Resilient to political challenges
No big deal.
That may best describe the reaction of the business community to the arrest on March 11 of former President Rodrigo Duterte by the Philippine National Police pursuant to a warrant of arrest issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Ahead of possible delaying tactics by his lawyers, he was quickly flown by a government-paid aircraft to The Hague to answer for the alleged crimes against humanity that marked his war on drugs before and during his administration.
It was the first time in the country’s history that the government was directly involved in sending a Filipino, and a former president at that, to a court based in another country to face criminal charges.
The day after his arrest, the benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange Index showed a 2.42 percent sell-off that apparently reflected the anxiety of some investors over the political instability that may result from Duterte’s arrest and quick transfer to ICC jurisdiction.
That drop turned out to be the steepest as the next few days saw the trading floor and other activities in the business community return to business as usual. The movers of Philippine business had better things to think and worry about than that disruptive political development.
According to some financial analysts, the looming tariff war between the United States and some developed economies brought about by the actions of US President Donald Trump was a matter of bigger concern for them. It could adversely affect their operations.
After 1986, when People Power caused an unprecedented change of government, the country’s business community had shown resiliency in coping with the challenges of political upheavals or events that involved the highest level of political authority in the country.
On the two instances that saw the unceremonious removal of a sitting president, and one that was marked by the simultaneous resignation of key Cabinet officials, things normalized in the business front within days after the turmoil had fizzled out.
There were mass demonstrations in different parts of the country protesting the ouster of their political heroes. Although majority of them were peaceful, some went out of control forcing the government to deploy police personnel to disperse them.
The usual skeptics predicted political instability while the issues involved were still hot. In true ningas cogon fashion (or the tendency to start something with enthusiasm but later lose momentum), those protests were, at most, only good for a week or ended when their financiers felt they were not getting their money’s worth, whichever came first.
Then, it was back to prepolitical turmoil conditions or as if the supposedly destabilizing events did not happen at all.
Thus, it did not come as a surprise that the business community showed a ho-hum attitude toward the arrest of the former president. It was like they were saying “been there, done that.” Business, like life, has to go on and what is done is done and let’s move on.
Perhaps, for a week or so, the events in The Hague would be in the news or widely talked about on social media. No doubt, the allies and supporters of Duterte would try to keep the issue alive in the public’s consciousness.
But with the midterm elections just short of two months away and the trial of Duterte in the ICC scheduled to commence yet in September, that objective may not be easy to accomplish even with the use of paid hacks and supposed influencers.
It also does not help that the country’s millennials and Gen Z members who comprise the majority of our population are reputed to have a short attention span and are averse to hearing the same news over and over again.
Barring any major development in Duterte’s case or in his physical condition (God forbid!), there is hardly any reason for the business community not to continue to go through the usual pace of their operation.
There is no point in losing sleep over something they hardly have any control of or be able to make a difference.
