metaphorically remarked, you don’t need to burn down a whole henhouse to get fried chickens. Mr. President, there is still time to employ better means to solve our social ills.
