THIS ISN’T ABOUT DUTERTE;
IT’S FRUSTRATION, DISGUST
By Manny Piñol
This is a phenomenon which social and political scientists will have to seriously study in the future, this bizarre spectacle of people who wait for hours just to see a man who has been the subject of endless media attacks and vilification campaign.
Yesterday in Cavite, a province with 1.8-million voters, people waited for four hours and many more, who hoped that presidential frontrunner Rody Duterte would pass their way, stayed up until midnight.
This was the scene even after five days of relentless attacks on Duterte over his controversial narrative on the rape and killing of an Australian preacher 27 years ago, his verbal jousts with the envoys of the US and Australia, his foul language and even a psychological report pilfered from the documents related to the annulment of his marriage with Elizabeth Zimmerman, mother of his three older children.
I can just imagine the consternation of those who are desperately splurging hundreds of millions of pesos for an endless media campaign against Duterte seeing the size of the crowd steadily growing in the most unlikely places.
Bacolod, Iloilo, Aklan and yesterday Cavite. These areas were previously considered “unfriendly territories.”
Bacolod, Iloilo and Aklan are acknowledged Liberal Party (LP) playgrounds where Manuel Roxas III is supposed to be the favorite but the crowds came and rooted for the Guest Team.
Cavite was the garden Vice President Jejomar Binay tended to for several years now watering the local political leaders with cash.
The province was his until his local partners, the powerful Remulla political clan apparently slighted by the actions of Binay’s children, decided to call it quits and left the garden open for other harvesters.
Based on the number and enthusiasm of the crowd yesterday, it looks like Cavite will go to Duterte with or without the political gardeners.
So with a little over two weeks left in the campaign, Duterte faces his date with destiny with over 60% of Mindanao’s 12 million voters behind him, over 50% of Cebu’s 2.8-million voters, 34% of Metro Manila’s 6-million plus voters and now the prospect of winning majority of Cavite’s 1.8-million electorates.
Adding to the headache of his political opponents is the result of the recent ABS-CBN commissioned Pulse Asia survey for the period April 12 to 17 which showed Duterte at 34%, twelve full percentage points ahead of Grace Poe Llamanzares whose numbers continued to drop.
Binay comes in third with 20% while Roxas remained in fourth place with 18%.
Roxas, whose group along with Binay’s, is believed to be behind the black propaganda blitz against Duterte, is not expected to move up as many of his allies are now deserting him.
The most recent loss for Roxas was Gov. Joey Salceda of Albay who joined Poe’s camp. Many others are expected to leave the LP as the election draws near.
So what is it with Duterte that he seems to have a Kevlar body armour that makes him almost unaffected by the attacks?
Maybe, just maybe, this is not really about or because of Duterte.
This could be about the people themselves. They may have reached a point of frustration with government and the system that they have become numbed and hardheaded.
They do not want to listen anymore, not to Duterte’s foul language or his opponents vicious attacks.
They have chosen Duterte because they see him as the uncouth, foul-mouthed, rough and tough guy who will watch over them and their children as they sleep peacefully at night.
This episode in the history of our country and our people could be a good case study for social scientists on human behaviour and for political scientists to determine at what point of government corruption, inefficiency, unchecked criminality and drugs-proliferation do people’s emotions reach a melting point.
This is the Duterte Syndrome.
Reposted with permission from Manny Piñol.
(Photos of Cavite crowd downloaded from the Facebook page of Noel Landera Sarifa and a Duterte supporter; Novaliches crowd photos taken by Charles Maxey. Only one photo is used in this article but the original post had several photos.)
