Not news but confusing

The news that Davao Mayor Rudy Duterte has finally decided to run for President is no news to me. But it is confusing, if not disappointing, to say the least.

I wrote in an earlier column that Duterte would make such a move but I predicted it would be just before Christmas so that the holidays will thwart any attack or demolition job from his enemies. What I find confusing and disappointing is that he had to use Grace Poe as his foot mat to wipe his wishy-washy entrance into the race. In doing so, he calls his worthiness as a game changer into doubt as well as his validity as a real presidential candidate.

I am all for Duterte running for President, but not in this manner.  I believe that many of his true blue supporters are there for him because they want a no-nonsense leader with common sense and political will who will address the problems of governance, national discipline and public accountability as well as to establish a federal form of government. Duterte supporters do not want someone who simply wants to stop Grace Poe or someone slicing up the votes so thin that he ends up supporting Mar Roxas in the final tally.

Duterte claims that his motivation for running was because the Senate Electoral Tribunal chose to dismiss a case against Senator Poe. If that was the case, he could have joined the race early on and not waited to use the decision of the SET as an excuse, or Grace Poe as his foot mat. Nothing changed then or now. If Duterte believes he can win as President now, it was the same two months ago. Is Duterte really intent on winning the presidency or simply doing his best to make sure that someone other than Grace Poe becomes president?

For someone who claimed that he had no ambition, no funds and no intention, as well as the fact that Grace Poe was in the picture the whole time, Duterte’s belated change of mind creates serious doubts about his real motives or who is motivating him to join the presidential race this late. There comes a time when the tough talk ends up as nothing but talk and even the most fervent of believers start waking up from a dream to an opposite reality.

Even his competitors no longer feel threatened or affected by his belated entrance and lame excuse for running. Playing coy or making “pinky swear” does not help but cheapens his brand and image. Consider me a disappointed admirer of a man’s man. I am not someone’s PR man nor am I against Duterte. It is simply sad to see him caught up in the wondrous weaving of his strategists and we-bulong brigade.

Duterte did not need to have a reason or excuse for running. He had every right. He simply had to do it, not talk his way into it. As they say: Talk is cheap.

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They are finally getting the point.

After giving a one-day short course and motivational talk on leadership, I was recently invited back by the DepEd – Caloocan Schools Division under Mrs. Rita E. Riddle to give a three-day full workshop on communications, imaging, messaging and executive leadership skills for 50 school principals.

This is a rather unique initiative done by a school superintendent because most departments and agencies tend to provide training for people at the middle and senior management level of departments, but rarely for frontline executives such as principals who play multiple roles such as senior managers for teachers, property managers for several school facilities, community leader for students and parents, as well as liaison officer within a district especially during calamities and elections.

For a district or area with 57 public elementary schools and 31 high schools, 27 percent of which are currently headed by a teacher-in-charge and another 19 percent relatively new to their positions or less than five years at their post, it is evident that Riddle’s team of principals needed to undergo what has become a five-month program with six modules covering areas as basic as Self-Mastery and Personal Effectiveness in module 1; Operationalizing Strategic Plans and Financial Management in module 2. In module 3, the principals’ experience on Understanding Curriculum and Instruction.

Because they act as on the ground CEOs and HR managers, the principals go through Module 4 to learn Instructional and Human Resource Management because this is where they address the needs of their customers – the teachers. I handled Module 5 where the principals learned the fundamentals and levels of marketplace communication starting from what and how they communicate their personality all the way to messaging, establishing and managing media relations, conducting press conferences, what they need to know about interviews, as well as presentations, public speaking and organizational communications and dynamics.

In Module 6, all the learning come together in the Integration of modules and connected to spirituality, values and ethics, all of which seemed to have been diminished or totally removed from similar programs in other departments or agencies.

As proof of what a game changer the program is, the “class” of Caloocan School principals debated and analyzed where the communication failure occurred regarding the DepEd “K to 12 program.” They established that the problem was not the K to 12 program. The problem was their “customer” the parents in many public schools did not have the money or resources to buy the product, meaning additional funds for the additional years.

So the correct problem was how to help the parent-customers afford the K to 12 product. The suggested solution comes as a twin to the 4Ps of the Arroyo administration that is now being used by the current regime. If the government can afford to give the Pangtawid Pang Pamilya Program why not come out with another program that the principals called the Pangtawid Aral Program or PAP. It is plain and simple bridge financing for families faced with the unexpected and added burden of two more years of schooling. For those who simply don’t want to go further than Grade 10 or traditional high school, my wife Karen suggested that the DepEd (if legally allowed) could simply issue a grade 10 certification so that those poor students especially in the barrios can at least have closure and a piece of paper for all their sacrifice as well as records purposes.

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