The Duterte legacy

Conclusion

There is no denying that President Duterte has succeeded in lifting the country from the sorry state he found it in at the beginning of his term. Now that his term is ending, the urgent question that he must be facing is how to sustain well into the next administration the enormous gains he has achieved for the country. The term limit imposed by the Constitution for president actually makes for one of acute maladies of the Philippine political system. Before the Cory Constitution of 1987, what was in place was the 1973 Constitution, which replaced the martial law rule, and before this, the 1935 Constitution under which the military regime of President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., beginning 1972, was established. This Constitution provides for a four-year term of office of the president with reelection but for a period not exceeding eight years; hence only one reelection. When the 1973 Constitution came into place, that term limit was fixed at six years without reelection. Such term limit was arrived at as a compromise thus: four years is too short for a good president whereas eight years is too long for a bad one. The fallacy in this criterion is that governments are not judged on whether a president is good or bad, but on what programs beneficial to the people he has crafted and dutifully implemented. If this were to be the guidepost for choosing a president, the elements of “goodness” or “badness” don’t figure. Rather of paramount importance is that he is in the best position to continue the work of good government begun earlier than his term or even way back from his term.

For all practical considerations, even six years is too short for government programs whose full fruition is realizable only over time much beyond the constitutionally mandated presidential term. This is the case of the many economic development programs initiated by the Duterte administration.

Even six years has proven not enough for those programs to be completed and accrue benefits to the people. Under a political system where partisan interests is the rule, vindictiveness by a victorious opposition almost always overrides national interest that has been made inherent in the programs of the losing incumbent administration. Under the guise of crafting a new set of government programs, the victors in elections summarily set aside the ones already begun by the previous administration to the utter detriment of the people. A classic case in this regard is the nuclear power plant built by President Ferdinand E. Marcos during the martial law regime. That plant would have solved as early as then the exorbitantly high cost of electricity. But a typically vindictive usurper of political power, Ninoy’s widow Cory, ordered the closure of the plant upon assumption of the presidency in EDSA 1, Among the first acts of the usurper was, together with the release pronto of Communist Party of the Philippines Chairman Jose Maria Sison, the return of Meralco to the Lopezes gratis et amore. Clearly from this example, we see how in the hands of the callously evil, the presidency can be manipulated to favor only personal interests.