‘Chaos is a ladder’: why Duterte’s grades rose despite the pandemic, unemployment and PhilHealth disaster

MANILA – The Philippines is fighting to end the worst coronavirus outbreak in Southeast Asia, millions of its inhabitants are unemployed, and health insurer officials are battling billions of pesos corruption claims. And yet 9 out of 10 Filipinos approved of President Rodrigo Duterte’s performance in a recent opinion poll.

Pulse Asia, which conducted the poll released Monday, called it “shocking” and “unbelievable” that 91 percent of those polled approved of Duterte, pollster president Ronald Holmes said.

“The data that we publish is shocking, it is incredible. Even we could not in any way believe what we collected, except that we could not in any way withhold such information because we have been publishing it. [on presidential performance and trust ratings] for the past 21 years, “he said at a forum organized by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP).

So how did Duterte’s ratings rise to 91 percent from 87 percent in December of last year, at the same time that unemployment and hunger figures soared?

For political analyst Richard Heydarian, one factor could be people’s need for a “father figure” in times of national anxiety.

“As Littlefinger said in Game of Thrones, chaos is a leader. Chaos is a ladder also for a populist,” he said on the same forum. “Whenever there is anxiety, they can show themselves as a savior, and President Duterte has done a good job of portraying himself as a family man (head of the family) that people can trust.”

DOLE-OUT IN CASH

The administration distributed a “record” cash aid of P200 billion to the poorest Filipinos during the health crisis, in addition to assistance from the Pilipino Pantawid Pamilyang Program and the small business subsidy program, Presidential spokesman Harry said Tuesday. Roque.

“We really gave a lot of money from the people’s coffers to our compatriots during the pandemic. The Filipino, he is very grateful,” he told TeleRadyo.

Aside from the cash aid, the government has also deferred the loans and the participation in the Philippine coronavirus tests is among the highest in the Asian region, Heydarian said.

“People are seeing that the government is doing something,” he said.

Of the 1,200 people surveyed by Pulse Asia, 8 percent belonged to the richest ABC classes, 14 percent belonged to the poorest class E and the rest were from Class D, or “mass,” Holmes said.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT NOW?

Duterte’s confidence and approval ratings fell to their lowest level in September 2018, when commodity prices soared, especially hurting the poor. This shows that “the economy does affect” Duterte, said Southeast Asia analyst Bob Herrera-Lim.

“The difference right now is that there is this widespread fear that this is a pandemic … ‘Yes, I don’t have a job, yes, we have had to rely on handouts from the government’; all of these things are all negative things. that in any other situation this could have brought down their numbers ”, he said in the same FOCAP forum.

“But I think the overwhelming fear of the pandemic made people think, ‘Okay, I’ll outgrow my survival in the face of all these variables, which in other times would have mattered,'” said Herrera-Lim, who is also the managing director of the New York-based consulting firm Teneo.

Like the Philippines, other countries also went into recession, which “adjusted people’s expectations,” Heydarian added.

WHAT ABOUT PHILHEALTH?

Around the time the survey was conducted, then-PhilHealth boss Ricardo Morales resigned and a task force that recommended charges against him and other PhilHealth officials after whistleblowers accused them of pocketing P15 billion and approving overpriced projects and the delivery of funds to hospitals.

Presidents “are not directly responsible for the failures of bureaucratic agencies,” said Holmes, who has a doctorate in political and strategic studies.

“Although there are people below him who could be accused of corruption, if the president is not seen as corrupt, then that expectation is met,” he said.

But while the president is not responsible for the mistakes made by the agencies, he can “get credit” for the efforts of the local government, Holmes said.

“For many Filipinos, the government is really an abstraction … If you get the aid, you no longer even ask if it is from the local or national government. Just receiving the assistance is enough and that in some way will also affect the qualification of an official. national, ”Holmes said.

“While the president or national official is not accountable, the paradox is that the president or national official can get credit for the things they have not done,” he said.

Duterte is also “a master of the art of performative governance,” Heydarian said.

“He is extremely good at projecting this image of someone who is in charge, so in charge that he can be openly and transparently emotional about his leadership anxieties, his willingness to help the country and at the same time joke with humor,” he said.

FEAR FACTOR

Climate of fear, he added, cannot be eliminated as a potential factor in explaining Duterte’s scores. Many of those surveyed are from working-class communities that may have seen killings linked to Duterter’s anti-narcotics campaign.

Heydarian questioned how a respondent could be “completely honest about how much he likes or dislikes the president when a few months ago or the other day, a neighbor was shot to death or was the victim of an extrajudicial murder.”

Holmes said that he “would not deny that such a climate exists.”

“The problem for us is how do we measure what proportion of the responses are expressed due to apprehension or fear,” he said.

WHAT SHOULD PEOPLE DO?

“It is up to each of us to think of ways in terms of why people perceive the president this way, what does this mean for our political system, whether this will deter a move toward autocracy, and what steps we should take. to generate more participation, “Holmes said.

Meanwhile, Herrera-Lim urged the public to remember that many Filipinos do not have unlimited access to the internet and that online trolls can affect their view of the world.

“You have to get out of where you are and get to where they are,” he said.

The Philippines must also “look at the root of the problem” and strengthen government institutions to combat populism, Heydarian said.

“When the institutions of government are down, people are desperate for a secular savior and that’s where the populists come in. Duterte happens to be the latest version,” he said. “That’s where capacity building, institution building, has to come in.”