Duterte plays hard ball in numbers game

CANBERRA—Six months ahead of the May elections next year, the Philippines entered a period of volatility in opinion poll surveys on the popularity rankings of presidential candidates. From over a hundred, the list of those who filed a certificate of candidacy for president has narrowed to five “serious” contenders: former interior secretary Mar Roxas of the ruling Liberal Party; Vice President Jejomar Binay of the opposition; Sen. Grace Poe of the so-called Third Force; Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, independent; and Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of Davao City, the official candidate of the PDP-Laban.

The Filipino electorate look forward to the May 2016 balloting not as a mechanism for political and economic renewal through reforms. The fact is many Filipinos are skeptical that such a social transformation would be ushered in by a dysfunctional, chaotic multiparty electoral system derided to be long on personalistic contenders for national offices, but short on policies and programs on running a modern democracy. Based on the rhetoric of the election campaign that is heating up, there is no evidence that platforms and program-based issues would drive up the quality of discourse beyond the level of muckraking and name-calling.

Over the past few weeks, there has been a marked change in the placement of rankings in the surveys, the highlight of which is Duterte’s taking the highest score among the presidential aspirants in a recent voters preference survey within Metro Manila. In that survey conducted by Pulse Asia, Duterte, Davao City’s mayor for three decades, scored 34 percent, topping Poe’s 26 percent, Binay’s 22, Roxas’ 11 percent, and Santiago’s 7. The results stunned veteran politicians from the traditional political heartlands of Manila, Luzon and the Visayas—the nation’s so-called “kingmakers.”

Duterte is a newcomer to national politics, and the first ever from the hinterlands of Mindanao to rise up to challenge the political dominance of the elite of Luzon and the Visayan islands.

The political rhetoric of Duterte, who is publicly known for his authoritarian approach to fighting crimes in Davao City—where he reportedly ruled by decree to stamp out crimes and punish criminal suspects with an iron hand, even without due process of law—has sent alarms bells ringing among leaders of the Catholic Church and the Left. They have denounced Duterte’s iron-fisted rule and unorthodox methods in purging Davao City of criminal elements.

The former president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz, for one, warned that “taking justice into one’s hands makes one think like God, and act like a dictator.” Cruz was scandalized by Duterte’s behavior and admission that he was a womanizer, saying that Church teachings are against adultery “which is not subject to personal options.” But Duterte is not bothered by these homilies from the religious.

Akbayan party-list member Walden Bello likened a Duterte win in 2016 to “a second coming of the Marcos regime. With his disregard for “basic human rights…. I think Duterte is really dangerous, and his views on human rights are appalling.” Bello thinks that Duterte’s popularity comes from the perception that law and order is breaking down. This perception drives Filipinos to crave for strong-man rule as a tradeoff to curb rising criminality.

At the Inquirer Multimedia Forum last week, it was pointed out that Duterte was not an agent of continuity for the Aquino administration’s “daang matuwid” (straight path) mode of governance. According to a Palace spokesperson, in reaction to the Pulse Asia survey, Duterte’s poll ratings in voters preference serve to heighten people’s interest in the political process and, it may be added, the voters’ interest on the flaws of the system which Duterte is flaunting with scorn.

But the government must bear in mind that Duterte is an unconventional, politician not bound by the rules of traditional politics. He has his own rules. The problem his rivals is now facing is to stop his winning streak in the surveys. Duterte plays to the fickle gallery.

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