Enrile: ‘To call Duterte a dictator is an underserved metaphor’
To call President Rodrigo Duterte a dictator is an “underserved metaphor.”
This, according to former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, who described the President as a good leader.
Enrile talked about the President’s style of leadership on Monday as he answered on Facebook some issues and questions raised, following his decision to again run for the Senate in 2019.
“As a human being, like all of us, he has his own strengths and weaknesses. By and large, to me he is a good leader,” he said on how he would rate the President as a leader.
“I think he is doing quite well in governing the country. I agree with nearly all his domestic and foreign policies. He has elevated the respect of other countries for us,” the former senator said.
While not everyone would not agree with how the President is running the country, Enrile said what is important is that a leader has the support of a majority of his people.
“In a democracy, we operate under a majority rule,” he pointed out.
“We are unlike totalitarian societies where the word of the ruler is law. In our country, the loadstar is rule of law. We believe in the principle of government of laws and not of men,” he further said.
To the question whether he agrees with the accusation of some people that the President is acting like a dictator, Enrile said: “I am not flattering or pandering President Duterte. I do not have to. But to call him a ‘dictator’ is an underserved metaphor.”
“To me, he is no Adolph Hitler of the old Germany; a Tojo of the old Japanese Empire; a Vladimir Illiych alias Lenin or Joseph Stalin of the erstwhile Soviet Union; a Juan Peron of Argentina; a Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain; a brutish Pol Pot of Cambodia; an Idi Amin of Uganda; Mammuar Qaddafi of Libya; a Saddam Hussein of Iraq; a Bashar al Assad of Syria; a Kim Jong Un of North Korea; or the ideological “dictatorship of the proletariat” being strongly and zealously championed and propagated by some of his critics in this country who believe in Communism.”
Enrile also expressed doubts that the President would place the entire nation under martial law.
“No. I do not think he will,” he said.
“I think there is no legitimate reason at this time to impose martial law in the entire country,” he added. /muf
