The Duterte government is on overdrive, providing us all with requisite distractions from the fact that the Duterte-appointed consultative committee has drafted a federal constitution to the President’s liking, and we’re all back to this discussion, not about whether or not we even want charter change, or if it’s necessary at all, but about how it’s going to happen.

Let that sink in.

Duterte’s propagandists and chacha advocates have been able to bring it to this point when we’re not even discussing whether or not charter change will happen but how it will happen. The President and his people have muscled their way through this charter change push — we’re talking THREE different federal constitutions after all since August 2016 — and it has been able to do this by utilizing what we’ve seen government do consistently and viciously the past two years: chaos-by-design.

We complain that his communications team is terrible, that they are incompetent, but that is part of the grand design. One controversy over one incompetence over one corruption controversy, on loop, layered with the President’s big mouth, and here we are: faced with the threat of charter change so close, sold as a done deal, discussed as if we, the people, have no choice in it.

It is as Duterte and his men have planned. And I realize now that ChaCha was always been Duterte’s endgame, federalism not just a campaign promise he made, but a promise made to him. 

A memory: a long time ago I was in China with a group of people who were all excited that Duterte had just confirmed he was running for president. It was in late 2015, and a majority of these people I was traveling with were federalism advocates and they were all banking on Duterte’s candidacy. That he would win was a foregone conclusion.

The youngest in that group, I imagine I was dismissed as a nobody, an innocent bystander, who was wont to smile in the face of disagreement. I was in fact operating on just basic respect for elders — they were all senior citizens save for one other reporter. At that time too, we were all united on being critical of the Aquino government so I guess it was presumed that regardless of whether I was pro-Duterte or not, at the very least, I was not pro-Liberal Party, which was the common enemy.

To this group of people, a mix of Davaoeños, oligarch-connected, and old rich, it was Duterte or no one else, because the goal was charter change to federalism. They were all for removing the restrictions on foreign ownership of land and businesses, they all felt and thought that this restriction in the 1987 Constitution is the reason for national poverty.

I remember this one night when Duterte announced he wasn’t running for president. We were waiting to be called for dinner and the group was gathered together, trying and failing to get internet access (because China censorship), but discussing whatever messages and news we could get from the Philippines about Duterte’s pronouncement.

I remember distinctly Carmen Pedrosa, whose dismay was palpable: what now? what will become of us? Duterte is the last hope. Wala nang pag-asa kung hindi tatakbo si Duterte.

I was removed of course from this dismay: I’ve stood against charter change since the time of Fidel Ramos. There was absolutely no reason to believe otherwise so many presidents in. I was also on the fence about Duterte, half disbelieving that he would even win the presidency, the other half disgusted at his pro-rape, anti-human rights rhetoric as candidate. I was wont to boycott the elections altogether.

Well, the rest is history. Pedrosa is now director of the Philippine Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) — a realization that dawned on me when I saw her in photographs signing the memorandum of agreement with the Chinese investors for the Boracay casino. All the other members of that press junket, save for four of us, as far as I can tell, are staunch Duterte supporters — even now, two years in, with thousands dead, a terrible economy, an anti-people TRAIN law, and two years of proof that Duterte has no idea what he’s doing. 

Ah, but I go back to that China trip and how that group of people thought it had to be Duterte or nothing. I wonder now what changed Duterte’s mind about running, especially since he has admitted often enough that he didn’t even want to do it, that he doesn’t care for the Presidency, that he’s not one to even want to stay as president. I wonder now, because so close to the planned chacha, he is again repeating this like mantra: I can step down, I don’t even need to lead the transition government.

I go back too, to soon after he won, and how it took a while before this idea of a “revolutionary government” died down, pushed as it was by his supporters, insisting as they did that “the people” had the power to declare a revolutionary government, and it could only happen with Duterte, because they trust him. They trust him to build a transition team that will function at a time when all branches of government will be abolished — the executive, the judiciary, and congress — and the President will operate via executive orders until the shift to federalism was done.

This is no different from the all-powerful transition committee that the consultative committee’s federal constitution says we will have once chacha is approved.

I think now that this has always been the plan. Chacha to federalism was always the endgame. So while chacha is a Duterte campaign promise, it was a promise not to all of us, but to the people who were supporting him already, putting out money for his campaign, ensuring that he would win.

But also, and more importantly, chacha to federalism was a promise made to Duterte.

If I were to hazard an educated guess: the promise to Duterte was that he wouldn’t need to finish his six years, that the presidency could be cut short either with revgov, or with chacha to federalism. The load and burden and responsibility of “being president” distributed among federal state leaders.

Here’s the thing with a person who didn’t really want to be president, but ran anyway: he can’t wait to get out of there. And he’s at the mercy of all these people — oligarchs, old rich, businessmen — who don’t care for nation and just want more power and cash in their hands. A certainty with chacha. A promise that Duterte makes when he pushes for any of the federal constitutions. 

Someone should tell Duterte that if he really doesn’t want to be president anymore, the way to do it is to resign.

We would gladly take Leni at this point. ***