Many have tried to decode President Duterte, divining what makes and moves him. Until his campaign for and historic ascension to the top, the President was (and still is) a national enigma. True, he had been city mayor, vice mayor and congressman for two and a half decades, but by his own reckoning, his circle of friends has been limited to Davao City and San Beda College.
Bedans all. My first time to meet him up close was during the testimonial reception hosted by the San Beda Law Alumni Association (SBLAA) a few weeks ago. Being an honorary member of the SBLAA since 2006, I was seated within conversational distance from him at the head table. The only other (and mightier) honorary SBLAA member is former president Fidel V. Ramos, who was seated right beside him.
The gathering was very informal, personal and punctuated with rowdy guffaws, which, I could sense, the President thoroughly enjoyed. The alumni members crowded him with selfies and occasional stand-up photos, to the obvious discomfort of his security men.
But obviously, too, the President enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow Bedans. And in between swallows of his favorite monggo soup and fried banana maruya, he conversed softly and gamely with the friends at his table as well as the well-wishers who lined up nearby.
At the lectern, he set aside his prepared speech and indulged in his conversational and relaxed heart-to-heart talk. He began with a generous acknowledgement of Ramos.
He recounted how, along with Jesus Dureza and Paul Dominguez, Ramos visited him in Davao to persuade him to run for the top post. Being a mere “probinsyano who did not know his way around the corridors of power,” he confessed to having no presidential ambition at all. But Ramos was insistent, and he could no longer resist.
In his extemporaneous talk, he requested Ramos to help solve the Philippine-China dispute over the South China Sea, and asked him to be the country’s special envoy to China. The former president was clearly surprised by his unexpected appointment, whispering that he was already too old for the job. (He later accepted.)
Pro Duterte. Self-deprecating almost to a fault, Mr. Duterte admitted being “just an average student in San Beda,” singling out the “brilliant” Bedan lawyers whom he recruited to his Cabinet: Salvador Medialdea (Executive Office), Vitaliano Aguirre (Justice), Arthur Tugade (Transportation), Rodolfo Salalima (Information and Communication Technology) and Alfredo Lim (Pagcor).
Though not named to any government post (yet), Bedans Rodolfo Robles (bar topnotcher and his former professor), Sixto Brillantes (former Commission on Elections chair), Avelino V. Cruz (bar topnotcher, former professor and chair of SBLAA) and Court of Appeals Justice Francisco Acosta (SBLAA president) were specially cited by the President.
Apart from his San Beda friends, he fondly praised Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez (his valedictorian-classmate in kindergarten, grade school and high school), Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo, Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. (his dorm buddy at YMCA), and Pagcor Chair Andrea Domingo.
He regaled his audience with jokes that only he could get away with, “I established a record of sorts as the first mayor to be president, the first Mindanaoan to be president, and the first president to be inaugurated with two first families in attendance!”
But what brought the house down was his ventriloquist-like imitation of the stentorian and raspy voice of Court of Appeals Justice Arsenio Solidum. To the delight of his fellows, he mimicked his late mentor’s booming questions and his own uncharacteristically meek answers. I easily identified with this joke because Justice Solidum was also my “terror-professor” at Far Eastern University.
San Beda has distinguished alumni in the judiciary, notably Supreme Court Justices Bienvenido L. Reyes (who administered Mr. Duterte’s oath of office) and Jose C. Mendoza. Vice President Leni Robredo took up graduate studies in San Beda.
Contra Duterte. Many Bedans genuinely admire and support Mr. Duterte, but Bedans also are his staunchest critics who were conspicuously absent from the testimonial. Neophyte Sen. Leila de Lima (Law 1985) was the first legislator to lambast the “daily executions” in Mr. Duterte’s relentless drug war.
In her maiden privilege speech, she decried, “The day has already come when we can no longer tell who is morally wrong among us: the nine-year-old street child sniffing rugby, or the policeman who shoots the child in the head for sniffing rugby. This is our descent as a nation into the darkness that these men have created for us.” She concluded by “calling for a congressional inquiry, in aid of legislation, on the spate of extrajudicial killings and summary executions.”
Another San-Beda-affiliated critic is former senator Rene Saguisag, now a bit frail but still stings with his acerbic pen, “The Dutertes may reign forever. Prez, Mayor, Vice Mayor. They have no respect for the State Policy in the Constitution—to prohibit political dynasties. PD No. 46 punishes giver and recipient who accepts gifts. Whose aircraft is Digong using? The allegedly simple man accepts a Safari and Expedition from Pastor Quiboloy. He does not disclose the family bank account, which, Trillanes alleges, reaches billions. No transparency.”
Like it or not, our government is now dominated by Bedans all. But I think the nation is safe in their hands as long as among them are pros and contras, supporters and dissenters, admirers and critics.
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