Duterte must aim for legacy, not sound bites

“FROM 3 to 300, PDP-Laban forms ‘supermajority’” in the incoming 17th Congress, read a news headline in the Inquirer three weeks after the May 9 elections.

What the report was referring to was the fact that PDP-Laban won only three congressional seats, but when Rodrigo Duterte emerged as the winner of the presidential race, there was a stampede of congresspersons jumping over the fence to join the now-ruling political party.

The figurative spectacle of lawmakers throwing away their red, blue, green and yellow hats—corresponding to the official colors of their political parties—and madly scrambling to get hold of the red-blue-yellow hat of PDP-Laban is both comical and sad. It shows us that Filipino politicians are color-blind, principle-free, and loyalty-neutral.

According to incoming House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, 100 congresspersons have joined PDP-Laban or will join it in the next few days. Close to 200 more have committed their political parties to a “coalition” with PDP-Laban. Notwithstanding the “coalition” sugar-coating, there is now only PDP-Laban as a supermajority party, with the other parties virtually becoming subservient committees.

Former Akbayan representative Walden Bello estimates that of the 297 elected congresspersons, the number of those who will make up the opposition is now “down to probably less than five.”

In the Senate of 24 members, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III is the lone PDP-Laban. But shortly after Duterte was proclaimed President-elect, Pimentel was chosen as incoming Senate president because 17 senators formed an alliance with Duterte’s party. With only six senators not belonging to the alliance, Duterte now also has a supermajority in the Senate.

A horrified Bello sounded the alarm that the check-and-balance function of Congress is now “on the verge of extinction” because of the decimation of the ranks of opposition lawmakers.

The speed with which lawmakers switched parties to join, or formed an alliance with, Duterte’s party demonstrates the vast powers of the presidency. Congresspersons and senators can tinker with the budget all they want to make room for their pork barrel aspirations, but it is the president—as head of all the implementing agencies of government—who holds the power to speed up the release of funds for pork-laden projects, or set up an endless array of hurdles to torpedo the projects of defiant legislators, or turn a blind eye to the irregularities of submissive lawmakers.

The presidency’s power to exercise whim and caprice was on full display during the term of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who was generous with funds to docile legislators but not to the defiant ones.

The quickness with which congresspersons joined Duterte’s party can be good or bad for the national interest: bad because it shows that legislators will crawl to allow the trickery of a bad president, good because it shows that they will kneel to grant the commendable programs of a good president. But any president is prone to abuse his or her powers, and the lack of an independent Congress bodes ill for any country.

If Duterte has his sights on the horizon of history, he must make the most out of the lawmakers’ obedient attitude and shepherd them to etch in stone policies and programs that the nation will consider as his long-lasting legacy.

The gains that Duterte can potentially bestow upon his constituents are those that will be coterminous with his six years in office or those that will last beyond his presidency. Whatever gains he achieves through the use of the executive powers of the presidency—such as his brandished plan to stamp out crime and illegal drugs—will be coterminous with his presidency because its continuance will be left to the whimsical decision of his successor.

If the next president reverses course, whatever Duterte achieves in his campaign against crime and illegal drugs will become a shibboleth of a bygone era. His achievements will become subject for nostalgia in coffee shop conversations. The drug lords who will merely hibernate during his presidency can stage a comeback after his term ends.

Duterte must be conscious of the temporary shelf life of anything that he achieves in the exercise of his executive powers. If he wants to ensure that the gains will last beyond his term of office, he must use his clout to make Congress exercise legislative powers and pass laws that will politically empower and economically uplift the people in enduring ways.

His promise to work for the passage of a freedom of information law will be a good start. His commitment to devote the earnings of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. exclusively to fund health and education must become law if this program is to endure beyond his term. His plan to cut red tape by requiring business permits to be issued within 72 hours should become law if he wants this measure to continue beyond his presidency.

Weeks before he formally takes up the reins of the most powerful position in the country, President-elect Duterte has exhibited a penchant for sound bites that are repulsive to our sensibilities. His presidency looms to be remembered for the expletives raining in torrential frequency. He must transcend his propensity to shock with profanities and instead aim to define his presidency with enduring legacies that will leave his people in awe for generations to come.

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