In the absence of a feasible and laudable plan to re-open schools, I am imagining how homework for many students would be when they are asked: What did you take from the President’s State of the Nation Address?

This exercise is often perceived as perfunctory in civics classes but has the deeper purpose of completing the feedback loop, making sure that the population, especially the young, is aware of the State’s plans, at the very least. Knowingly or not, teachers assigning homework related to the SONA actively take part in the State’s project of “nation-building.”

The role of the annual SONA is no different from sales rallies where company executives show up for their salespersons on the ground to deliver a rousing speech, just to be sure everyone is on the same page. In not so many words, Erap’s best sales pitch was when he exited through Commonwealth Avenue after his speech and met with protesters in the pouring rain; GMA’s was her bringing of three kids onstage and the myth of the bangkang papel. These proved to be effective talking points for their respective administrations’ annual push forward.

This year’s SONA was special. Stripped of the usual trappings and the faux Hollywood vibe, we see the SONA now for what it is. We expected a masterplan for the coming months, formulated for both Legislative and Executive branches, to address the fatal and colossal pandemic. But we got no categorical answers from Duterte. With the twice-a-week feed of “Late Night with Rodrigo Duterte” and the illusion of micro-management it brings, it would have been great to hear a New Year’s resolution of sorts, upon which we could anchor the next three to six months. So while this show of incompetence is not new, it was still disappointing.

The pandemic has also effectively muted the SONA’s characteristic PR spiels because no achievement is worth celebrating at this point, as the deaths increase and thousands of Filipinos get infected by the day. Not to mention the fact that Duterte’s long list of campaign promises remains unfulfilled and his track record dismal. Many of these promises—such as the regularization of contractual workers, the lowering of crime, and the end of corruption—have been scrapped entirely in favor of their exact opposites, .

Duterte’s orders in his SONA for the mob to lynch Senator Drilon, have also fallen flat as the public becomes more and more aware of Duterte himself being the patriarch of an oligarchic family himself. Moreover, many are coming to the realization that all this blather about oligarchs is moot without substantial redistribution of wealth and lands, without guillotines and the heads of beautiful people rolling. Beyond the mudslinging, the picture that can no longer be sugarcoated remains: every day since March 16, it has been the poor, the faultless, and the frontliners, who are dying—or are on their way to the crematorium—while the administration is looking for more creative ways to drown in debt.

But while it is tempting to dismiss the SONA as a non-event, it adds important pieces to the puzzle or, more precisely, reveals Duterte’s cards. There were two segments in his SONA that are worth taking note, namely, Duterte’s takeover of telecoms and his continuing push for the death penalty. Everything else in his speech was scaffolding for these two.

Summoning Demons
A common misconception regarding the Duterte administration is that it is an administration without a plan. The layers of smokescreen they employ create the illusion of a prolonged struggle against a “backwards opposition” (i.e. “Diliwans” and an “opposition troll farm” that exists, ironically, only in the heads of their own trolls). This places the majority—whether they are supporters or critics of this government—in chronic fatigue, so much so that it feels right and logical to surrender to the idea of an administration in shambles and without a plan (or an administration making headway albeit brutally). Too, the majority banks on cosmic events to turn the tide—or scapegoats the size of DOH Sec. Duque—and hope to finally wake up to a promised New Philippines. This political tactic is a mutation of the tried-and-tested, centuries old, “divide and conquer.”

It might not seem like it, but this administration is not without a plan nor is it in shambles. The Duterte administration is a solid force, brutish and evil. It is achieving a certain type of governance that is destructive and should be taken seriously. And when we proceed to connect the dots in Duterte’s most recent and seemingly fragmented SONA, what we realize is that it is getting closer to summoning even greater demons.

The first curious point that he makes in his SONA is his rant against Smart and Globe. While Duterte has, over the past months, flip-flopped between flaunting “peace” with and sending the Ayalas and Manny Pangilinan to jail, this pronouncement in his SONA is a clear marching order masked as a threat (it doesn’t sound right but, in a way that’s Dutertian, isn’t it). This marching order makes it clear that Duterte is set to put his own men in telecoms. Here, the obvious contender is Mislatel under Udenna Corp. backed by one of his biggest cronies, Dabaweño Filipino-Chinese tycoon Dennis Uy.

Duterte had just won a small and less publicized battle for Manila Water against the Ayalas, through government muscle and his own friendly relations with the Razons. He had also won a slightly bigger battle against the Lopezes for media dominance, when Congress disapproved the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise. Mislatel is already setting up Dito Telecom in a seemingly innocent manner, though it has yet to launch. What we should be wary of are the moves Duterte is willing to make to grease the creation and rise of a telecom monopoly by Uy. This marching order masked as a threat is as clear as a warning sign could get, and again, Duterte is set to pit a preferred oligarch against another.

What can immediately be earmarked under this agenda are the following spaces: DepEd and CHED’s imagined shift to online learning in public schools; the imagined work-from-home scenarios government is now planning to regulate; taxing of online shops and services; Lumad lands being converted to residential areas and the signal towers that would have to be put up; and a whole lot more under the vast capabilities of telecoms.

Under more sinister possibilities is the fact that many of these dealings in telecom, not exclusive to Mislatel, are with Chinese suppliers endorsed by Beijing, the same government that brought hardly penetrable surveillance systems around China and Hong Kong. This is worrisome, especially when paired with the new Terror Law Duterte put into play.

Dura lex sed lex means nothing with Duterte at the helm. His administration, his cabinet, senators, and judges operate by fixating on an itch—an unserious but sensational inconvenience—and incessantly scratching it. Never mind that it’s an itch that should no longer be touched, because the goal is to replace old skin with an ugly scar. The administration keeps digging its nails into a superficial problem until it bleeds and bleeds some more. Afterwards, the itch is replaced as skin hits the bone, and the people behind it will make it appear like they’ve won against and found a cure for stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

We’ve seen this narrative happen over and over: Maria Ressa’s trial (and continuing cases) are not so much related to her journalism and coverage of Duterte’s crimes, but they have used the courts to discredit her and Rappler’s reporting. The renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise was not supposed to be about tax evasion, or the morals portrayed in their TV shows as Congress purported it to be, but they were evicted on those grounds. At the close of each of these issues, they said they had reclaimed the “true meaning of Freedom of Speech.” The irony with Duterte is that he flaunts a certain conservativism and black-and-white verdict with his iron fist, but he would also be the first one to make use of the easiest and messiest ways out to get what he wants. We have a Judas priest for a president.

Death and All His Friends
It is in this fashion that Duterte reiterates his call for the reinstitution of the death penalty.

Even before he was elected to the presidency, the death penalty and the drug war, was the end-all and be-all of his narrative. As more and more approaches for remedying drug addiction surface, as more and more perspectives arose on drug use, as more and more re-thinking was done on prisons and models of incarceration, Duterte remained singular in his belief in Death to Drug Users. He does not even distinguish between users, pushers, mules, and drug lords. Since 2015, death has been the most creative solution to drugs for Fentanyl Duterte.

This narrative has proven effective for this administration to achieve its ends. Padding a targeted end with many minor and vaguely-related supporting data has worked for them the past four years, and it will most probably work, once more, in their quest to pass the death penalty.

Many commentators have already mentioned how Duterte and the police will use the death penalty to legitimize killing persons on the slightest suspicion of drugs. While this is now obvious and by itself already frightening, what seems to be beyond the smokescreen is what’s even more frightening: an even grander plan seems to be unfolding to re-organize government and what it stands for. The Duterte administration wants to erase the Right to Life itself, and later, the State’s responsibility for nurturing it.

Allocations for health in our national budget will be removed. Education budgets will be slashed. Duterte is not out to deter crime or drugs, or to improve the quality of our lives. He wants to revert the Philippines back into a fiefdom where he and his family rule.

This is a difficult proposition to swallow, ultimately bleak, and might sound like an exaggeration, but to me, it is clear as day. The death penalty is for an even grander purpose, bigger than an attempt to absolve him of all the killings he endorsed. Beyond the extrajudicial killings and the drug war murders, Duterte wants to abolish government, mutate it using vaguely legal means at his disposal, and rearrange it to an order that makes most sense to him and his cronies. He holds a fantasy, reminiscent of Marcos’ diary entries prior to declaring Martial Law. This fantasy exists in a vacuum and he wants a clean slate.

The biggest clue was in the SONA itself. In true Dutertian fashion, it is the reverse of what he is saying. In this SONA, he mentioned “life” many times, going so far as to philosophize about what makes a “life.” This is probably the most telling sign of how much he wants to radically change the way we view and value life. The reinstitution of the death penalty is a step towards re-framing life no longer as a right. He’s been at it for years now, but the death penalty’s reinstitution will get the ball rolling faster, forcing the population to say, one day: “The Right to Life is not a right but a privilege granted by the State.”

All other aspects of the SONA, proposals like his pleas for tax exemptions for a recovery post-COVID, while ostensibly well-meaning, will serve as cracks for him to inch his way to this fantasy. As his administration loosens regulations on some mechanisms, there will always be opportunities for Duterte’s men to insert themselves. After five months in this pandemic, it has become apparent that they are using it to their advantage.

I wish I could say vigilance would be most important in the coming months, but was there ever a moment when this administration allowed us to let our guard down?

Government 2022
Government is an abstract concept put to concrete work. At the core of all governments is an idea that people can come together and pool their skills and resources to work towards a singular goal. Persons are put in power to lead and with the rest of the population, perform in different civil ways (hence, “civilization”) towards finding a certain meaning in living with others / living in a society. This is exactly how corporations also work, but governments are more vast, covering almost all aspects of our lives, woven together by our faint idea of “nation.”

It is nice to think of governments to be, by default, serving the good of all its citizens. History, however, will tell us a much more complex story, with turns that we cannot really measure to have been for the better or for the worse.  The evolution of governments has not always been about seeing better and better days. Time and time again, governments crash, burn, and sink entire populations with them.

It is careless to say that this administration is operating without a plan—the SONA is proof of it having one. But it is not unwise to say that the plan it has is sinister. While his governance is very reactive in nature, Duterte has always been on the aggressive. Relevant in understanding the Duterte administration’s playbook is Senator Pimentel’s own words as he defended his own hardheadedness, “VIP ako, hindi PUI.” (rephrased)

Duterte knows that it is not his administration or his name that he is bringing to ruin. And like all men, he will die. In his head, however, everything is right on track. He is on a mission to abolish government as we know it. If he succeeds, even without a single Duterte in a position of power, we will wake up to a government with a soul ourselves today wouldn’t recognize. ***