By Manny Piñol
The woman who stood beside me by the right wing of the stage in the Luneta last night where leading presidential candidate Rody Duterte delivered his final message before the May 9 elections was surprised when she recognised me.
“Governor Piñol why are you not on stage? Why are you standing here?,” she asked.
I told her I wanted to be just a witness watching from the sidelines rather than in the centerstage with my friend.
An All-Access ID card was actually given to me and my brother Bobong, John Pagaduan and Jun Ramos and that would have allowed me to go anywhere I wanted to, including atop the stage.
The view from where I was standing, however, was good enough for me. Watching from a distance gives you a deeper perspective of the way things are happening.
Later, Senator Koko Pimentel saw me in the crowd and signalled me to come up the stage to deliver a short message to the crowd before Duterte would go up on stage.
I signalled back to beg off and he nodded.
For three long hours, I stood there among the multitude which grew to an estimated 1.3-million by the time Duterte spoke before the crowd.
When he strode to the centre stage boldly defying the advise to stay behind a protect armoured glass because of an assassination threat, I saw the Rody Duterte I have known for the past 24 years.
This was the same man who two and half years ago dismissed my suggestion for him to consider the Presidency even when I told him that the political landscape was barren and nobody stood out as a prospective presidential material who could address the problems of the country.
Last night, he was still the Rody Duterte I knew. He delivered the same message, blurted out the same profane language, expressed the same anger and retold the same old jokes.
Unlike before, however, when only his family, his close friends and the people of Davao, the city he turned from a Killing Fields of Communist assassins into one of the safest cities in the world, owned him, last night the whole nation claimed him as their own.
It has been a long and interesting journey since that day at Fairway No. 1 of the Davao City Golf Course two and a half years ago when I asked him not close his doors to the Presidency because “no one escapes destiny” to that stage in the Burnham Green of the Rizal Park.
Tomorrow, i will join millions in going to the voting precincts to cast my ballot for the “Unwilling” and “Reluctant” candidate who is now poised to become the next President of thePhilippines.
I am happy to be part of this story and I will make sure that my grandchildren will know the saga of a man who did not want to be President but who yielded to the will of the people.
To make sure I will not forget what happened during the journey from Fairway No. 1 to Malacañang, I will gather the stories of other people who were with us, who dreamed with us, who struggled with us and who sacrificed to give the country a President who could finally put an end to the conflicts, to the inequality, to the hunger and poverty and the threats of drugs, criminality and corruption.
My next assignment will be to write another book which will not only tell the story of Duterte but of a nation willing to accept a leader with self-confessed flaws and willing to forgive him because he carried their anger, frustrations, fears, hopes and dreams.
“Destiny: The Inside Story of the Rody Duterte Presidency,” that is the title of the book that I will write.
I witnessed this story unfold and so did tens of millions of Filipinos and when my grandchildren sit on my lap years from now, I will just open the book and read to them this fantastic and almost unbelievable story.
(Composite photos of the rally in Luneta last night taken by John Pagaduan.)
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