Had President Rodrigo Duterte’s advisers been more proactive, they would not have wasted the nation’s time airing a talk show between him and his legal counsel.
The President’s chat with lawyer Salvador Panelo happened as typhoon Ompong was fast approaching.
The time they used should have spent preparing the nation for these stormy days.
But such is the fate of a divisive leadership.
It scares itself into political crisis mode by problems of its own making.
Duterte had never been a figure of unity, having begun his term as Chief Executive with a speech telling officials of various government agencies to mind their own business and to let the Office of the President be.
Divisiveness rather than synergy in the government mirrored the people’s situation.
Whosoever did not support the President has been maliciously accused of never having accepted his election and of plotting his removal.
That was reading too much into the fact Duterte won a plurality but not a majority of the vote.
He should not have squandered his political capital by miserably failing to build bridges with parts of the population that did not vote for him.
Tragically, rarely anything but hyperbolic vitriol and profanity have defined the communication of the presidency.
It has remained a presidency of its voters, not a presidency of a nation.
Granting that there is truth to the President’s assertion that a coup is in the offing to topple him, he and his circle would not have needed to lash out and craft a patently illegal way to try arresting Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV — if Duterte had endeared himself to the people who validly criticized his ways.
President Duterte would have seen that most of his critics would resist a putsch and defend the Constitution.
But one only sees in others what he sees in himself, so it was but logical, in its own twisted way, for Malacañang to give Trillanes a hard time, thinking that to do so would make people loyal to the regime.
Fat chance.
The persecution of the senator simply confirmed what had been plain for all to see: That the administration sees in the Constitution not a guide for the use of power for service, but a pesky document that should be ignored if power is to be preserved.
Where has that brought the Palace?
To the President’s reluctant and embarrassing backtracking with words to the effect that no one is interested in arresting Trillanes, and now: the hurried posturing to project readiness to respond to a super typhoon when it is already pounding the land.
Misgovernance by the oppressor instills fear in him.
The one who governs well need not be spooked by coup rumors or reports; he confidently rests on the shoulders of his people.