IN A word, not presidential, beyond the pale, so to speak.
It’s an oxymoron of a term, two words combined yet being mutually exclusive in the ethical and moral sense. They’re not supposed to go together.
Simply defined, presidential means acting or behaving in a way befitting a president. Un–presidential means more than just the opposite. It’s a slippery slope in public behavior for supposed-to-be exemplars of civility and dignity. It could get worse before it could get better.
Most historians say the word presidential was inspired by the first president of the United States, George Washington, whose” purity of character gave effulgence to his public virtues”.
The latest tirade on Vice President Leni Robredoby, who else, President Duterte can be best described as effluent. It’s as if the Meanness-in –Chief is scraping the dregs from the bottom ( or is it bottomless?} of his toxic reservoir against his possible successor. The rule: the meanest for the noisiest. How else can you interpret his ‘mamatay ka na’ blast against her? How much lower can he possibly go? Where has the floor of decency gone?
It’s one thing, and within the bounds of standard public behavior, by any public figure like Duterte to publicly and openly excoriate Robredo for allegedly trying hard to be relevant in the pandemic. It’s another to blurt out a death wish for her simply because she was, well, to use Duterte’s own words, trying hard to be relevant. What’s wrong about wanting to be relevant by showing ways of doing things better?
Adding injury to insult was the presidential spokesman doubling down on his principal’s patented meanness to the second highest official of the land. The eerie silence of the Cabinet members on an egregious presidential behavioral flaw added to the damage – not on Robredo—but on the presidency and on those who are supposed to know better.
Except for a few brave voices, mostly from the opposition, much of the country did not rise in moral revulsion against such an outrageous remark. Welcome to Moral Dystopia. In another time and place, Duterte’s unstatesmanlike outburst would have had serious consequences.
Some people have compared Duterte to Marcos in a number of ways. Not so fast. Even two bad apples are not the same, although there is small choice in both. One facet where Marcos differed was in his public decorum. He was the better public performer to show he possessed the right public virtues. Once, heappeared apologetic on nationwide television following a controversial comment that provoked an uproar from women. At least, he was careful to throw red meat to the crowd or to his choir.
It’s a strange thing, American author John Steinbeck wrote, that meanness, including greed and egotism, are the traits seen in successful people. Truth stranger than fiction, indeed. And no one can argue against success, they say.
Duterte is wont to rub that in whenever opportunity presents itself in the presence of his Cabinet members who he admitted were his betters in school but are now his subordinates—trabajantes, he would say. In traditional Philippine politics, that’s standard fare to play to the gallery. Wishing a rival politician’s death was unheard of, a taboo, to say the least. Sen. Leila de Lima who, like Robredo, has earned the presidential ire ,has a stronger word for the President’s apparent ill-will: evil. Can anything be worse than that?
If unbridled meanness is considered Duterte’s most odious trait, public perception apropos is aggravated by public policies under his watch that show less and less regard for human rights and human lives. The current oral argument in the Supreme Court over the Anti-Terror Law, where more than 30 petitions against it were filed, points in the direction not only in respecting democratic processes and institutions but impliedly of restoring civility in public discourse.
The latest presidential meanness shows that the standard of decency in Philippine politics is fragile and weak, and the highest official of the country is mindlessly testing its brittleness threshold.
The good news is, he cannot do it unaided. As Edmund Burke said, for evil to thrive , all it takes is for good men to do nothing. There is such a thing as losing by default.
If the recent example of a tragic post– election unrest in the United States instigated by its former president is anything, it should remind everyone who believes in democracy and decency that it takes genuine citizenship not just to vote responsibly but act with courage and conviction when leaders behave wrongly and irresponsibly.
Call a spade a spade.
