Philippines' Duterte to make final policy address amid Covid-19, economic woes
In his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) five years ago, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced a unilateral ceasefire with communist rebels who had been waging a decades-old armed insurgency.
Jubilant militant leftist groups reciprocated with something unprecedented: they dropped their custom of holding raucous anti-SONA rallies and instead massed in the streets to support Duterte. They also skipped their tradition of burning effigies of the sitting president.
Today when Duterte delivers his fifth and final SONA, those same groups will be on the streets denouncing the leader and burning his effigy. Not only has Duterte failed to make peace with the rebels, his administration has violently turned on them.
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Protesters rally outside the Commission on Human Rights in Quezon City, Metro Manila. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=Protesters rally outside the Commission on Human Rights in Quezon City, Metro Manila. Photo: EPA-EFE
The leftists will be joined by a range of other protest groups, whose sentiments are best expressed by a sign draped on a footbridge over a road leading to the SONA venue: "Goodbye Duterte".
"We say 'no more!' to a Duterte kind of governance," said Cristinay Palabay, secretary general of human rights group Karapatan.
"We will not let him get away with mass murder and state repression, and we vow to not let his successor claim victory in the coming elections," she added. "We must end Duterte's reign of terror ... and hold him to account for his crimes against the Filipino people."
Protestors march along a road leading to the Philippine Congress in Quezon City on July 26, 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE alt=Protestors march along a road leading to the Philippine Congress in Quezon City on July 26, 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE
UNFULFILLED PROMISES
When Duterte took power in 2016, he vowed to win the war on drugs, crush crime and eliminate corruption. Far from accomplishing these things, he has several times admitted he has failed.
Duterte could even face a trial at the International Criminal Court over the war on drugs, after a prosecutor's office of the ICC in The Hague announced last month it had requested an investigation into the government on suspicion of crimes against humanity.
If the probe goes ahead, he would be the Philippines' first president to face such a prospect.
Anti-riot policemen block protesters at a road leading to Congress on July 26, 2021. Photo: AFP alt=Anti-riot policemen block protesters at a road leading to Congress on July 26, 2021. Photo: AFP
And in his last year in office, the Philippines is reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic, with the economy on its knees.
"The economy dive-bombed, from positive six per cent GDP growth to negative nine. That's a record, the worst since World War II," said political analyst Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform.
Casiple said compared to other countries, the economic measures taken by Duterte administration's may even have worsened the contraction.
"Other countries were hit by the pandemic but their economies didn't fall [as] much. The measures Duterte took; there's a question of whether they contributed to the fall," he said.
The government's handling of Covid-19 has also been criticised as inefficient and poorly managed.
As of Sunday, the health department recorded 54,262 active cases of the original strain and three other variants. The country has seen a total of 1.5 million cases since March last year, of which 1.4 million recovered and 27,224 died, making it the second worst-affected nation in Southeast Asia.
RJ Naguit, a spokesman of the opposition Akbayan party, said Duterte had done the opposite of improving the lives of Filipinos.
"Mr Duterte promised to make our country safer, stronger and more prosperous," he said. "But five years into his presidency, our country has sunk to the lowest of the low."
Workers fill a shoreline on Manila Bay with artificial sand on September 10, 2020. Photo: Reuters alt=Workers fill a shoreline on Manila Bay with artificial sand on September 10, 2020. Photo: Reuters
He compared Duterte's promises to the administration's "dolomite beach" - a US$8 million tourism project started last year to beautify part of Manila Bay with tonnes of artificial sand. Several storms have repeatedly washed away the fake beach, but government workers have persisted in dumping more sand, leading to criticism that the money could be better spent elsewhere.
"Duterte's big promises were completely washed away, like his precious dolomite sand," Naguit said. "All that is left are stagnant pools of blood and filth. For all of his strongman talk to make our country safer and better, he is a dismal failure."
RECOVERY PLANS
Despite the range of policy failures, Duterte remains popular among voters and has maintained majority support in Congress in the past five years, solidified during the 2019 elections.
His popularity - which hit as high as 91 per cent in the most recent poll - allows him to keep legislators on his side, said University of the Philippines political science professor Jean Franco.
"It's really unusual for a president to be this popular near the end of his term," said Franco, who specialises in legislative politics. "It gives the president a lot of leverage in terms of his relationship with Congress."
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte pictured with daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio on October 22, 2019. Photo: Reuters alt=Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte pictured with daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio on October 22, 2019. Photo: Reuters
Duterte is expected to urge lawmakers to pass bills to complete his tax agenda. Legislators will await Duterte's directives on any further stimulus for pandemic recovery and on pending revenue bills, including proposed taxes on online casinos, House ways and means committee chairperson Joey Salceda said.
Senators will prioritise measures to further open the economy to foreign investors, Senate President Vicente Sotto said at a briefing on Monday. Meanwhile, the House will focus on next year's budget that will aid in the nation's pandemic fight, Speaker Lord Allan Velasco said in a speech.
The Philippine leader's sustained appeal with voters will also be an advantage for his candidate in next year's presidential elections. Among his possible bets are his daughter Sara, his aide Senator Christopher "Bong" Go and former Senator Ferdinand Marcos.
"Duterte could use his State of the Nation Address to give hints as to the kind of candidate he will anoint," Franco said. "He will also, of course, again be insulting and making remarks against his opponents."
Additional reporting by dpa
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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