In 2015, I had the opportunity to personally listen to Rodrigo Duterte in one of his listening tours around the Philippines.
At that time, he had not yet declared his candidacy to run for president in the 2016 elections, yet he was already going around the country speaking to various groups.
Was I even considering thoughts then that he would be worthy of my vote, by any stretch of the imagination? I had questions. A cousin, however, tried to persuade me. He said Rodrigo Duterte running for president in 2016 could very well become the country’s first president from Mindanao. In Mindanao, that line alone evokes sensations of nationhood that no one from Manila or Luzon could identify with.
“He may be a despot,” said my cousin from Davao city, “but this is our only chance to have a president from Mindanao.” Yet there was something inherently problematic about that reasoning. In fact it admitted that something was very wrong with two decades of tight Duterte control of Davao city.
Let’s admit it. As early as then, Duterte was already romanticized in the national imagination as a fiercely nonconformist maverick who got things done, true or false. And which the national masa lapped up as gospel truth, true or false. What partly fueled it was a Davao city media that was mum on the Dutertes’ abuse of power. As a rule in Davao city, no one writes adversely about the Dutertes.
Who was financing the so-called “listening tours?
Now it is clear, at least by logic and by elimination. Only Red China had the precise interest to have financed it.
The last Aquino presidency, which brought about the adverse ruling on Red China from the Permanent Court of Arbitration, was abomination No. 1 to Red China. A socialist government like Red China’s is sensitive to world condemnation. It was craving for propaganda to sway the adverse international perceptions emanating from that decision. Propaganda is a basic essential for socialist regimes that operate in a world order where socialist governments are a minority.
Duterte became the most promising puppet. Not Joko Widodo, whose Indonesian warships fired warning shots at intruding Red Chinese boats and seized a Red Chinese fishing boat and its crew in 2016.
Not Vietnam whose coast guard seized a Red Chinese fuel ship in April 2016 that intruded into its waters to supply fuel for Red Chinese fishing boats.
Not Malaysia, which in June 2015 summoned its navy and coast guard to its Luconia Shoals to monitor a Red Chinese Coast Guard ship that anchored just 84 nautical miles off the coast of Sarawak.
And certainly not Benigno S. Aquino III of the Philippines. But in 2016, Aquino was on the way out. China needed the incoming president who could make a 360-degree turnaround from Aquino’s to favor its hegemony in Southeast Asia. Only Rodrigo Duterte fitted the bill.
Today we will never be able to establish Red China’s money trail to Duterte’s pockets. Once he became president, the state’s Anti-Money Laundering Council protected his numerous bank accounts. By the time he became president, his bullying and intimidations successfully warded off even the constitution’s built-in check and balances in the two houses of legislature. It took the distinct bravado of senator Antonio Trillanes to stand up to Duterte’s corruption by exposing the movement of money in his numerous Bank of the Philippine Islands accounts.
A photo had surfaced of Duterte and his man Friday Bong Go posing for a souvenir photo at Tienanmen Square prior to his 2016 candidacy. That was not enough. But in the minds of many, it was a confirmation that the madman of Davao City had ties to Red China.
Now that he has stepped down from the presidency since a year, Duterte does not hide his unabashed affection for Red China. Retired but not forgotten by Xi JinPing, he is feted to a personal appointment by the Red Chinese strongman like a ruling head of state in Peking’s Diaoyutai State Guest House. Xi and Duterte were said to have talked for more than two hours.
It was a chronicle and photo-op that Duterte loved. China’s state information apparatuses recorded the event. Note: Sen. Bong Go was part of that recent trip to Peking. Is he running for the next election? 90% of Filipinos do not like Red China.
Just a mere three weeks later, Duterte’s beloved narrative was dashed into smithereens. Red China water-cannoned a puny Philippine supply boat escorted by the Philippine Coast Guard on its way to deliver food supplies to the marooned BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal within the country’s exclusive economic zone. The diplomatic reality is clear-cut: Duterte is nothing but a huge flop.
I use Christian Esguerra’s Facts First aerial video of the water cannon attack (that was referenced from the Facebook page of Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri). Readers can view the horrible water cannon attack on this link.
Sycophancy is a word in the English vocabulary that does not have good synonyms – servility, toadying, brownnosing, sucking up – beautifully apt descriptions of Duterte and the reason why Red China loves to bully the Philippines.
Definition: the jester was the person in the court of a king whose job it was to do silly things in order to make people laugh. That jester in the court of Emperor Xi is Rodrigo Duterte.
A final note to Duterte: even Hitler had an end. But why does Bongbong Marcos act as a kowtowing slave to Duterte interests?
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.