A Unique Politician

(8/13/18)    Not an Ordinary Man

Is it not that " beneath every strong independent man lies a broken being who had to learn how to get back up and to never depend on anyone? "

The mayor who became the Chief Executive of his country, the Philippines, was no ordinary man. He inherited his unique personality from a lawyer-politician father and an educator mother. According to his sister, he was a "Mama's boy" and finished high school for 7 years, a record so to speak. I laughed at myself or LOL in the internet lingo as it took me years to have a Bachelor's degree as the other years were not in the Transcript of Records. My personal record showed that I matriculated at five institutions of learning in college. They were; (1) the School of Arts and Trades, (2) a Seventh-Day Adventist College, (3) a Jesuit Seminary (4) a Non-Sectarian College (5) another Non-Sectarian College. However, my freshman to junior years were all from a catholic co-ed high school while the Senior year was from an all-boys Ateneo school.

This guy by himself was not an ordinary man. He has a teenage life built on the solid ground of clean fun and frolics. Following his life on social media, FB, YouTube, newspapers, and from friends, I was reminded of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), "about a lighthearted excursion into boyhood." Imagine a teenager coming home after midnight (1 or 2 A.M.) and his mother who loved him avoided the opening of the door by letting him sleep in the bunkhouse swarmed with mosquitoes but was smart enough to solve this problem with a mosquito net in which even to this day prides to bring this gadget (mosquito net) wherever he goes. He has the instinct of a problem solver.

Then, he sneaked out at night when his father, the governor was sound asleep, bringing the car out with the help of their driver and male helper to push the car and start it far from the hearing distance of the father's ears. And how about the overwhelming joy of passing the airplane driving license test!  And when he piloted the plane that almost hit the window where his father was sleeping. Furthermore, the expulsion from Ateneo de Davao and the punishment at San Beda College for a mishap paved his way not to attain the Graduation ceremony. Still, he had a clever answer to this phenomenon but beyond all doubts, he passed the bar on this tumultuous period of the country's history, the Martial Law era. This man is no dummy. And he said, in one of his vignettes', that he was told to memorize the dictionary as a punishment for his mischief.

I wrote this because those episodes about this president's life had some sort of semblance ( who am I, anyway) in my adolescent years. I have that experience of coming home late past midnight and sometimes almost the break of dawn. You know life in a village (barrio) was beyond compare. Everybody loves everybody no spacing or discrimination whatsoever. All are children of the Author of Humanity. Pollution was a stranger. Foods were fresh and organic. Water was not bottled but from a well, You would go serenading with the village teenagers to beautiful, innocent rural maidens and they would love songs. I mean unadulterated tunes from unpretentious minds. You mingle and bond with sons of peasants, as you are one of them, to capture the essence of rural life pregnant with sweet dreams of mystery, with ambition, with meanings. And, in order to be better equipped on the rough and rugged road of life, one must enroll in the Academy of the streetwise, to the College of higher practical skills then would graduate from the University of Hard Knocks.

This president is not an ordinary man. He was not a graduate of the University of the Philippines where some presidents and leaders came from but from the Institute of Common Sense. a Private Religious College, and the University of Hard Knocks. This guy took his master's in the areas of legislation, prosecution, and executive (elected as mayor of Davao City), His doctorate degree's thesis was about peace and order, the elimination of the lethal drug, the demise of graft, and corruption. This was unanimously approved by his landslide win in the election. And you know why this leader was a graduate of Vox Populi University. He favors justice rather than the love of money he dislikes publicity and the appalling crimes of humanity like lethal drugs and terrorism. He profoundly loves his country and his people and loves peace rather than trouble.

Observe and follow his rise from transforming a moribund city, of crime and punishment to a progressive, dynamic, safe metropolis as a mayor of Davao City in the South (Mindanao) to occupy the executive chair of Malacanan Palace (Luzon) in the North. When he spewed the common man's lingo his words were understood and accepted, as the down-to-earth sincere man from the province. When he talked, his countrymen and countrywomen listened. They laughed and they even cried because he did this with fervor, with passion, with sincerity, with a profound love for his people- the common masses. He has even sung in one of his rallies. What the college students before demonstrated against the government and why communism was hatched and thrived in the Philippines because of the fading trust of the people in the leaders that they hoped would emancipate them from the pangs of penury, the sharp claws of corruption, and the quagmire of the economic life which are now being uplifted by this new leader. He is doing his best version to help especially the poor like what his late father (former governor) had done for them in the undivided Davao province era. His leadership is a psalm that enlightens and heartens the people from the bondage of corruption, illegal drugs, criminality, and bitter economic life.

And by the way, amidst the critical atmosphere in his administration, he proceeded to pursue what he had promised which is now visible in his "build, build, build" project that drastically altered the country's landscape and diminished the destructive activities of the CPP, NPA, and NDF.

Yes, Juan de la Cruz, this president of the Philippines, Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte is not an ordinary man.