Time for change

That was a refreshing sight last week: President Duterte in his predeparture speech, reading from a prepared text as he talked about the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Admit it, folks, it was a boring speech. But Du30 made the right noises about ASEAN and left no room for misinterpretation. Journalists did not need to use their creative imagination to report what he said. We journalists can make hideously imbecilic misinterpretations of public officials’ statements – especially if the official is weak in articulating his message and leaves a wide room for misinterpreting his every word and deed.

The President remained on his best behavior during his audience with the king of Cambodia, with Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. describing his boss as “very regal, very elegant, very gentle.” (The description is relative: Cambodians were reportedly unimpressed and slammed Du30’s casual body language and rudeness in showing up with rolled-up sleeves and his top shirt button open.)

Alas, Du30 probably got as bored as most everyone else and quickly reverted to his usual inelegant, cussing and joking self when he met with the Filipino communities in Phnom Penh and later in Singapore. He fulminated against the Liberal Party’s Mar Roxas, but the reason for his fury was vague.

For his new year’s resolution, President Duterte should seriously consider tempering his motormouth. Or at least taking a deep breath more often and thinking before talking. Or running his statements by aides who are fluent in both Tagalog and English before expressing them in public, just to make sure the nuances of his messages are not lost in translation or buried under his usual barrage of expletives. If he has the time or the interest, he may want to take lessons in mass communication in a globalized environment.

Lesser mortals can rant and rave without creating ripples. But statements of the president of this republic affect national life and the global image of the Filipino, for better or worse.

Du30’s latest ranting overseas fueled speculation that he has disobeyed doctor’s orders and is still on the painkiller fentanyl. While he seems to be telling the truth that he’s not using the opiate for cancer, fentanyl is among the addictive prescription drugs on the list of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse.

NIDA, in a June 2016 update, describes fentanyl as “a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent.”

Addicts have given fentanyl or fentanyl-laced heroin or cocaine the street names Apache, China Girl, China White, Dance Fever, Friend, Goodfella, Jackpot, Murder 8, TNT, and Tango and Cash.

NIDA considers fentanyl dangerous because of its heroin-like effects, which include “euphoria, drowsiness, nausea, confusion, constipation, sedation, tolerance, addiction, respiratory depression and arrest, unconsciousness, coma, and death.” Its high potency “greatly increases risk of overdose,” NIDA warned.

Duterte should stop thinking like a city mayor and begin thinking, acting and talking like the president of a nation of over 100 million. He should stop cocooning himself in his home city of Davao and trying to ignore Metro Manila. The nation’s capital region and its mountain of seemingly intractable problems aren’t going to go away like a boil. Metro Manila isn’t a nightmare that will disappear when Du30 wakes up. All of Manila’s ills, and not just the traffic but the social injustice now aggravated by the continuing mass murders, will fester and one day blow up in someone’s face, like the eruption of rot when you poke a corpse in an advanced state of decomposition.

Du30 should also consider that the majority of journalists who cover the presidency are unlike those he has befriended for two decades in Davao who speak his dialect and understand its idioms and nuances, who can accurately tell when he’s just joking and when he’s dead serious, and who can correctly fill in the blanks when he rambles on.

Consider his latest statement on “setting aside” the hard-won victory of the Philippines against China before the UN-backed Permanent Arbitration Court in The Hague, and scrapping the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States (unless they pay the Philippines).

His statements were made after he learned that the USled Millennium Challenge Corp. had deferred to March 2017 its vote on the next aid “compact” for the Philippines amid concerns over the brutal war on drugs. The MCC has made similar moves in other countries. Last March, it suspended a $472-million aid package for Tanzania over flawed elections and a draconian law against cybercrimes. Commitment to democracy is a key criterion for MCC aid eligibility.

It could mean “bye-bye US,” Du30 said, reiterating a previous threat. He and Yasay said the Philippines did not have the capability to make the Chinese dismantle weapons and leave occupied areas in the South China Sea.

While Du30 is simply being pragmatic and expressing realities on the ground, such sentiments are best expressed by seasoned diplomats, in a way that doesn’t make it look like he is compromising Philippine sovereignty. He has already all but surrendered to Beijing Panganiban or Mischief Reef, over which the arbitral court ruled that the Philippines has sovereign rights.

This was a hard-won case, and the arbitral court gave the Philippines an even bigger victory beyond the petition: the court not only defined the country’s maritime entitlements over three specific disputed areas, but also invalidated China’s outrageous nine-dash-line claim over nearly the entire South China Sea.

Du30 did say that his position on the US could change once his new friend Donald Trump takes over the White House next month. Yasay also provided the nuance that was missing from the presidential statement: the Philippines lacked the muscle to compel China to abide by the arbitral ruling; this is best left to powers such as the US.

True enough. But in fact the Philippines has the muscle: the arbitral court is backed by the United Nations. Precisely because we lacked the military muscle, we turned to the UN for arbitration based on international rules. And we won.

The President’s statement smacks of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. It’s like bending over backwards and then begging those occupying Philippine-claimed territory, “Bugger me pa more!”

Maybe Du30 was again simply fooling the “buwang” or crazy journalists. But when he clarifies, retracts or apologizes for a public statement, the one who comes out like a fool is not the reporter but the President of the Philippines.

President Duterte promised “real” change. He can set the example and start with himself.