by Chito A. Fuentes
“If ever I will go to prison, it will not be about money,” Mayor Rodrigo Duterte confidently declared before a gathering of judges, lawyers and law students.
Duterte issued the statement during the testimonial dinner for the four new lawyers of the Liceo de Cagayan University College of Law.
The mayor was enumerating the reasons why he does not want to be president when he made the declaration.
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| Screen grab of results of a survey by a broadcasting company as of July 31, 2015 |
“What will I get from that? So many problems: China, Mindanao, ask any mayor who your friend what is the problem and he will tell you ‘drugs,” he said in the vernacular.
Duterte said the problem is so enormous that it can never be solved under prevailing conditions.
“You cannot fix what is unfixable,you cannot save democracy because democracy is fractured,” adding that “it is only for the elite and moneyed people”.
The mayor said there are now three million addicts in a country with a population of 101 million.
If by accident God makes him president, Duterte said going after the criminal syndicates will be “bloody”.
It did not come as a surprise to his audience many of whom are already familiar with his uncompromising stance against illegal drugs and criminality.
Duterte recalled what it was like when he first assumed as mayor in 1988.
“Davao was a ghost country, my city suffered so much,” he narrated.
During the violent years, Duterte said the city lost 410 policemen, soldiers and militiamen.
The prosecutor-turned-mayor, however, was up to the challenge such that Davao is now the country’s safest city.
Duterte says he has “so many accolades to last me a lifetime.”
“Just thinking about it makes me happy,” he confessed.
Duterte insists that he needs the presidency “like a hole in the head”.
Acknowledging the persistent call for him to join the presidential race, Duterte said the enormous problems are what makes him avoid it “at all cost”.
“How do you deal with police who are into criminality? By what stretch of imagination can you really define due process if you want to reform this government?” he asked.
Duterte said that if anybody can answer these questions, “maybe I will consider it”.
“I will never give a space to criminals,” he vowed.
But if it is his destiny to be president, Duterte told his audience what to expect.
“After six years, I’m going to give you a new government and a new order,” he categorically declared.
Pointing to the jail time that befell the last two presidents, Duterte hinted that he would be ready to suffer the same fate when he steps down.
If ever that happens, however, the mayor was sure it will never be about corruption.
“It will be about multiple murder or genocide,” he suggested. (CHITO A. FUENTES)
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