He admitted even before he assumed office that he is a leftist, and so President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent rants against the US and the European Union, as well as the United Nations (UN) merely reflected the so-called progressive (more like retrogressive) stance of the communists who are now gloating and being invited to state dinners after more than decades of fighting the government.
The President’s stinger started showing when a reporter posed the question about the possibility of US President Barack Obama discussing with him about the allegations of human rights violations committed by way of extrajudicial killings or summary executions of drug suspects.
When President Duterte blew his top and began his own lecture on US violations against the Filipinos, among the first to cheer were the communists, who began egging on the President along with their party-list allies in Congress, to further distance the country from US influence and imperialism, which they have long been clamoring for while underground and waging their antiquated rebellion in the countryside.
Their influence continues to show with President Duterte’s subsequent declarations of how urgent the US troops should move out of Mindanao as well as ending the joint military exercises between them and the country’s military.
He also made mention of “crossing his own Rubicon,” or point of no return, with the US whose policies include not allocating investments and assistance to countries believed to be committing wholesale violation of human rights.
The warning bells began to toll when President Duterte called on the Filipinos to make sacrifices while his government moves to distance the country away from the US and towards China and Russia, both communist countries that have now adopted some form of controlled capitalism in their economic policies after seeing the utter folly of engaging in an arms race with the US and confining themselves to a subsistence-driven economy.
Whether or not President Duterte is making these declarations for show in order to jumpstart the peace talks with the communists and the Moro rebels is beside the point.
His declarations are usually taken as official policy by both domestic and foreign investors, who not only have to deal with worsening traffic congestion, aging infrastructure, dismal internet connections and an uneven labor pool but also an unpredictable and highly volatile President who can change statements and policies at a whim.
We can only hope that, while damaging enough on the surface, the influence and control of these communists and rebels don’t go beyond the President’s statements. But since he makes the final decisions, no amount of double talk by his Cabinet secretaries can erase the fact that the so-called “change” being lobbied and driven by the President is one of creeping socialism.