“PDP is for sweeping change that fights corruption, improves the lives of Filipinos and heralds a politically and economically progressive Philippines.”

Always a straight-talker, Rodrigo Roa Duterte has never lost an election as a seven-term mayor of Davao City serving all of 22 years. In 2016, he also became the first Mindanaoan to be elected President of the Republic of the Philippines.

Today, as Duterte recounts in his third State of the Nation Address (SoNA) the challenges and successes of his first two years in office, it’s time to look back at the man and his party – the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP).

Early in his administration, Duterte told local government officials he had always been a believer in PDP’s ideology and governance platform centered on federalism, peace and order and uplifting the lives of Filipinos.

Just the same, Duterte was a reluctant candidate when the party formed in 1982 by former Senate President Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. under the shade of an old tree in Cagayan de Oro fielded him for President in 2016.

From failing to file his certificate of candidacy to running as a substitute candidate, the road to the Palace for Duterte is one replete with tales of happenstance and the serendipitous melding of people and events.

On hindsight, Duterte’s rise to the presidency is invariably intertwined with the toils of PDP and the multitude of Filipinos who supported the man and the party believing they can bring forth much-needed change.

It has to be said though that sans House Speaker and party secretary Pantaleon Alvarez, former Senate President and PDP president Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, party vice chairman and now Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi, Duterte’s run for Malacanang may not have happened at all.

Off the bat, Alvarez, Pimentel and Cusi knew that if Duterte was to buck tall odds against the vaunted administration party machinery and war chest, PDP must be overhauled from being a party of a few to the people’s party.

“Alvarez realized that despite the terrific response Duterte was receiving from the public, their prospective presidential candidate had yet to enjoy the kind of sustained media attention that could make him known to every household in the country,” a businessman privy to the events said.

“Duterte’s friends and supporters knew they must find a better way to spread his message of change if they wanted to give him a better fighting chance at winning if he decided to run for President,” the source added.

If PDP has ideologues in Alvarez and Pimentel, who like Duterte are true sons of Mindanao who believe that federalism can spur economic development all over the country by breaking the stranglehold of a Manila-centrist government, the party has a problem solver in Cusi.

Presented with an initial budget of P2 million from donations against the P3 billion needed to kick off the Duterte campaign, Cusi neither balked nor blinked but found divine inspiration when he said, “I still have goose bumps whenever I remember what happened. I really believe this is something sent from heaven.”

“The party has been steadfast in supporting PRRD’s policies while working on its own to effect change.

Full stomachs are for recipient pupil Contributed photo

Mandated to serve as presidential campaign manager, Cusi early on faced a throng of Duterte supporters and told them that “they should not expect to get money because there was none.”

“The gamble paid off. As it turned out, each region, province or town took care of its own campaign logistical and campaign requirements. By the time of the election, PDP’s campaign machinery was ready for all eventualities,” a campaign insider said.

Alvarez, for his part, had been working as early as 2014 to pave the way for a Duterte bid through “listening tours” in which he and Duterte spoke of the need to break “Imperial Manila’s” hold to power.

“True change will come with a federal form of government because it allows regions to grow. They will be given the right to manage their own natural resources, to manage their own economy, to maintain order in their own regions,” said Alvarez.

“Of course, with all that, the right to chart their own destinies. With federalism, major changes will happen,” he added.

For Koko Pimentel, the Duterte presidency and its push for a shift from the present presidential form of government is coming one step closer to the fulfilment of his and his father Nene’s dreams.

“My dream is for local governments to really be empowered. The problems of local governments are decided at their level. This is the reason I am with PDP — the only party that advocates the adoption of a federal system of government,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel rued “centuries of neglect and apathy that have made Mindanao the least developed region of the Philippines, with the dehumanizing poverty in the south cultivated by the past administrations’ myopic view on Luzon and the Visayas breeding widespread discontent, rebellion and even extremism.”

Onto the third year of the Duterte presidency, the party which he chairs has been steadfast in supporting his administration’s policies while working on its own, like through PDP Cares’ and Duterte’s Kitchen outreach and feeding programs, to effect change.

In the House of Representatives, Alvarez has effected a paradigm shift in ensuring that the legislative mill, at least as far as that chamber is concerned, is churning out meaningful measures to be passed into laws with the Senate’s concurrence.

But Duterte, the President and his party, the PDP, are not all about federalism, the campaign against illegal drugs and corruption in government.

PDP has a well-sorted out program of governance with the following pillars: fair competition, expansion of the middle class, just taxation, encouraging entrepreneurship, economic liberalization, business left to do business, economic infrastructures under “Build, Build, Build,” encouraging savings and capital markets and fighting fraud.

As a party, PDP has been described as one that “is for sweeping change that fights corruption, improves the lives of Filipinos and heralds a politically and economically progressive Philippines.”

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