When acting Davao City mayor Baste Duterte made a challenge to a fistfight with PNP Chief Gen. Nicolas Torre after police raids at Davao cockpits, not just his fists furled in wrath struck, it was a slap on the face of public office. What otherwise has been a space for service and sense becomes the space for boyish fistfights. When senior leaders yelp and snap at one another publicly like rabid canines, we must wonder: Where is professionalism?
It’s a national shame, watching men in positions of authority turn the government into a sandbox of hurt feelings. These are not backyard bullies swapping insults over marbles and pilfered snacks—they are government officials, sworn to duty, paid on the public dime, and entrusted with lives. And yet there they are, playing out gladiators in a cockfight, depriving their offices of tact and decency. The distinction between public duty and private vengeance has been so blurred by now that it is a smear.

What’s most maddening about this testosterone theater is the complete banality with which it is treated. It’s mocked by some, applauded by others, as if they’re watching a pay-per-view. But we, the audience, are victims as well. A minute spent on these ego battles is a minute lost from working on real issues—poverty, hunger, injustice, crime. Leadership is now a performance art, and unfortunately, it’s not spectacular or compelling.

The reality is that there has been too much politicking that has consumed the substance of public service. What had been an elevated calling has become a game of who can create the most thunderous applause, who can deliver the best put-down, and who gets blood first. Policies are set aside for showboating, and merit is bargained for clout. Everyone is campaigning for something—power, reelection, revenge. Those were the days when statesmanship was about restraint and quiet determination. Now it’s who appears tougher, meaner, and less forgiving.

Observe how these encounters are presented—not as intellectual debates, but as pride squabbles. When the two engaged in their run-ins, there was no reference to policies, no discussion of police tactics or ordinances. Only name-calling, chest-thumping, and an open call to duke it out in public. It’s pitiful. Government is now a circus, and these men are not ringmasters—they’re clowns who have lost sight of who the audience is.

And what does that say to young people, the next leaders who are watching this go on from the sidelines? That government is a macho world, that power must be fought for with fists, not with facts? The decline in public trust does not come quickly. It begins with moments such as these—moments when the leaders make their pride more important than their duties, their hurts more important than their people.

Better still, this is not a one-off. Political disagreements here are likely to spill over into physical bullying, Shakespearean exit tirades, and burned-earth rants. From Senate hearings turning into shouting matches to provincial governors slapping detractors in open daylight, our democracy is afflicted by an infantilism epidemic. Decency has abandoned the field. Statesmanship is in hiding.

If anything can be salvaged, it begins with a reminder to public officials what precisely “public” entails. The people didn’t elect generals and mayors to engage in a duel of attempting to outdo one another. They were given the responsibility of improving lives, of making them safer, more decent. The solution isn’t to condone immaturity with contempt, however, but to demand better: more reason, less rage; more service, less show. Leadership is not considered who can throw the first punch, but who puts the people first.

Construction of the simple term that does not require knowledge in law or rocket science had drawn people into debates that divide not just the senate and the lower house but the Filipino nation as well. It is the intentional misconstruction of the word that ignited debates in the senate halls and on social media. The delaying tactics of the senate president in commencing the impeachment trial of the vice president is so appalling to observers. Legal luminaries had expressed the common view that the word forthwith is a mandate for the senate to convene as an impeachment court and immediately begin the impeachment trial.
We do not know where those who choose to make understanding the simple word took their elementary education, but this writer’s elementary school taught the simple word forthwith its simple meaning that is immediate. It is not later or any convenient time one wishes to perform the required act. To proceed immediately and without delay is the simple interpretation of the word.

With the turbulence caused by the intentional misinterpretation of the constitutional provision, the incumbent senate president had taken liberty is delaying the impeachment trial of the impeached vice president. The tactic is clearly giving the impeached vice president the luxury of time to travel anywhere, chiefly to the Hague in the Netherlands to visit her beloved father, the former and now detained president who is in detention under the order of the International Criminal Court.

The issue of the impeachment delay had hogged the limelight as headlines in social media. Many legal experts had been invited by the senate to shed light on the issue. The resource persons included retired supreme court justices, constitutional law professors and members of the constitutional commission that drafted the present constitution. All opinions failed to overcome the stubborn position and interpretation of the senate president.

While the senate has not yet started the impeachment trial, two senators who are long-time loyalists to the former and now detained president, took the floor to move for the dismissal of the impeachment complaint. The motion to dismiss was purportedly based on the defective impeachment complaint and the alleged violation of the constitutional provision that allows only one impeachment complaint in a year. The motion seeks the dismissal of the impeachment complaint without trial.

Then another grandstanding lawyer in the senate manifested that the articles of impeachment be returned to the lower for it to certify that the same was made in accordance with law. Such return in process is out of deemed out of the books aimed to rip the entire impeachment process.
comments to alellema@yahoo.com

The arena was set, gloves were laced, cameras primed—yet one of the central figures of the anticipated bout was missing. Acting Davao Mayor Baste Duterte’s conspicuous no-show from the boxing match against PNP Chief Gen. Nicolas Torre was more than just a broken bout—it was a metaphorical dodge of accountability. It was a case of no -show and we see beyond the default, we say the problematic reality that optics in times of trouble are not dependable.

From where we sit , the now no-show event was more than just a let-down it is a study of quitting. In Waray waray words na-irit, in Eastern Samar words Nabuwit/Nabuyet, which means running away from the task at hand or better, yet the ultimate Waray is Nanalaw ( naduwag in Filipino). The eagerly anticipated boxing match was waited on by Filipinos, most of them hoping that the fight will take place, and someone can defeat another . But it was sad to say that the duel never happened because the Acting Mayor Baste Duterte had other things to do, perhaps better than defending the honor and refusing to face the challenge he even called.

It was problematic for the Duterte camp because it shows a clear example of how the clan falters on matters that are vital, like the fact that public service entails sacrifice and that honors of constituents including their needs must be defended and fought for. How can people expect the delivery of promise when it can just be deflected by an excuse or a deflection?

This was not just a spectacle of fists and footwork. It was a stage where principles were to be tested, not in bravado, but in service. And in that light, Gen. Torre stepped forward, alone but unshaken, embodying a quiet strength that true leadership requires. He understood the crowd was not there for punches alone—they were there to witness commitment, courage, and care. With the absence of his opponent, Torre’s decision to fight anyway—and raise over P20 million for calamity-stricken Filipinos—became the actual victory.

And that for us Waraynon, we saw the clear opposites, one who is willing to heckle and run or someone who is willing to be bloodied and even manhandled because of the defense of one’s honor. According to noted Film Director Woody Allen, 80 percent of success is showing up. Today, we are given a throwback of that Filipino saying Ang Umaayaw ay hindi nagwawagi!!