IT TAKES at least three weeks, the American humorist Mark Twain once said, to prepare an impromptu speech.
President Duterte didn’t have that prerequisite amount of time to prepare for his sixth and last state-of-the-nation (SONA) address. Obviously, it took him more time to deliver it, making his swan song the longest of all, perhaps of all SONAS before, including his own past five.
You can blame his over-extended curtain call, to a number of things. You can blame it on the poor teleprompter who had a hard time blending the prepared script with the performer’s ad libs. Or you can blame the speechwriter(s) who didn’t factor in the President’s propensity to do his own soliloquy. A lousy technicians made a lousy SONAR.
You could forgive the outgoing chief executive for staying longer on the podium. Because it was supposed to be his last, he should savor every moment of it. Minus the expletives, it sounded more decent than it used to be. He was even sorely missing his vice president’s absence in the audience. Strange, it wasn’t like him. Leni Robredo used to be like the cross to Dracula to him. Some members of his fans ‘ club might have bared their fangs in revolt.
As far as his foreign policy is concerned, two things are clear: fear China but fool the Americans. He’s enamored with China because Xi Ping is his friend who was always ready to come to his rescue. It had nothing to do with his election in 2016. His P300k wristwatch is his witness. Of course, mute witness. You can’t cross-examine a mute, much less a dead, witness. That must be the source of the ‘kill, kill’ motivation.
So he doesn’t mind ordering that suspected gunrunners be shot dead in the streets, directing his command to a favorite senator, virtually taunting the International Criminal Court (ICC) like Dirty Harry: make my day. What’s adding one more dead to his resume. Even after the Supreme Court who had recently ruled, on the eve of his SONA, that the ICC ,indeed, can still run after him after he had withdrawn from it as member.
The Balingaga bells of Samar had come home under his watch, he said, because he had hoodwinked the Americans into believing he was buying their eagerness to see him visit ‘ the land of the free and home of the brave’. It was a gesture made in bad faith, he said, and the Americans swallowed it hook, line and sinker. If the Americans were good enough into swaying the bright Filipino ‘amboys’ under former President Pnoy to leave the Scarborough Shoals while the Chinese were still there, he is smarter than all of them put together.
He had put one over the WASPS (white, anglo-saxon and protestants), but he’s not in the mood to rub godless Communist China the wrong way. It is mightier and faster, it could fire a missile to a town in Palawan in 10 minutes or less, faster than he could walk from the lounge to the rostrum of the House of Representatives. Reciting his improved version of the real state of the nation, Duterte also revealed his state of mind, like he was channeling. No wonder one analyst observed that there were two speakers who delivered the SONA.
His earlier promises were good, he said, until the pandemic descended upon every part of the world. Otherwise, the Philippines could have made it—leapfrog, according to him — among the most prosperous and developed countries of the world under his term. It was a good thing China was kind enough to be the first country to send in the vaccines. Nothing to do with the South China Sea issue, hohum.
While Duterte basked in the glory of his achievements, his critics must have been fact-checking everything as he spoke. The jury is still out, let alone history. Duterte must have said something true, or the country is in a far bigger hole than where many are still coping with the loss of jobs, business,incomes and, even sanity, as a result of the pandemic and with the way it has been managed—badly,according to those who don’t belong in Duterte’s church — by the government.
He has still restrained himself, he confessed, despite the thousands of deaths under his war on drugs, from forcing his own idea of governing the nation. There was martial law, a better option of ridding the government of corrupt people because the real problem lies in the system. He forgot that no less than Senate President Tito Sotto strongly, repeatedly called for the head of a Cabinet member because of irregularities and poor performance in light of the pandemic. To no avail.
Duterte generously endorsed Sotto for his vice presidential bid for being a good man.( Sen. Panfilo Lacson was missed by a mile ). If it is a kiss of a death or a political blessing, Sotto this early should make the distinction. Or is it just a red herring? He earlier gave the same blessing to House Majority Floor Leader Martin Romualdez, and himself. The joke, of course, is good while it lasts.
The pandemic has thrown his administration off track in the last five years. But, Duterte is confident that the best is yet to come with one year left. The Filipino resilience is there to make it possible. That same resilience is also the same reason he stayed in power that long, even if he intimidated the nation repeatedly that Xi Ping has vowed that he would not be deposed, one way or the other.
If Duterte had his way, he would do the same thing all over again, and more. That’s the subtext of his valedictory address. He has offered a tested formula for the nation’s redemption. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
