Appeal for Robredo, figuring out Duterte

IF Alan Cayetano and Francis Escudero really have the country’s interest at heart, they should ditch what is by now clearly unrealistic personal ambitions and agree to sacrifice for the public good by withdrawing in favor of Leni Robredo in the vice presidential race.

Both their fathers, Renato Cayetano and Salvador Escudero, were stalwarts and beneficiaries of the Marcos dictatorship. Now is the time to demonstrate to the nation, in deed and not in mere words, that they have cut their umbilical cords to the Marcoses.

For good measure, a massive call should be mounted to convince Cayetano and Escudero supporters, the majority of whom are most likely anti-Marcos, to shift their votes to Robredo in order to prevent a historic tragedy from happening.

Given the rankings of the vice presidential candidates at this late stage of the campaign, a vote for either Cayetano or Escudero will be a vote to put Ferdinand Marcos Jr. a heartbeat away from the position his father abused and disgraced while plundering this country and brutalizing its people.

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He cursed the Pope. He joked about not being first in line in the gang rape of an Australian missionary who was later murdered. He dared the United States and Australia to cut ties with the Philippines if he wins the presidency. He promised a Libingan ng mga Bayani burial for the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. He confessed to the extrajudicial killings of suspected criminals. He admitted having two wives and two girlfriends.

All these were done by Rodrigo Duterte and still he emerged as the top choice to become the next president two weeks before Election Day.

In the latest Pulse Asia survey of April 19-24, Duterte is the favored presidential candidate of 33 percent of voters nationwide. Grace Poe garnered 22 percent, Mar Roxas 20 percent, and Jejomar Binay 18 percent.

Even in the Social Weather Stations survey of April 18-20, Duterte got 33 percent, Poe 24 percent, Roxas 19 percent, and Binay 14 percent.

I am equally repulsed by and strongly condemn Duterte’s outrageous declarations, but the challenge is to understand why he is drawing huge and passionate support from all economic classes because there are very important lessons to be learned.

Among the ABC class of voters, Duterte garnered 37 percent, Roxas 23 percent, Binay 16 percent, and Poe 12 percent. Detractors of Duterte who are avid supporters of Poe or Roxas are puzzled as to why he has enamored himself with the rich despite his street-thug ways and gutter language.

I think a hypothetical illustration will explain this: A rich man drives home from work where a juicy slab of steak awaits him for dinner. However, his physical energy has been zapped by the two-hour traffic he endured. And his emotional energy is drained when his wife unburdens herself of her fears that their son is hanging out with drug-dependent friends in the neighborhood, and shares the news that a friend’s house in the nearby subdivision has been robbed. The steak does not taste as delicious as it is because his taste buds are dulled by stress and fear.

As our rich guy dines, he turns to the TV set and listens to Roxas, Poe and Duterte articulating their platforms. To him, the message delivered by both Roxas and Poe is that they will increase the steak on his plate to two slabs per dinner. In contrast, the message that emanates from Duterte is that traffic congestion will be solved, the drug menace will be licked, and rampant crime will be stopped, to enable our rich guy to savor his single-slab steak dinner.

In economics, there is the principle of diminishing returns. The second slab of steak will not taste as delicious as the first one. The Duterte supporters belonging to the rich class are sending the message that solving the traffic mess, the drug menace, and rampant crime will give them more life satisfaction than increasing the wealth they already have.

Duterte is also the first choice of voters belonging to the very poor. Among the Class E voters, he obtained 31 percent, Poe 24 percent, Roxas 22 percent, and Binay 18 percent.

During the last presidential debate on April 24, all the candidates presented similar promises, but the mere manner by which they delivered their messages explains why Duterte is winning the bulk of poor voters. Roxas, Poe and Binay might have been well-meaning in their promises to improve the lives of the poor. But their choice of words, the cadence of their sentences, and their overall manner of delivery were so reminiscent of politicians who made the same promises in the past, but who either disappeared after each election or went on to implement programs that never improved the lives of the poor.

In contrast, Duterte spoke in a manner that was so unlike the chatter of politicians associated with broken promises. His candid manner of speaking and his propensity to mouth foul words to vent anger at society’s ills infuse sincerity and authenticity to his persona. Listening to Duterte, one will not find it hard to imagine that the poor feel like they are listening to their approachable town mayor who immediately gives a remedy to their urgent needs, and who dispatches the police to quickly arrest the town bully minus complicated niceties.

Duterte is also helped by the cultivated image that his Davao City functions efficiently, largely free of crime and corruption, so unlike the reviled Metro Manila cities.

Duterte was untarnished by issues of corruption for the most part of the campaign. But last week, he was accused of unexplained wealth because his bank account allegedly contained P211 million at one time. He has promised to open that bank account today. With the suspense, drama, song and dance, and circus performances, it’s going to be a wild ride all the way to Election Day.

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