Strongman or dictator?

TIME Magazine included our President among the strongmen of the world. But what did it mean by that? In my opinion it is wrong to equate strongmen with dictators. There are different brands of strength applied to governing effectively depending on the particular circumstances in the country.  

But TIME magazine being what it is, a propaganda tool of US government policy, cannot be expected to have an impartial view. The strongman as dictator is a cliche that does not help us understand the nuances of leadership. No wonder the top position was given to Russia’s Putin. I do not know much about the other two leaders mentioned except to praise Erdogan of Turkey who put his leadership to referendum.

As for Duterte, he immediately made it clear, if elected president, that the Philippines will adopt an independent foreign policy. Its neocolonial relations with the US was not doing it good. Having taken this step, the Philippines became a target of destabilization. The TIME Magazine article was meant to put him in bad light among Filipinos who had not overcome their colonial complex subservient to countries and institutions in the service of promoting continued Philippine dependence on the US and its western allies.

It says in the article “that in every region of the world, changing times have boosted public demand for more muscular, assertive leadership. These tough-talking populists promise to protect ‘us’ from ‘them.’ Depending on who’s talking, ‘them’ can mean the corrupt elite or the grasping poor; foreigners or members of racial, ethnic or religious minorities. Or disloyal politicians, bureaucrats, bankers or judges. Or lying reporters.”

It describes Duterte as a popular leader accepted by Filipinos for his government’s heavy-handed campaign against illegal drugs.

In a Social Weather Stations poll released late April 2018, Duterte had a “very good” net trust rating of +65. This was down from an “excellent” +75 in December 2017. 

SWS defines “net trust rating as the rounded off difference between respondents who said they have “much trust” in the president and those who said they have “little trust.”

Three in every four Filipinos or 76 percent of the 1,200 adult respondents said they have “much trust” in Duterte, down from 83 percent recorded in December. Ten percent of the respondents said they have “little trust” in the president while 14 percent were undecided.  

The opposition to the government’s drug war as well as to other government policies are often explained away as done by criminals, paid trolls, or corrupt politicians who want to return to power.

Duterte and his supporters did not accept the International Criminal Court’s “preliminary examination” by the court’s prosecutor on its alleged crimes against humanity because of his war on drugs. 

The world’s oligarchs especially those who owned media saw it differently. It would mean that government would become the dominant player in how information is shared and give the state to use data to tighten political control.

The TIME article was posted online as the Philippines marked World Press Freedom Day. Privately owned media groups said there had been at least 85 instances of attacks against the press since Duterte came to power in 2016. They alleged these attacks range from murder to online harassment.

A separate group also raised concerns that freedom of opinion and expression in the Philippines is under threat.

A socio-civic group, “Let’s Organize for Democracy and Integrity,” sent a six-page petition to David Kaye, UN special rapporteur on the promotion of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

“We appeal for quick action from your end as President Duterte’s government rapidly constricts democratic space, especially that reserved by the Constitution,” the alliance said.

The group stressed that the Philippine press is facing the “most serious challenges since the downfall of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos,” citing attacks against journalists under the Duterte administration.

An article in the New Yorker explains it best when it cited the influential 16th-century Scottish scholar George Buchanan “that a king rules over willing subjects, a tyrant over the unwilling.” That is also what makes a strongman different from a dictator. 

Some of his supporters urged him to call a revolutionary government to fast track his reforms. So far he has not moved into that direction, keeping the legislative and the justice departments in place. Reformists are afraid Duterte will not be able to accomplish his reforms with the Opposition taking advantage of this openness with which he has governed strongly. 

“The institutions of a free society are designed to ward off those who would govern, as Buchanan put it, “not for their country but for themselves, who take account not of the public interest but of their own pleasure.” This issue bothered Shakespeare in his time. 

“Under what circumstances, Shakespeare asked himself, do such cherished institutions, seemingly deep-rooted and impregnable, suddenly prove fragile? Why do large numbers of people knowingly accept being lied to? How does a figure like Richard III or Macbeth ascend to the throne?

Such a disaster, Shakespeare suggested, could not happen without widespread complicity. Why would anyone, he asked himself, be drawn to a leader manifestly unsuited to govern, someone dangerously impulsive or viciously conniving or indifferent to the truth? Why, in some circumstances, does evidence of mendacity, crudeness, or cruelty serve not as a fatal disadvantage but as an allure, attracting ardent followers? Why do otherwise proud and self-respecting people submit to the sheer effrontery of the tyrant, to his spectacular indecency?” he asked.

"There was no freedom of expression in Shakespeare’s England, on the stage or anywhere else.”

Compare that to the Philippines in our time. Duterte’s character is difficult to predict. He is also a tactician. What kind of strongman is this who goes to shop in Greenbelt where he is mobbed and the crowd wanting to take selfies with him? 

When he was campaigning for the presidency, very few took him seriously. Friends and foes alike could not see how he could be a strong leader after the Noynoy Aquino debacle who simply took it easy, true to what his own father said of him, “walang ka-drive drive.” He may not have been a candidate but his candidate would be just like him. 

Crowds were everywhere in Duterte’s rallies and cars lined up to be part of his motorcades. To this column the best answer to those who doubt that he has the following he needs to be a strongman without being a dictator is best symbolized by the million Filipinos who were at his miting de avance of May 7, 2016. The overhead picture of the million crowd that attended said it all. The question is how long that will last.