Who’s The Next President? (7th of a Series) RODY DUTERTE: HOT PROSPECT WHO REFUSES TO BE PRESIDENT

By Manny Pinol

On December 27, 1993, three explosions rocked the San Pedro Cathedral in Davao City which killed seven people and injured 151 others, 32 of them seriously wounded.

Police pointed to “Islamic Extremists,” who at the time were at the height of their terror campaign in Mindanao.

Shortly after the bombing of the cathedral, a Davao City mosque was also rocked by grenade explosions and all was quiet afterwards.

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, called Rody or Digong, was on his second term as mayor when the cathedral and the succeeding mosque bombings were perpetrated but he never gave a hint that the two incidents were related.

But people who know Davao City and its controversial mayor, believed that the two bombings were related.

A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye and tit for tat. This is classic Duterte.

There were three bombings in Davao City which happened during the incumbency of Mayor Duterte and he considers all of those incidents as part of a “war of attrition” which government must win.

Duterte, not only Davao City, is scarred by those bombings that until today, the city holds an annual memorial for those who died and were injured in those incidents.

Poor victims of the Davao City Airport and Sasa Wharf bombings for example were given livelihood projects and their lives still being closely monitored by Duterte and his men.

Such is the leadership of Duterte which has endeared him to the people of the biggest city in the world, in land area that is.

He is tough and unforgiving but compassionate. He has opened the doors of Davao City to everyone provided the rules and laws are respected.

For those who transgressed the laws, there were unconfirmed tales of how they were dealt with by “The Punisher.”

A drug pusher was reportedly dropped from the helicopter into the deep Davao Gulf, bodies of Chinese drug laboratory operators were lined up in a highway for everybody to see, a land scam suspect who victimized poor people got a forced serving of a fake land title for breakfast, and lately Manila based members of a kidnap for ransom syndicate saw the last rays of sunlight in Davao City.

He may be projected as tough and sometimes cruel but up close, Rody Duterte is soft-hearted who wants to reach out to almost everybody.

Duterte was the first local chief executive to designate Deputy Mayors representing the Muslims and the Indigenous Tribes in Davao City.

He constantly communicates with the NPAs and has succeeded in working for the release of hostages of the communist group.

Duterte has also reached out to the Muslim secessionist and rebel groups, allowing them entry to the city without being harassed or arrested.

Muslim rebel leaders are so comfortable with him that MNLF Chairman Nur Misuari recently declared that he would like Davao City to be the capital of his dreamed Mindanao Republik.

“I am the Mayor of everybody in Davao City, including the NPAs, the Muslims, the Lumads, and even the criminals,” he once told me.

But for those who crossed swords with him, Duterte could also be unreasonable and terribly scathing. He makes no efforts to hide his disdain for people he does not like, calling them names and throwing cussing them on live TV.

There are of course flaws in Duterte’s person too. He is a known Ladies Man who publicly justifies it by saying that he is single since his marriage to his first wife, Elizabeth Zimmerman, mother of former Mayor Sarah Duterte-Carpio and incumbent Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte, had been annulled.

While he is a public servant, he has maintained a certain degree of privacy that not even his closest friends could violate.

No direct phone calls could be made to him except through his trusted aides, one who is Christopher “Bong” Go, and nobody could change his sleeping habits.

His critics say that Duterte’s three priorities in governance are: 1. Peace and Order, 2. Peace and Order, and 3. Peace and Order.

But the people of Davao City, at least the great majority of them, love Rody Duterte and they follow and obey his rules.

No Smoking in public places or you will be arrested. And people are really arrested.

No Firecrackers during Christmas and New Year and nobody dares violate that.

And lately, 30 KPH speed limit within the city.

Everybody obeys.

Most of all, Duterte has led a simple life and is never known to be a big spender.

This, I believe, is what fascinates people to the point that they would like Duterte to do for the Philippines what he is doing in Davao City.

Sick and tired of the corruption in government, frustrated by the inability of the law enforcement agencies to check criminality, scandalized by the spectacle of the rich getting away with murder, and pained by the failure of government to touch their lives, the Filipinos are yearning for somebody like Duterte.

They would like their leader to be a person who could kill if there is a need to kill, slap somebody in the face when there is a reason to do that, and most of all care for them in their moments of despair and distress and be one with them.

The Duterte people saw crying after he saw the devastation left behind by Typhoon Yolanda touched people.

Lately, he made a mark on the country’s farmers when he vowed to kill the rice smugglers who are making life difficult for the Filipino farmer.

But the problem is Duterte has only one dream: To be Mayor of Davao City.

I have known Duterte up close, especially so because he is the only godfather of my youngest child, Bernhart Immanuel, and one of the “Ninongs” (major sponsor) in the wedding of my daughter, Dr. Maria Krista.

I know that before the position of Secretary of the Interior and Local Government was given to Mar Roxas, it was offered to Duterte. So were other top positions in government.

But he turned those offers down.

“What will I do there? I like it here in Davao City,” he once told me.

The Presidency?

“You want him to shoot me?” said a close adviser to the Mayor when he was asked by somebody to convince Duterte to run for president.

This is the predicament of people who would like to see Duterte become President and reform this pitiful nation wracked by corruption, dirty politics and injustice.

The people would like him to be President. But will Rody Duterte heed the clamor of the Filipinos?

True to his reputation of being very private, en.wikipedia.org only has this short information on Mayor Duterte:

Early life and education

Duterte was born on March 28, 1945 at Maasin, Leyte to Vicente G. Duterte, who served as Governor of Davao and Soledad Roa, a school teacher and a civic leader.

He spent his elementary days at the Sta. Ana Elementary School in Davao City, where he graduated in 1956. He finished his secondary education at the Holy Cross of Digos.

For his tertiary education, he took up a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Lyceum of the Philippines University, where he graduated in 1968.

He also obtained law degree from San Beda College in 1972. In the same year, he passed the bar exam.

Political life

After the 1986 People Power Revolution, Duterte was appointed officer-in-charge vice mayor. In 1988, he ran for mayor and won, serving until 1998.

He set a precedent by designating deputy mayors that represented the Lumad and Moro in the city government, which was later copied in other parts of the country.

In 1998, because he was term-limited to run again for mayor, he ran for the House of Representatives and won as Congressman of the 1st District of Davao City.

In 2001, he ran again for mayor in Davao and was again elected for his fourth term. He was reelected in 2004 and in 2007. In 2010, he was elected vice mayor, succeeding his daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, who was elected as mayor.

Under Duterte’s leadership, Davao City has maintained its peace and stability.

The city’s crime rate dropped so dramatically that local tourism organizations dub it as “one of the most peaceful cities in Southeast Asia”.[2] Duterte, who has been nicknamed “The Punisher” by Time magazine,[2] has been criticized by human rights groups and by Amnesty International for tolerating extrajudicial killings of crime suspects.[2][3][4][5]