Toward the end of another meandering speech, this time before an assembly of the Tricycle Operators and Drivers Association, the President tried to explain the reasons for his choices. He seemed aware that his three choices were not exactly doing well in the latest surveys on senatorial preferences.
While his own ballot, he said, would include other names, Mr. Duterte repeatedly appealed for support for Bong, Bato and Francis. He urged his listeners to do their own “mathematics,” and consider adding more names — like that of Freddie Aguilar (“the only singer whose songs have a message”) and Imee Marcos (“who supported me when I ran for the presidency”).
Aguilar and Marcos weren’t there. But, another candidate for senator was — former presidential spokesman Harry Roque. Apart from routinely acknowledging his presence at the start of his speech, Mr. Duterte largely ignored him. He made no mention of his candidacy, an omission that seemed as loud and clear as the President’s profuse endorsement of Bong Go, Bato dela Rosa and Francis Tolentino. Whether intended or unintended, Harry was made to look like a fool by the President he once served at the cost of his own reputation as a human rights champion.
Mr. Duterte was in campaign mode, though he seemed aware it might not be proper. I will freely translate his words here.
“Now, I will tell you something. Just for you. But if you prefer not to, I won’t — but this is politics…. So, about Bong. Bong really is a Batangueño. He is a Tesoro. It’s his father who is Chinese. But Bong is a Visayan Batangueño from Davao. In Davao, he’s not considered Chinese but more of a Batangueño… Now he’s a candidate. Of course, I must help him. He’s kind, honest — that’s really the first consideration. Honesty. You can trust him with money. He has his own money. His family’s printing press is the biggest in Mindanao.”
Let’s deconstruct this fascinating discourse. Mr. Duterte is trying to neutralize a residual anti-Chinese sentiment that may be used against Bong Go because of his family name. He does this by insisting that Bong is more Batangueño and Visayan than Chinese. Instead of arguing that having Chinese blood or a Chinese surname should not matter in our political choices, the President asks his audience to focus instead on what he believes are this man’s most important traits — his Tagalog-Visayan ethnicity, his generosity and his trustworthiness. In the President’s eyes, Bong is someone who can be relied upon not to steal the people’s money — well, because, he comes from a wealthy family.
It is not just the logic of this message that is flawed. It is also factually without basis: those who have money are not necessarily less corruptible than those without. But, more than this, it is the message’s underlying racial and ethnic bias that is particularly appalling.
It’s the Duterte style to say something one moment, and to quickly shift gear after realizing its double-sided connotation. For example, the President said that Bong Go could be trusted not to steal because he came from a monied family. But, would a rich kid know how the masses live? The exact words of Mr. Duterte are worth reproducing here. “Hindi itong si Bong, medyo anak ng mayaman pero nasanay ’to sa akin. Marunong ito mag-diskarte ng kapwa tao niya. Kasi natuto sa akin eh. Masa talaga ’yan.” (Not Bong: he may be a rich kid, but he learned from me. He knows how to conduct himself in the company of other people. I trained him. He is really from the masses.)
What follows next is an authoritarian peroration on the masses as political subjects. Mr. Duterte says that in Davao, he was always angry and never smiled. He would shout at those who waited on him, threaten them, insult them — but they never took offense. They would unfailingly manifest their undying affection for him by applauding him. I guess that is what he means by “diskarte.”
At one point in his speech, a rare lucid interval, I thought the President came close to highlighting the need to vote for candidates with solid professional credentials and experiences. He told his audience not to be dazzled by sheer popularity. He pointed to Francis Tolentino’s record as mayor of Tagaytay and his training as a lawyer. He boasted that Bong Go is a De la Salle University graduate, not a mere “probinsyano.”
“Bahala na maloko kayo diyan sa mga ano-anong bagay hindi ko lang masabi. Pero pagdating sa gobyerno mamili naman kayo ng tao na dapat sa gobyerno. [Applause] Maawa naman kayo sa bayan ninyo. Iyon lang.” (You may allow yourselves to be fooled by things that I’d rather not mention here. But, when it has to do with government, choose people who are right for government. Have pity on your government. That’s all.)
Hearing that, I almost joined the applause. On that criterion alone, the opposition senatorial slate, without exception, would have the best candidates in the coming elections. But Mr. Duterte’s mind was elsewhere. From out of the blue, he brought up the name of Sen. Manny Pacquiao who is not even a candidate — as though belatedly realizing the implication of what he had just said for his friend and supporter who, after winning a seat in the Senate, still could not decide whether he wants to be a boxer or a senator.
Randy David
• Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:10 AM January 27, 2019:
https://opinion.inquirer.net/119149/dutertes-senatorial-choices#ixzz5nSQAWbpM
The astounding rise of Bong Go
The latest Social Weather Stations public opinion survey on the 2019 senatorial race, which shows longtime Duterte aide Christopher “Bong” Go jumping from 15th-16th place to 5th just before the official start of the election campaign, is hardly surprising. He is, in many ways, President Duterte’s sole senatorial bet, the one and only significant proxy candidate of a sitting president in this midterm elections.
If Go loses, it would reflect on the nature and extent of Mr. Duterte’s influence. It would show that his popularity is not transferable. But, if he wins, especially if he lands in the top six, it would affirm in a big way this President’s unchallenged grip on the people’s consciousness. It would surely set the stage for Mr. Duterte’s anointed successor in the next presidential election.
Mr. Duterte mentions other senatorial candidates at public functions, but never with the same confident and affectionate tone that he exudes when he talks about Bong Go. The latter is clearly more than just a man-Friday to a busy boss. While Go constantly refers to Mr. Duterte as his mentor, their relationship appears to be far more than that of a teacher and a favorite student.
In countless speeches, Mr. Duterte refers to him as his all-round problem solver, his record keeper, his steady sounding board, his brain trust and closest confidant, and more than a son or brother to him. Bong is, in a word, Digong’s “alter ego”—that is, “another aspect of oneself,” as Webster’s New World Dictionary defines the word. As such, he is the quiet and stoic other to Mr. Duterte’s loquacious persona, the soft and gentle side to the hard and unpolished Duterte ego, and, perhaps most important of all, the sole access to the stern patriarch’s complex interior.
To understand this interesting assemblage of roles, I think one has to step out of the modern institutional system from which we tend to view the functions of positions immediately surrounding the nation’s highest official. We are not talking here of the role of executive secretary or of chief of staff, or, even less, that of the presidential spokesperson. Bong Go is more than all of these combined.
He was conferred the nondescript title, “special presidential assistant,” a lazy designation that is thoughtlessly given to all kinds of gofers and characters in a president’s cordon sanitaire. But, while Go may often be seen performing the tasks of a personal secretary for Mr. Duterte, he is far from being a performer of minor and menial tasks. He seems, in fact, to be the chief executive’s ultimate gatekeeper.
As anyone in the business and political community — who has had to navigate the delicate terrain of presidential habits, mood swings, pet peeves and preferences, in order to send a message to the President or secure a favor from him — might know by now, the safest and most assured route to Mr. Duterte is through Bong Go. He not only has a direct line to the President, he also used to keep the latter’s mobile phone for him. His duty is to insulate the President from everything that may potentially disturb his equanimity. Mr. Duterte would sometimes tell his listeners that his own children have to go through Bong Go to be able to reach him.
This is the kind of distance an autocrat creates in order to protect himself from the pressures of his immediate surroundings. Somebody who enjoys his implicit trust has to serve as the chief custodian of that distance. To Mr. Duterte, that is Bong Go.
Go is fully aware of this. Responding to the good news of his astounding performance in the January 2019 survey of senatorial preferences, he solemnly declared: “Just like what I promised you, I will be your bridge to the President, but I also want to be your bridge to real change that can benefit every Filipino.” Once he becomes senator, he will be President Duterte’s direct bridge not just to the Senate but to the entire Congress, the judiciary and the bureaucracy. As senator, he would no longer be merely basking in the reflected power of his boss; he would be reaching out to the other branches of government no longer as a lowly errand boy but as a duly-elected senator of the land.
Go’s bid to run for senator appears to have been instigated by Mr. Duterte himself. It was his way of avenging what he thought was the shabby treatment that people closely associated with him — his son and son-in-law, and then Bong Go — received at Senate hearings. This is what he told a recent assembly of tricycle drivers and operators: “They embarrassed them even though they could get nothing from them. So, when he came back from the hearing, I told Bong, s**t, ‘Bong for the Senate!’ So, there, now he’s a candidate.”
This is a reprise of the same blast of antielitist resentment that catapulted Mr. Duterte to the presidency in 2016. Go echoes this in his recent statement: “I’d like to change the mindset of people that a simple provincial man working as a staff, not popular, not an actor, not from a family of politicians, can dream of serving others in higher capacity.”
But, today, Bong Go is hardly the “simple provincial man” he likes to project himself to be. As the most vital bridge to the President, he has himself become a center of power. The so-called “Malasakit centers” he has set up, bringing together under one roof all the government agencies that the poor need to access for medical and financial assistance, would be a great idea if they bore only the insignia of the Republic. But, paired with the ubiquitous name and face of the would-be senator, these centers have raised the politics of personal patronage to a whole new level.
Randy David
• Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:24 AM February 03, 2019 :
https://opinion.inquirer.net/119297/the-astounding-rise-of-bong-go#ixzz5nSOzwzZA