By Charmaine Deogracias Vera Files Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will visit Beijing on Oct. 20 and 21, in what reliable diplomatic sources say is a…
Making life worth living.
Month: September 2016
After taking on the holiest of the living figures – Pope Francis; the president of the world’s superpower – U.S. President Barack Obama; and the Secretary General of the United Nations – Ban Ki Moon, he had ran out of adversaries.
The leader voted by “the National Aeronautic and Space Administration as the best president in the solar system”- a title Duterte fanatics applauded and shared in social media, went beyond earthly realm and questioned the existence of God.
In the traditional first 100 days assessment of a President’s performance one does not really expect concrete results knowing the complexities of governance but within the first three months, the public should have an idea the direction that the president is leading the country to.
Duterte has made clear what the public can expect in the coming months: there will be more killings.
The numbers vary and are difficult to ascertain but the figure being mentioned in news reports of illegal drugs related deaths under Duterte’s rule range from 1,500 to 300,000. The numbers continue to increase every day.
So traumatized and demoralized are the foreign service corps – with the damage control operation that they have to perform every time President Duterte curses other governments and international institutions plus the impending appointments of retired generals to ambassadorial posts – that many like the idea of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as the next foreign secretary.
That’s the rumor in the diplomatic circle and all are in agreement that Arroyo, as former president, definitely has a better grasp of foreign relations compared to Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay, Jr.
One story going around in the DFA was the briefing given to Yasay in his first week at the DFA on human rights. After a lengthy briefing, Yasay asked: “Are we for or against human rights.”
Those in the room were flabbergasted, we were told.
If the allies of President Duterte in the Senate think that the public will never know the truth in the testimony of Edgar Matobato, self-confessed member of the Davao Death Squad, now that Sen. Leila de Lima has been ousted as chair of the committee on justice and human rights, they should be reminded that truth always finds its way to come out.
Not now, maybe. Sometimes, it takes a more circuitous route, but it will come out.
One of the stories Matobato narrated in his testimony last week was the alleged order of then Davao City mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte to kill the bodyguards of former House Speaker Prospero Nograles who ran against Duterte’s daughter, Sara, for mayor in the 2010 elections.
We don’t have to enumerate bunglings by the Duterte communication team because Press Secretary Martin Andanar has admitted it.
“Tayo naman ay hindi perpekto ‘no, tayo’y nagkakamali din, pero Inaayos natin itong mga pagkakamali na ito (We are not perfect and we make mistakes. We are correcting our mistakes),” Andanar said in a radio interview.
At least he is humble enough to admit his mistakes which cannot be said of some communication officials of the previous president.
Andanar said in the current standard operating procedure for delivering the President’s messages it’s only Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella who will be speaking. Only if Abella is not available does he come in.
Unang lumabas ang column na ito sa Abante (http://www.abante.com.ph/prangkahan-sobrang-galing-ni-alan-cayetano.htm)
Bilib na talaga ako kay Sen. Alan Cayetano.
Biruin nyo walang naka-isip sa mga senador sa hearing ng Senado tungkol sa mga nangyayari na extra-judicial killings kunektado sa kampanya ni Pangulong Duterte na i-testing ang kredibilidad ng witness na si Edgar Matobato.
Sabi ni Matobato, dati daw siyang miyembro ng Davao Death Squad at marami siyang sinalihan na operasyon na pagpatay sa utos daw ni Duterte.
Sabi niya,may ilan sila pinatay na binalot nila ng “masking tape.”
There’s an expression in English,”Cutting off the nose to spite the face” which refers to a person’s self-destructive action as he hits back at someone he thinks had done him wrong but his needless action actually hurts him more than the object of his anger.
That appears to be what President Duterte is doing against U.S. President Obama after his disastrous performance at the 2016 Asean summit in Vientiane Laos last week.
That sad thing about it is that, it is not himself that he is hurting but the country. And it was he who unnecessarily caused this series of snubs with his tirade against Obama in answer to a hypothetical question in a pre-departure for Asean summit press conference.
President Duterte at first played coy when asked about his assessment of his debut in the international stage in the 2016 summit of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the 18-country East Asia Summit in Laos last week, upon his arrival from Jakarta where he proceeded after the Asean meetings saying it would be “self-serving.” But with little prodding he opened up, “I’m sure that if you’re a Filipino, you’d be proud of me.”
He said the only ones who would not be proud of what he did in Laos and Indonesia (where he proceeded for a state visit from Vientiane) are the “low-life sa press, iyong mga kolumnista, nothing is really too good to be true.”
“Pero hindi kayo napahiya (I did not embarrass you), I assure you, and everybody was clapping except for dalawa (two). But ah, bilib sila sa akin (they admired me),” he enthused. He declined to name who were the two.
Duterte was narrating the plenary session of the East Asia Summit last Thursday, Sep. 8. Participants in the East Asia Summit which follows the ASEAN summit are the 10 members of Asean namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam joined by dialogue partners Australia, China, Japan, India, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and United States.
Whatever one’s political leaning is, every Filipino wants to be proud of the President when he appears in the world stage.
He represents the Filipino people. His success is our success. His embarrassment is our embarrassment.
The 2016 Asean summit in Vientiane, Laos was President Duterte’s first official foreign trip. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the other world leaders, it was an opportunity for him to show the world his remarkable transition from city mayor to president of one of the Asia’s vibrant democracy.
As Philippine president, he had a prominent role in Laos Asean meeting because next year it will be the Philippines’ turn to host the summit of the 10-country regional grouping to be followed by meeting of leaders of ASEAN’s 10 dialogue partners which include China, Japan, South Korea , and the United States.
But he wasted that opportunity by his offensive remarks made on the eve of the summit directed to the leader of the world’s superpower whom he had not yet met in person and had not said anything bad about him.
The regrettable thing about it is that, those disgusting remarks were not warranted.