IT wasn’t the result many expected. President Rodrigo Duterte made it to the Time 100 official list of the world’s most influential people but the distinction was based on notoriety, not acclaim.
The Time 100 official list placed Duterte among the influential “leaders” but the article that went with his photo was critical of his war on drugs.
Prior to the release of the official list Friday, Duterte topped the online survey for the Time 100. His supporters were excited by his showing and pointed to how he beat the likes of Pope Francis, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the online poll. But what got overlooked was the difference between the website survey that asked readers who they thought should be on the list, and the actual, final, official list.
Duterte deserved to be included in the official Time 100, except his administration and supporters didn’t think it would be for the wrong reasons.
The profile on Duterte was written by former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria who described Duterte’s approach to fighting illegal drugs as “ill.” Gaviria said he took a similar tough stance against drugs when he was Colombia president but he discovered that “the war was unwinnable and the human costs were devastating. The cure was infinitely worse than the disease.”
Last February, Duterte called Gaviria an “idiot” after the Colombian figure wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times saying Duterte was repeating his own mistakes.
The other surprise of the Time 100 was the inclusion of Senator Leila de Lima in the list of “Icons.” The article on her, written by former United States ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, noted how de Lima was critical of Duterte’s war on drugs, and the consequences were her removal as head of the Senate committee on justice and her arrest on drug charges.
Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said Time erred in failing to cite the nature of the charges against de Lima. He said the senator was not arrested for being a critic of Duterte but for allegedly having allowed the proliferation of illegal drugs inside the national penitentiary during her stint as Justice secretary before she became senator. The Time magazine “conveniently failed to clarify that…,” Abella said. “The fact remains that President Duterte is supported by majority of the Filipinos in his campaign against illegal hard drugs, crime and corruption.”
While Abella was not happy with the Time 100 outcome, the list of international media reports critical of Duterte continues to grow. The Time 100 is something their readers look forward to as the selection is done by editors and the list’s alumni and profiles are written by persons themselves renowned.
The Duterte administration can’t just keep on complaining about these negative reports. It has to counteract the bad image by providing media with context or by ending what is intrinsically wrong, such as the killings.