Yearning for a strongman

THERE IS nothing extraordinary in the electoral triumph of Rodrigo Duterte if the percentage of the total votes cast he obtained and the winning margin he garnered are both compared against those achieved by Joseph Estrada in 1998 and by Benigno Aquino III in 2010.

In 1998, Estrada won 40 percent of the votes and had a 24-percent winning margin over his nearest rival, Jose de Venecia. In 2010, Aquino won 42 percent of the votes and had a 16-percent winning margin over his nearest rival, Estrada.

In contrast, based on unofficial vote tallies, Duterte won 39 percent of the votes and garnered a 15-percent winning margin over his nearest rival, Mar Roxas.

But what makes Duterte’s electoral triumph remarkable is that he managed to achieve a huge win even after he repeatedly sabotaged his own chances by issuing foul statements that could have doomed any other candidate. We can only imagine how much bigger his winning margin could have been if he were not as reckless in making those outrageous remarks. Nevertheless, 16 million voters disregarded his foul words and instead judged him based on what he has done, or is perceived to have done, in Davao City.

There’s a multitude of reasons to explain Duterte’s victory. But what bothers people is the substantial number of voters who went for him because of a yearning for a strongman who will have no qualms taking shortcuts in order to achieve results that benefit the greater number of people, even at the expense of trampling on the rights of a few. The summary killing of criminals in Davao City to ensure peace for the majority proved attractive to many voters in towns and cities troubled by the drug menace and all the crimes it generates. And how else can we explain the equally strong showing of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. except for the reason that people are clamoring for a strongman?

Voters who prefer a strongman for our next president cite the need for an iron fist in order to instill discipline among the people. Discipline is claimed as an indispensable precondition for a country’s economic progress. Singapore is presented as a model country in which an authoritarian government imposes discipline among its people, and which supposedly enabled it to achieve economic progress.

But it would be a terrible mistake to conclude that an iron-fist rule is the magic ingredient that brings about economic progress. The city-state of Singapore may have attained economic prosperity under an authoritarian government, but virtually all the other Southeast Asian countries suffered economic misery under iron-fist rulers. The Philippines, Indonesia, Laos, Burma (Myanmar), and Cambodia are countries that suffered economic misery under authoritarian governments. And now Malaysia and Thailand are experiencing economic decline by reason of authoritarian rulers.

From February to April, I went around Southeast Asia for consultations with nongovernment organizations on human rights issues in the region. The overwhelming sense I gathered from all countries that experienced or are still experiencing iron-fist governments is that strongman rule is not only a curse on human rights but also a scourge that brings about economic misery.

It is wrong to assume that it is the people that need discipline. It has always been the government that needs to be disciplined. A culture of corruption characterizes governments in nearly all Third World countries. To give Third World governments iron-fist powers will only give people in the government more powers to commit more corruption.

Even if we set aside the issue of whether presumptive President Duterte is clean or not—an issue that was not resolved during the campaign—he will preside over a huge government machinery in which key departments have a deeply ingrained culture of corruption, inefficiency and unresponsiveness to people’s needs. Duterte will implement his directives through a government workforce steeped in this culture. And he will wield iron-fist powers that will be implemented by a government workforce that treats power as an instrument of corruption.

If there is any need for Duterte to flex his style of governance symbolized by a clenched fist, it should be used to instill discipline in the government workforce in order to change the prevailing culture. That is the kind of governance that will bring about real change in the country, and make Duterte truly deliver on his “change is coming” election promise. It is not the lack of discipline among the people that stalls the country’s progress; it is the undisciplined corruption in the government that has always stunted economic progress and allowed criminality to become widespread in our society.

People know the drug dealers, jueteng operators, and criminal syndicates in their communities, but these criminals continue to operate because many policemen, mayors and governors behave as if they know nothing about what everyone else knows. Many government bureaucrats create difficulty in obtaining permits, licenses and government contracts as a means to squeeze grease money from the people. The presumptive President should slam his fist on the tables of these rogues in the government.

Duterte needs to discipline the government, and not the people. He must not curtail people’s freedoms and instill fear among the citizenry, because if he plans to confront the formidable criminals in the government and the very powerful syndicates in the business sector, he will need a noisy and quarrelsome citizenry behind him.

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