Duterte 101

If I were to be given the chance to teach again, I would have a class called Duterte 101. In all my life, I have never known a leader as famous and at the same time as infamous as Rodrigo Roa Duterte. Generally speaking, the system of governance around the world may vary in form and content because of the diverse types of political systems, all of which (at least most of them) have the basic objective of providing a more effective governance to all members of the population, where their hopes and aspirations are fulfilled. Our national government is the official face of our country, with local governments being the lowest tier in the administration system that, in turn, help in making it possible for national government to implement its policies.

Having said all this, I can’t help but recall a statement that former president Rodrigo Roa Duterte made during the Senate hearing of the Blue Ribbon committee on the war on illegal drugs during the Duterte administration. While I really have no personal axe to grind against Senator Risa Hontiveros, and truth be told she has firmly and consistently stood her ground on all the issues she has raised, I have to however agree with former president Rodrigo Duterte when he said that the honorable senator never had the chance to solve community problems on the ground.

I’ll be truthful and say that while I support FPRRD, not everything that he has said or done has been to my liking and in the past, I have many times found myself squirming with some of his statements but, let’s be objective, as after all, this is just a small example of what some of us are trying to achieve in terms of successfully solving the intrinsic challenges in the cognitive domain. While many still look at personalities involved in this hearing, including the very blatant political divide, one must, whether he or she likes it or not, admit that FPRRD struck a very good point on the issue of the war on drugs.

Looking back, FPRRD has been a mayor, a prosecutor, a congressman and even the 16th president of the Republic and because of this, he has had the chance to really make a big difference from the ground up. Davao was once a no man’s land and this is something that locals would attest to and thanks to the former mayor, Davao has become a safe city, if not even the safest. Many of us seem to still be looking at personalities when it comes to the issues, yet we are failing time and again to look at facts as well as the very real and underlying truths that exist in making good governance work.

The cognitive domain, as a good friend of mine Phil Fortuno has explained, is that space where forces interfere to attain strategic interests and agenda. Strange how that works, one may think, but in all seriousness, this is where the battle is. Simply put, the cognitive domain is the thinking domain that deals with how a person acquires, processes and uses knowledge in any given situation. According to Blooms taxonomy, the cognitive domain involves six dimensions and while it will take me an entirely different column to explain each one, I would like to, in this instance, focus on one being application where abstractions are used in concrete situations. Simply put, the transfer of whatever has been learned in real life situations is what makes application work, as this engages practicality and preparation for future challenges.

As a teacher, one would look at application as what has been learned in the classroom and used in novel situations in the workplace. I’d also like to see this as using a bit of common sense in situations that may sometimes be out of the ordinary. Going back to the Senate inquiry on the war on illegal drugs under the Duterte administration, where even survey firms showed that the general public was satisfied with the results of the war against illegal drugs, is to me a series of applications where a sequence of patterns plays an important role in the differential equations and in the analysis process.

Somehow sometimes, we need to just do the math. But then again there are those who have opined that some of the statements made by the former president might just strengthen the ICC’s attention and somewhat highlight how international justice can tackle human rights violations that local systems might fail to take in. On the other hand, President Marcos Junior however stands firm on the jurisdiction of the ICC in the Philippines – that it has no authority over us. In fact, he is adamant – at least so far. The DOJ at present leaves any decision with regard to the ICC up to the President despite House quad comm revelations.

Hard to process but a lot to think about? Perhaps. All I know, however, and just basing it on the issue at hand, what the former president said was very valid because all he did was based on his experiences as a leader from the lowest level of government all the way up to being the chief executive. Former president Duterte to me was not just a sitting president as he had so much political will that drove a lot of people into a frenzy, including me at a time when I didn’t know him. He wasn’t my usual statesman and that’s no secret. Rodrigo Duterte had experience on the ground as a mayor and as a prosecutor, he was required to apply the law to criminal cases and in turn protect the rights of those involved in criminal proceedings and, most of all, respect human dignity and ensure public security.

As president, the role of chief executive of the nation was vested in him by the people as stated in the Constitution and in case anyone is wondering, considering that up to now, there are no cases filed against former president Duterte in the court of law, speaks volumes and that the “application process” with regard to this matter would have already at this point involved the deductive approach where logic, in the most part, wins. As the expression goes, for the love of God, by all means, file those cases in a court of law so that we can understand better and put some closure on the matter. At the end of the day, the fact remains that there is still no evidence on the Davao Death Squad, among many other crimes being accused against the former president. As Duterte said at the hearing, he did what he did most of all for his country and, survey says, most Filipinos agree.

Finally, I believe that the most compelling evidence of the success of the Duterte administration’s campaign against the war on illegal drugs came from an ex-convict and Senator Robin Padilla. Love him or hate him, he too has personal experience with regard to the war on drugs where, as he recounted during the Senate hearing, witnessing firsthand how shabu was being cooked inside the premises of Bilibid prison as far back as 1998 shows how long we have had a drug problem – up until Duterte set foot into office. Did we ever think about how much time that took? Such details cannot be ignored. So let’s be realistic, as Senator Padilla says – when are we finally giving back the streets to the people, free of harm and, most of all, politics? That question right there is a cognitive domain question as it hits the hard to answer and more complex parts in problem solving.

While having a class on Duterte may be far fetched, I will never stop teaching people about bringing the classroom to the streets and the streets into the classroom in order to get a better sense of the populace and the areas of concern that need to be addressed. As for the cognitive domain, understanding what this means for our growth as a nation is everybody’s business – before it is too late. No politics. Just education.