We should agree with US President Joe Biden that China's Xi Jinping is a dictator. He really is. He ordered the constant incursions into the West Philippine Sea, the recurrent provocations against Taiwan, and the many crucial decisions that disturb the peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific basin. He indeed is a dictator.
But all presidents are dictators, including American presidents. The presidency is created to dictate foreign policies, declare war, order the invasion of countries like what Vladimir Putin did to Ukraine. If decisiveness is called dictatorship, so be it. Decisions have to be made and someone must bite the bullet, pull the trigger, or order the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima killing thousands of Japanese civilians. African presidents and prime ministers are dictators.
The heads of states and heads of governments of China, Russia, North Korea and even the US, France, UK, Germany have some dictatorial tendencies for good or bad. Decisions have to be made and there might be no time to consult Congress especially if national security and the rights and interests of the people hinge on the edge of destruction.
I got a Fathers' Day gift from my youngest daughter, a book titled “How To Stand Up to a Dictator (The Fight for our Future)” by Maria Ressa of Rappler, winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. The book is hardbound and with a foreword by Amal Clooney. It was published with the imprint of the Harper Collins Publishers and it is selling well and may yet win an international award. Former US first lady and secretary of state Hillary Clinton praised the book, calling the author "a personal hero of mine” and the book as "an important warning for the rest of us." Clooney wrote: "Maria Ressa is five feet two inches, but she stands taller than most in her pursuit of the truth.” I agree we should stand up to dictators as citizens and human beings. There are no tyrants if there are no slaves.
Speaking of dictators, I maintain that all leaders have dictatorial genes in them. Whether for good like President Barack Obama when he ordered the neutralization of Osama Bin Laden or bad like when Adolf Hitler ordered the genocide of Jewish populations, numbering millions, from 1941 to 1945.
President Harry Truman ordered US troops to help South Korea against North Korea in 1950 based on what was called the Truman Doctrine. President Dwight Eisenhower ordered US troops to help South Vietnam fight North Vietnam in 1965. That US intervention continued under President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. I think those were considered by others as acts of dictatorship but I believe those actions were morally right.
President George H.W. Bush (the father) ordered the use of force against Iraq in 1991 when the latter invaded Kuwait, and that started the Gulf War in 1991. My youngest brother, who just took his oath as a US citizen was in the US Air Force sent there to defend American allies in the Middle East. President George W. Bush (the son), in 2001, ordered to attack Afghanistan in retaliation for the Al Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Center. He dictated an offensive called Operation Enduring Freedom. To recall, Kennedy ordered the invasion of the Bay of Pigs.
I gathered from Reuters that four of the 13 US presidents in office between 1945 and 2020 --Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush-- officially brought the country into new full-scale wars (Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq). Presidents need to invade, need to dictate earth-shaking initiatives as preemptive and strategic moves in geopolitics.
In the Philippines, not only Ferdinand Marcos was the dictator. Somehow, President Duterte was a dictator too. Even PNoy ordered the Mamasapano attack. Cory Aquino ruled the country from February 1986 and issued executive orders prior to the ratification of the 1987 Constitution. GMA made many dictatorial moves, just like FVR and Erap too.
Thus, BBM may have to make many autocratic and dictatorial decisions too. He removed the TESDA director-general Danny Cruz and replaced him with a Muslim politician. That was a move of a dictator. But as president, he has the right to do it. GMA pardoned Romeo Jalosjos, who was convicted for rape. President Duterte pardoned Robinhood Padilla, an ex-convict, who served years in prison. Those were acts of dictators. But they got away with them. Many crucial and decisive moves have to be made, and someone has to do them.