Monday, May 2, 2016

Why I am voting for Grace Poe, and not for Binay, Miriam, Roxas or Digong (Part IV)

RODRIGO DUTERTE

Ohhhh, this would be fun.  Until it is no longer.

Let me start by saying that I like Digong as a person.  I don’t like spending an inordinate time around people I hardly know but I don’t mind spending time with him, talking about life, picking his mind, laughing unabashedly about jokes that we can share privately.  I don’t really drink but I will gladly be his bottle buddy.

I also admire his simplicity and lack of interest in material things.  All government officials should be like him in that respect.  Though I disagree with him opening his mouth without the benefit of prior brainwork, I don’t find any problem with his brash, tough and often kanto boy language.  I even find it a refreshing counterculture in a world that puts too much premium on polish and form.

I also admire what he has done in Davao, which many dream will be replicated in the entire Philippines. He walked the walk, and talked the talk. Feared, respected, revered – that’s who he is in Davao.  And Davao is relatively safer, more progressive and more conducive for living, than most Philippine cities. That, I give him.

Why I am not voting for Digoy?

I will not talk about his womanizing or his macho stance on anything that concerns gender and sexuality, or his beef against the church.  I will however talk briefly about two issues: federalism and his cozy stance towards China, before tackling the meat of my objection against him, which is his bloody roadmap to peace and order.

Federalism or feudalism?

Duterte is so sure that the only way for provinces, especially the most poor, to inch their way up the economic ladder is by switching to federalism where the local government has more control over its funds. There is even a slick animation about how federalism works doing the rounds of computers, drawing raves and "Oo ngas" from impressed viewers.

In theory, yes it is an alternative worth exploring.  But does it guarantee effective and good governance? Hell no!

Not when the same faces will occupy the federal state. In case it has escaped you, most of the poorest provinces are ruled over by the same faces, with the same surnames; who else but the same trapos, the political families, the people with guns and money to secure prime positions. Para lang ginawa mong official ang mga "kingdom" para sa mga sakim para lamang lalong payamanin ang mga ito dahil mas malaki na ang perang hahawakan nila.  At ang mga taong mahihirap na dapat maiangat ng pederalismo? Walang nagbago, mahirap pa rin.

It is not the form of government that ails the country.  It is the people tasked with running it ruining it.  Unless part of Duterte's pledge of switching to federalism comes with a vow to eradicate the cream of the crop of politicians skimming money from the people, particularly those on the provincial level, nothing is guaranteed. But last I heard, he is busy hobnobbing with them in his sorties, building ties and courting votes. So yes, change the form of government, retain the same bloodsucker, same old, same old results.

Made in China ties

This is going to be short.  There are issues that you can be practical about, and things that you fight for no matter what it takes.  The territorial dispute between China is non-negotiable.  The West Philippine Sea, and the islands and resources therein, is ours.  China is stealing it from us.  You don't reward a thief with the loot he stole from you.

Duterte is willing to do it. In fact, he sees it as the most sensible thing to do.  He treats our sovereignty like he treats lives, something that you can be practical with.


Lust for bad blood

The promise of absolute peace of mind resonates well with the Filipino forever looking behind his back for a real or imagined attacker.   Duterte has not made it a secret how he intends to make good on his promise – by pouring blood on the streets using overwhelming force of the police and military on anyone suspected of being a criminal.  I don’t think he is bluffing.  He did it in Davao, and he intends to do it all over the Philippines.

If police data can be trusted that over 90% of Philippine barangays are infected by illegal drugs, then there’s also that probability that you, yes you, will hear commotion, shouting and then gunshots one night, then wake up in the morning with a pool of blood being lapped up by your neighbor’s dog.  Or maybe by your own dog.

If you are lucky, you may even catch a glimpse of the “criminal” still lying where he fell, his eyes looking at an empty space as flies check out where the bullets entered and his brain matter exited.

If you are luckier, you may even have your young son or daughter with you; perfect occasion for you to teach a life lesson when your kid asks you why it had to happen, because then you will lovingly reply: “That what happens to the scum of society, baby.”  Not unlike perhaps to what Nazi sympathizers told their children when they were asked why their Jew friends and their family were being herded to trains at gunpoint, to be gassed and thrown to a heap of cadavers the way the dregs of society deserved to be disposed.

Chances are you might even personally know this dead scum.  And he was not that bad a person. In fact, he was nice to you and your kids.  He even had children of his own whom he also loved like you do yours.  And his children, now covered by his blood, are wailing because they lost the man they most loved.  Go ahead.  Tell them.  Their dad deserved to die.  Your vote was his execution order, remember?

Giving the police and military the power to extinguish lives is frighteningly dangerous.  We’re talking here of men in uniform not exactly known for their discipline, or their thoroughness in their investigative techniques. If today you ask an ordinary person what they think of the police, I’m sure he wouldn’t be faulted to say that he does not trust him, what with reports of men in uniform involved in all sorts of crime – drugs, robbery, kidnapping, and what have you. And now they are given the license to shoot -- suspects, personal enemies, business rivals or anyone who gets in the way will all be fair game. Dead men can’t talk. They will all be lumped together as bad people ordered by the president to be killed.

Guns for hire are making a killing now.  But wait till Duterte sits and the underground industry would have to hire additional hands to keep up with the demand.  What’s stopping people with deep personal grudges from hiring them to settle a score?

It would be a free kill season once Digong’s crime killing spree begins.  Now who is going to investigate hits not made by the official government death squad, the police?  So are they going to roll out and review their list and say that this and this are not in their target, so this must have been a crime?  Yup, that is going to happen.

And will the public cry foul when a dead body surfaces?  Or would they lump any dead person with a bullet in the head as a necessary sacrifice for the common good, never mind that this cadaver belonged to a husband whose wife simply wanted him out so she could run off with another man? Or vice versa?

It all boils down to this. Something must be terribly wrong when a candidate proposes to make state-sponsored killings of its own citizens an official government policy and many voters are actually gladly, frantically and desperately rooting for it.  I am no longer questioning its logic, but I am seriously wondering about its sanity.

All this, as they say, for the good of the country.  Really? Ask Duterte supporters why they are voting for him and most of them will acknowledge that it is for their and their family's peace of mind? Since when has a personal fear become the nation's?  And since when has murder multiplied by the thousands become a recipe for peace of mind?

Who ever said that the Philippines lack people who are willing to give up lives for the country does not know anything about how it now works.  There are millions of Duterte supporters willing and excited to do that, as long as somebody else does the dying.  And this includes plenty of Bible-quoting citizens who, before Duterte's presidential run, would profess in their social media accounts how God is mighty, powerful, loving and forgiving.  I am not too familiar with the Bible hence there must be some fine print hidden in the appendices about special cases when killing people en masse is justified.  Or perhaps, this is just a case of separation of the church and state. Tsaka na muna ang pangaral ng Panginoon, eleksiyon ito hindi review nang sampung utos.

I'm sorry.  Maybe I just don't love my country enough.  Or maybe I just don't care about peace of mind enough.  But I just can't entitle myself with the power to say that I have the right to live, while others are not just valuable enough to live another day.  That's what a vote for Duterte is. That's not what my vote is about.



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