WITHOUT tenacity or what I prefer to call as dogged determination, a leader cannot be transparent (fear from exposure), cannot be innovative (fear from failure), cannot be resilient (fear from pain), cannot be accountable (fear from liability), to name a few. Developing tenacity takes time, and myriad of situations allow a leader to acquire experience, emotional maturity and “intestinal” fortitude. As author John Maxwell puts it, “The good news is that your leadership ability is not static. No matter where you’re starting from, you can get better.”
Much has been said about President Duterte and Sen. Leila M. de Lima. Both products of San Beda College of Law, they are two tenacious leaders on a collision course as they take their respective advocacies to a higher level. Mr. Duterte vows to improve peace and order in the country by stopping drugs, corruption and criminality; de Lima vows to protect human rights amid the intense drive against illegal drugs and criminality. To me, they are both patriots.
Patriotism is generally defined as dedicated love for country. President Duterte has exhibited his love for country with much audacity by showing the Filipino people and the rest of the world that he is willing to die in his quest to end the drug menace in the Philippines. From his Davao City experience, he developed his hands-on, devil-may-care, relentless leadership style. He will do anything and everything to accomplish the mission, regardless of the cost. It has worked in Davao City, and, judging by the large number of drug addicts, users and even pushers who have surrendered, it is working all over the Philippines, as well. From mayor to president, Mr. Duterte has taken on a much larger role with a much larger audience, which now even includes the international community. Unpresidential though some say, he was and is never afraid to speak up his mind, profanity included. As he leads the country in the same fashion that he led Davao City, he with his “politically untrained” mouth, however, has earned the ire of a few people and organizations, here and abroad. His ardent supporters say his courage shows absence of fear. In his book, A Good Lawyer, Bobby Quitain quoted Mark Twain in defining courage as “resistance to fear, mastery of fear.” Without doubt, our President has a Ph.D. in Resistance to Fear.
Senator de Lima, despite having been recently unseated as chairman of the powerful Senate Justice Committee, has exhibited a different level of courage, as she unyieldingly pursues her advocacy of protecting and preserving human rights. Like President Duterte, she wants a better Philippines in terms of peace and order. Already vilified and maligned by many, de Lima displays no fear despite impending threats of impeachment, criminal case and removal from the Senate. John Lewis said, “Courage is not rooted in reason, but rather, courage comes from a divine purpose to make things right.” De Lima is doing her best to make things right, at least from her point of view and that of similarly minded citizens.
Patriotism is love for country and not for any person, including one’s own leader. For instance, Gen. Antonio Luna stood against his own leader Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo soon after the Americans took over the country from the Spaniards. He did it neither to spite General Aguinaldo nor to disobey him; he did so out of love for his country. In the words of the US. President Theodore Roosevelt, “Patriotism does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency, or otherwise, he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.” By exposing the alarming number of extrajudicial killings, Senator de Lima is simply calling a spade a spade, although in her own doggedly determined way. And if in the process, her political career, as well as her personal life are put at risk, she appears to be willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice for being a patriot.
Best-selling author and journalist Mitch Albom said, “Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to.” Both the lion [President Duterte] and the lioness [de Lima] have offered to sacrifice their lives to make things right for our country. Disagreements and conflicts in a democracy are expected. However, it is our country that stands to lose if these two diverse, different and distinct leaders—Mr. Duterte and de Lima—exhaust their respective energies in destroying and demolishing each other instead of focusing on nation-building. After all, they are both determined and dedicated patriots who love our country, and I admire them both for that, tenaciously.