Duterte: A Dictator in Transit?

The president, at this stage, is simply walking in the footsteps of the late dictator. Will PRRD declare martial law, too?

I grew up listening to music from my parents back in the 70s and 80s. I spent so much time with them back then that I could easily say if a song was from that era (or patterned after that period at least).

I confess, I've also been ashamed about admitting that I am fond of old songs, but with pop culture shamelessly bringing back the sounds of the past—take for example my favorite band, IV of Spades, who unapologetically pattern their sound to 70’s disco— it's all right to come out now and tell the world that a roll to the past and a throwback to the good old days won’t hurt.

It's a curious phenomenon, to be honest: after all, we live in the Internet's fast-paced world where everything is constantly evolving and moving and it's easy to simply forget and carry on. But while patterns come and go and come back at one point or another, it’s an entire different matter when we talk of history.

History in itself demands remembering: we look on the past for us to relive victories and defeats, to rethink our perspectives on issues, and to reflect on the times when we went wrong, attempting we won’t repeat them.

For example, the fact that we are inching towards another dictatorship is certainly hard to grasp, as it seems to most of us that the notion of dictatorships is a thing of the past. After all, I can still write this article about how large the pores of the president are, or that people can still march in the streets and burn effigies casting his face.

Though I was luckily not born under the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos during the dark years of martial law—which witnessed rampant corruption, murders, arrests and torture of political opponents and forced disappearances of thousands of activists—2019’s martial law protest commemorating the 47th anniversary of its declaration made one thing that my mind, for already quite some time, brewed coherent: by all means, we are inching into another dictatorship, almost similar (if not worse than) to that which our nation suffered under the Marcoses.

Tracing Parallels

I’ve already heard the chant “Duterte, Marcos, walang pinag-iba! Parehong tuta! Diktador! Pasista!” (Duterte and Marcos do not differ; both are dogs, dictators, and fascists) in various protests, but the enraged chant took on a deeper meaning last September 18 in the martial law commemoration protest to decry the looming dictatorship under Rodrigo Duterte.

We have a Marcos fanboy for a president whose first three years in power saw the most politically turbulent years in Philippine history probably unseen since the 70’s and 80’s: history is being revised in real time by trolls and fake news catalysts, as mass killings and rampant and blatant abuses of human rights continue under Duterte's brutal drug war, and criticism against his increasing authoritarian rule is being gradually criminalized by his tirades against media outlets; trumped up charges against and arrests of its political rivals in all branches of government; and the constant threat of putting the whole country under martial law or a "revolutionary government" to thwart suspected plots of destabilization against his reign. Duterte is doing a fine job for a Marcos fanboy in pursuing the footsteps of the late dictator and it is becoming increasingly apparent that he is paving the way for another dictatorship.

Tyrannical regimes and dictators do not come to power in one swoop and when Ferdinand Marcos signed Proclamation No. 1081 four decades ago and seven years ago, he did not become a tyrant in that instant. In 1968, four years before martial law was proclaimed, late Senator Ninoy Aquino cautioned that Marcos turned the country into a "garrison state," and for the leftists who supported the 1970 First Quarter Storm's revolutionary student protests. The violent dispersal and repression of demonstrations that erupted in schools and universities almost every day — which Marcos believed to be a "local Maoist communist revolt"—proved to be telling signs of a rising dictator who feared the people’s uprising. 

Marcos would place the blame on the Communists and his political rivals for the 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing — along with other bombing and bombing attempts that rattled Manila that year, as well as the staged attempted assassination of then-Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile the following year. The military quickly moved into action as they closed down newspapers, radio and television stations and detained journalists, political rivals and activists critics of Marcos, accusing them all of being communists and subversives.

 Does it somehow seem familiar?

At this point, the parallels are undeniably uncanny. 

The Marcos Fanboy President Duterte Is

Despite his fixation to narcotics and killings and disrespect for human rights and checks and balances, Duterte has an evidently obsessive fixation on squashing suspected plots of destabilization against him, and like the real Marcos fanboy he is, these plots against him were led by — shocker! —Communists and their connivance with his critics. 

While I can conspire and write about how the government’s mishandling of this pandemic is all for show—a well calculated, predicted, and going accordingly as planned: from invalidating the degree of the COVID-19’s lethality by merely dismissing and calling it “veerus”; late banning of flights in avoidance to “hurt” China and Philippines’ diplomatic ties (more like their feelings); having been more fixated on deploying military forces rather than medical solutions; “NPA raids” in certain provinces (e.g. in Balangiga; which later on proved by local witnesses to be military stunts); to the recent repression of press freedom (manifested on country’s largest media outlet, ABS-CBN’s shutdown and taking down critic journalists). All of these events are flowing smoothly as they anticipated, only that critics make the road rocky for them because to their surprise, Filipinos think and do not just nod their head when they are told to (well, excluding his die hard supporters). Thus the criminalization of those who are cognitive (or at least rational) enough to question his decisions for the country.

What is ironic is that this Filipino “strong man” seems to submit to the neighboring country—China—which he considers to be best of friends with. But do you wag your tail to your best friend? Or bark in his behalf, at least? You bet. And where does it lead to?  In all obvious means, it all leads to another era of governmental abuses and excesses (as if it is yet to exist and at present times does not).

As he becomes more and more parallel to Marcos, it boggles my mind: Does Duterte even need to declare martial law?

If there is something that history wants to tell us, it would be that revolutions are not born form the internet’s echo chambers; but it sure as hell could be a prolific womb to breed in. This is not the throwback we asked for.

I had fun editing the images myself, especially the lead image.

Do you think this looming dictatorship of President Duterte will lead to an eventual declaration of martial law?