The world heard Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte singing John Denver’s line “All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go” months ahead of his term’s end on June 30, when the new president takes over.
In anticipation, during the 1986 EDSA Revolution commemoration last week, he went on air and announced that he did his job, adding in Tagalog, “Wala akong ginawang kalokohan” (I did not do anything bad).
Those in the know shook their heads in disbelief. It’s because Duterte has faced a number of “bad things” and controversies during his term as head of state, such as his bloody war on drugs and extrajudicial killings which have been criticized by human rights groups here and abroad, and for which he is facing a very serious investigation before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“I did not do anything bad,” but people remember what he said: “Hitler massacred three million Jews … there’s three million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them.” Yesterday’s Jews for Hitler are today’s junkies for Duterte, who has theorized that “junkies are not human.”
However, as the three judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC ruled in 2021, “the so-called ‘war on drugs’ campaign cannot be seen as a legitimate law enforcement operation,” but rather amounted to a systematic attack on civilians. Published legal documents show that since 2016 more than 6,000 civilians have been killed in his anti-drug operations.
Press freedom, the cornerstone of democracy, has been seriously wounded by two presidents in the Philippines: Marcos (from 1972 to 1986) and Duterte (from 2016 to 2022). The shutdown of the broadcast network ABS-CBN in 2020, the cyberlibel conviction of Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and her co-writer Reynaldo Santos Jr., the killing of Cornelio Pepino and other radio broadcasters, the red-tagging, and the intimidation of journalists critical of the government obviously created an atmosphere detrimental to the freedom of expression.
The world community has also questioned Duterte’s policies and close ties with China amid the tension in the West Philippine Sea
The country saw its ranking in the 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 World Press Freedom Index dropping, which is considered one of the most dramatic cases of press freedom reversal anywhere in Asia.
At the beginning of his term in 2016, Duterte made a fantastic assurance: “I will not promise you heaven, but I will try to stop corruption,” he vowed. “In three to six months, I will stop corruption in government.” He also threatened public employees by saying that “one whiff of corruption, you’re out!”
Vowing transparency in his administration, Duterte signed an executive order on freedom of information. The people rejoiced and thought that finally we have a transparent government. But when the people called for the release of his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN), he refused without any explanation. He appointed former Supreme Court justice Samuel Martires as Ombudsman, who moved to stop the lifestyle checks of government officials and restricted public access to their SALN.
Duterte’s war on drugs turned into drug smuggling and his anti-corruption campaign developed into a Rigodon de Honor of men caught in “a whiff of corruption.” In 2017 and 2018, heavy shipments of shabu from China, his patron, worth 17.4 billion pesos slipped past the Bureau of Customs when Nicanor Faeldon and his successor Isidro Lapena were chiefs. Instead of axing them, Faeldon was transferred to the Office of the Civil Defense and Lapena became TESDA chief. In 2021, the Sandiganbayan convicted Faeldon of two counts of graft, specifically in cases involving smuggling rice.
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The world community has also questioned Duterte’s policies and close ties with China amid the tension in the West Philippine Sea. “I did not do anything bad,” he said, but people remember what he did not do when, as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Philippines, Duterte did not move a finger to defend the fishing communities of Palawan, Bataan, Zambales, Ilocos and La Union after they were illegally fired with water cannon in Philippine waters.
Duterte admitted in public his incompetence in protecting Philippine territorial rights and sovereignty against China. In his own words in Tagalog, he admitted during his fifth and sixth state of the nation addresses in July 2019 and July 2020, “Inutil ako. Wala akong magagawa” (I am useless. I cannot do anything).
“I did not do anything bad,” he said, but people remember what Senator Richard Gordon called “plundemic” or plunder during the pandemic. The Senate conducted an extended series of hearings in 2021 in aid of legislation on the government’s fishy-smelling contract with Pharmally, a newly formed company with capital of only 625,000 pesos.
Senators led by Gordon reported that amassing of the people’s money happened during the pandemic and that the grand conspiracy could “never have happened without the imprimatur of the president … who allowed his friends to bleed this nation’s coffers dry.” The “bleeding” that the Senate has investigated and deliberated for long months was to the tune of some 11.5 billion pesos in contracts in 2020 and 2021 (Senate Preliminary Report, October 2021).
Duterte lambasted the absurdity of the concept of original sin in the Biblical creation story and made himself a world-class celebrity but infamous by calling God ‘stupid’
In religion, Catholic-educated Duterte predicted that the Catholic Church — for him the most hypocritical institution — would be irrelevant within 30 years, cursing Pope Francis, the Vicar of Christ, when he got stuck in heavy traffic during the papal visit in 2015, calling the saints drunkards, the bishops thieves, and the priests gays.
“I did not do anything bad,” he said, but people remember how in a public speech in Davao City, Duterte lambasted the absurdity of the concept of original sin in the Biblical creation story and made himself a world-class celebrity but infamous by calling God “stupid.”
By the end of 2021, our Asian neighbors were asking: “Did President Duterte restore the Philippines as the sick man of Asia?” Duterte will be a doddering and mentally unhealthy oldster by the time he leaves Malacanang in mid-2022, unable to walk and talk straight, leaving behind a national debt of more than 11 trillion pesos to be paid by the people he claimed “he served well.”
Jose Mario Bautista Maximiano is a Catholic scholar, educator and the author of the ‘Catholic Social Teachings in CONTEMPORARY Philippine History: 500 YOC (1971-2021), Volume Three’ (Claretian, 2022). The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
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