Duterte’s statement self-serving, frightening

In the Feb. 20 issue of the Inquirer, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was reported to have said that he might run for president in the 2016 elections, “if only to save the country from being fractured.”

In my humble opinion, that statement of Mayor Duterte is not only self-serving. It is also frightening. There is a saying that a zebra will never be able to change its spots. A zebra is a zebra is a zebra and no amount of skin conditioner will ever remove its spots.

It is on record that Duterte has an unenviable reputation of one who does not care about violating human rights.

I fully agree though that, compared to other cities, there is peace and order in Davao City: laws and regulations on no smoking in public places, bars close at one o’clock in the morning, no overtaking, and speed limits are observed within the city; even the mayor and his daughter get no special treatment from the police, etc.

But any family counselor will tell us that like in any family, when the children behave properly out of absolute dread of their dictatorial father who does not brook disagreement, fear, rather than happiness, reigns in the hearts of such “well-behaved” children.

Why are the people of Davao so obedient to Mayor Duterte? Is it because they truly love and respect him or because deep in their hearts they fear this mayor whose only template in mind is to “shoot first and ask questions later”?

I believe that under the dictatorial watch of Mayor Duterte, he has successfully converted Davao City into a Potemkin village, “a pretentiously showy or imposing façade intended to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition” where like in the Animal Kingdom, “some are more equal than others.”

Truly, I prefer a “messy,” noisy democratic country ruled by a genuinely democratic president to the silence of a cemetery ruled by tyrants.

—CARLOS ISLES, carlos_isles@yahoo.com