Just being here in Bantayan to launch a book about the town’s famous Holy Thursday and Good Friday processional tableaux, I can grasp fully the phenomenal rise of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte. Everywhere in this island, I see his name and face on tarps all over the three towns in the island. Only that of One Cebu and the Winston Garcia-Nerissa Soon Ruiz tandem for governor and vice governor, respectively, can match the proliferation of campaign posters here.
On the way here, I even chanced in Danao City a huge tarp of the good Davao mayor placed right over the fence of a Durano residence beside the highway.
So many on the way from Cebu to Bantayan, thus far, seem to be rooting for this candidate that, as of this writing, does not even have any local candidates. And now Duterte is in a virtual tie with erstwhile front-runner Grace Poe in the latest Pulse Asia survey.
What explains this wellspring of support that clearly does not come from traditional political machinery that lorded over previous national elections?
My reading of this phenomenon has to do also with the equally meteoric rise of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the son of the dictator who could have made this country great but ended up ruining the economy and fleeing into exile.
Just what do the voters see in Duterte that they also see in the young Marcos? The quick answer is discipline and no-nonsense governance.
We have heard stories of how Duterte cleaned Davao of the dregs of society, even incurring the ire of human rights advocates. We have also heard of what Bongbong Marcos has done in his beloved Ilocos, even building the country’s first wind-farm that is fast becoming a tourist attraction there.
But will the two, if given the reins of power, make true their promises and the carefully cultivated image they present to the public?
There is a growing movement to remind the young generation as well as the middle class of the sins of Bongbong’s father, which, thanks to the presidents that came after his dictator dad, are seen by some to be minuscule when compared to the bad governance that we have been in since the Marcoses were exiled. That movement may yet derail the young Marcos’ sudden rise amid a people who suffer from historical amnesia.
Whether pro or anti-Marcos, one must understand that the recourse of many to see in Bongbong—and without doubt in the untainted Rody—the hope for a better future is precisely because we have seen no end to the morass of corruption and bad governance this country seems to be wallowing in since 1986 (well, except for some brief periods during the Ramos presidency).
True, the economy is growing but so is corruption and the sheer inability of government to attend to basic services and trickle wealth down to the poor. The desperation is such that people are in fact willing to reconsider history and revise the verdict on the dictator Marcos so as to see his son rise and, if this continues, eventually reach Malacañang by 2022.
In other words, people have vested in Rody and, unfortunately, in Bongbong the future because the last six years or twelve or even 30 years has not changed their lives. But to see Rody and Bongbong eventually working together as president and vice president heading towards one direction is not a given.
While Rody has the wherewithal to steer the country to a better future (he has proof in the Davao that he has disciplined and remolded), one cannot necessarily say the same for Bongbong who, unfortunately, continues to defend the record of his father and whose record of local governance in Ilocos has not been scrutinized as carefully as that of Rody’s.
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My congratulations to my colleague in the heritage advocacy in Cebu, Dr. Louie Nacorda, on the launch of his two books that are timely for the Holy Week: “Handumanan: The Rosita R. Arcenas Collection of Visayan Santos” and “Bantayan: Passion, Devotion, Tradition.” The double book launch held at Ayala Center’s “The Gallery” was impeccably carried out with Engr. Junjet Primor as event organizer. Special thanks go also to Ayala Center Cebu for collaborating with publisher USC Press on this latest launch anew.
I also wish to thank Msgr. Alfredo Romanillos, parish priest of Bantayan Parish and episcopal vicar of the Cebu archdiocese, together with fellow heritage advocates Archt. Frankie Villacastin-Despi and Archdiocesan Museum of Cebu curator Gerald Desquitado for hosting and preparing the successful launch of the same books last night at the Bantayan Pastoral Center.
Special thanks also to Msgr. Carlito Pono, parish priest of the Carcar Parish and former chair of the Cebu Archdiocesan Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church, for hosting another launch, held last Tuesday, in Carcar with the author in attendance.
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