Duterte’s First 1,000 Days

My topic is The First 100 days of President Duterte — which is passé because the first 100 days ended last October 7, almost two weeks ago. Let me then talk about the First 100 Days. And then The Next 100 Days, and possibly The First 1000 Days.

The next 1000 days of Duterte are going to be good.

— There will be three consecutive years of 7% of GDP growth.

— Four million Filipinos would have been rescued from poverty

— P12 trillion of your money would have been spent by Duterte out of the P25 trillion he would spend over the next six years.

— P3 trillion of the P12 trillion would have been invested in infra, hopefully including with the replacement of the notorious MRT-3.

Peace would have been forged with the NPA, and with the MILF but not with the Abu Sayyaf, the greatest kidnapping organization in the Philippines outside of our Congress.

— In three years, we would have been making $30 billion a year from from OFW remittances plus another $30 billion a year from business process outsourcing (BPO) or call centers.

But in three years, or by 2019, will Duterte still be our President? That is the question that I don’t like to answer and I would not volunteer to answer.

President Duterte is one person who remembers wrongs and rights of the past. He remembers that the Americans did him wrong. First, when he was student, an American Jesuit molested him sexually. That’s a public admission.

Second, when he was mayor there was an American bombing suspect sometime in early 2002 who was hospitalized then suddenly he was extricated by four Americans apparently, CIA. That American was apparently the suspect in the bombing incident in Davao. (See Rappler: May 16, 2002, Thursda. An explosion occurred inside the room of one Michael Terrence Meiring, an American, at the Evergreen Hotel. Meiring identified himself as a treasure hunter, and even joked that he was part of the “CIA.” Hotel staff told investigators that Meiring brought with him a metal box and warned them not to touch it. The explosion broke his legs. He was later taken from the Davao Doctor’s Hospital by agents claiming to be members of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. The incident angered Duterte as he criticized the United States for being disrespectful. The so-called FBI agents just barged into the hospital, ignoring questions from police authorities who were assigned to watch Meiring.) Apparently, then Mayor Duterte concluded that, that American was trying to trigger the incident to trigger in turn the entry of the Americans. That’s why today, Duterte doesn’t want any American groups in Mindanao, in Mindanao but not the rest of the Philippines.

For the first time in our history, we have a President whose saliva can move up and down the stock market and the peso-dollr rate. The stock market and the peso against the United States dollar have continued their decline. The Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEI) hit 7312 index points last Oct. 13, down 1.58 percent from the Oct. 12 closing index. It makes the Philippine stock market one of the worst performing in Asia.

The peso slipped 0.03 centavos or 0.06 percent to P48.47 from P48.50 on October 12, before correcting at P48.36 on October 19. In 30 days to Oct. 13, the peso has lost 1.76 percent of its value against the US currency and 5.36 percent for the first ten months of this year. Now, 5.36 percent is a very deep depreciation. It makes the peso one of the worst performing against the US dollar in the region.

On June 8, when Rodrigo Roa Duterte was duly elected president of the Philippines, the peso was doing P45.84, a slight appreciation from P46.85 at the beginning of 2016, meaning the currency market was taking his election positively then. On October 13, however, the peso has slumped to its seven-year low at P48.58, a depreciation of 5.97 percent from June 8, 2016, and a drop of 3.7 percent from January this year. They say it’s the Duterte factor, or more specifically, his expletive-laden saliva.

This is also the first time in our history where presidential saliva can move the stock market up and down, depending on whether Duterte is perceived by the market as either sane or sober (index up) or berserk or a psychopath (index down). An actress has called Duterte a psychopath (mentally ill). An arch supporter of the former Davao mayor, former President Fidel V. Ramos has judged that Team Philippines at the losing end under Duterte. “We find our Team Philippines losing in the first 100 days of Du30’s administration – and losing badly,” winces the West Point-trained former four-star general, armed forces boss, defense secretary, and veteran of nine coup attempts (both on the instigator and counter-coup side). FVR is also one of the Philippines’ best presidents having rescued the country from a debilitating energy crisis, revived the economy, and attracted record foreign investments in key sectors of the economy during his presidency (1992-June 1998). FVR finds Duterte a failure in two major areas – leadership and teamwork.

An Italian developer was asking me: “What’s going on? What is the direction of the economy?” I replied that Duterte is in his current saliva mode. The president is a creature of bars and dingy places where drinks are many, camaraderie is strong, and banter, along with ribald jokes and expletives, is freewheeling. In such an atmosphere one lets down his guard, relaxes, and damns tomorrow. But there is a tomorrow, I assured my Italian friend, and it is bright. In Italy, he disclosed “puta” can also be a term of endearment in conversation among friends, not necessarily challenge to one’s ancestry.

The Philippines has among the best economic fundamentals in Asia today. They are so strong the country will just keep progressing even if the president of the Philippines were a dog – or a rat. In other words, the Philippines will survive a rotten chief executive.

The Philippines is a country of 102 million – the 12th largest consumer market on earth. The economy, the 33rd largest in the world, grows by 6 percent per year, among the fastest rates in the region. The country generates annually $26 billion from remittances of 12 million Filipino expats and beginning this year, $25 billion income from business process outsourcing or call centers. These earnings, $51 billion, would be valued at P2.44 trillion – enough to bankroll 73 percent of Duterte’s P3.35 trillion budget.

About 84 percent of the economy is driven by consumption. On an economic output of P14 trillion, that 84 percent is easily P11.78 trillion. Why is consumption strong? Because of the remittances, the BPO proceeds, and savings rate of 32 percent of GDP or P4.48 trillion.

What these figures imply is that the Philippines does not actually need those so-called foreign investments (it was negative $136 million in 2015, a boom year for the economy and meaning we are exporting capital more than we receive). The country does not need investment-grade credit rating because it does not need to borrow. There is plenty of domestic capital. The Bangko Sentral alone has P2 trillion of excess private deposits safely parked by commercial banks in its vaults, for lack of borrowers).

Thankfully, Duterte is not at all a bad president. He knows his focus — illegal drugs, crime, corruption. The biggest victims of these three horrors are the poor. The poor are the biggest users and dealers of illegal drugs. The poor are the biggest victims and perpetrators of crime. Why? Because a hungry stomach knows no law. A small bottle of rugby, bought at P5, will carry a tyke through the course of a day, without meals. A phone snatcher will be able to feed his family of five for a day.

Corruption? Corruption is the reason why the government doesn’t pay attention to the poor. Because the money that should been used to buy food (55 percent of a poor household’s expenditure), render basic services like education (the average Filipino child reaches only Grade 4) and health (80 percent of Filipinos grow up without seeing a doctor), or even to give them basic transportation to and from their place of work – is stolen.

Somebody who can solve the riddle of illegal drugs, crime and corruption will be a great leader. Duterte could be it.