BAD BOY

DAVAO City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte must have felt he was among friends
at the anti-crime summit last Tuesday. He spoke expansively,
confidently, holding forth for half an hour on an area of expertise
dear to him: his unorthodox if effective approach to fighting crime.

In a dramatic moment, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's new
anti-crime consultant even addressed criminal syndicates directly.
"You must realize, you criminals, that you don't have a monopoly on
evil in this country," he said.

His friends gave him an enthusiastic reception. Chinese-Filipino
businessmen who have long borne the brunt of the kidnap-for-ransom
crisis welcomed his "mail-fist" policy, while the President herself
gushed like a schoolgirl: "Wow, galing!"

Duterte's remarks were full of catchy sound bites:

"The intention of the criminals is to instill fear in their victims
and kill them. What should we do, but kill them also," he said. And
again: "My policy is that if you are a kidnapper and a drug pusher,
you put yourself and your life on the line." And yet again: Criminals
"threaten to kill, so what we'll do is we kill them, too."

It is a measure of the public's desperation with rampant lawlessness
that Duterte was hailed, not only at the summit, but on radio call-in
shows in the last two days. This much is easy to understand. When the
streets are no longer safe for walking, the figure of the proverbial
man on horseback becomes even more imposing.

What is harder to understand is the President's seeming endorsement of
Duterte's brand of law enforcement. As an economist, she must be fully
aware that the reliable application of the rule of law-not
short-sighted mailed-fist polices-has long been proven to be the
essential condition of long-term prosperity. But even more important,
she must know, as a defender of the Constitution, that extra-legal
short cuts do not strengthen the legal order but undermine it.

Her embrace of Duterte's tough-guy persona -- the same persona alleged
to be behind the so-called Death Squads of Davao -- makes sense only
in strictly political terms. The President may be seeking to co-opt
the tough-on-crime constituency of deposed President Joseph Estrada,
and to steal the thunder from the prospective candidacy of former
police chief Sen. Panfilo Lacson in 2004.

To be sure, there is a pressing need for the government to put an end
to the spate of kidnappings that have terrorized the public and to
stop the spread of illegal drugs, but it can be done without Duterte
ripping the Bill of Rights apart.

The President must not step into Duterte's either-or trap: his blithe
assumption that there are only two alternatives, his way or that of
"bleeding heart" libertarians. This is a false choice, as the
country's own experience tells us. It is possible to crack down on
criminals, to get tough on crime, while respecting due process and the
all-important constitutional provision that everyone is presumed
innocent until proven otherwise.

The President must also remind Duterte and other tough guys in the
making that many, if not all, of the victims of vigilante justice-of
the over two dozen summary executions carried out by the Death Squads
in Davao, for example-come from the poorer classes. The poor, as
always, will be expendable, while the drug lords and the kidnapping
masterminds will continue to enjoy the protection of lawyers and bodyguards.

The President must also preach the gospel of caution. When a person's
life is at stake, the government must temper the use of its awesome
powers-simply because it can also be wrong. Consider the case of
defense reporter Bernadette Tamayo, who was included in the Armed
Forces' Most Wanted list of Abu Sayyaf bandits by mistake.

If Duterte had been in charge then, we would be asking this question
now: Did the monopoly of evil claim yet another casualty?