Batas Mauricio I AM an avid supporter of President Duterte ever since his barangay chairpersons, led by Agdao District, Davao City barangay chairman Mar Masanguid, guested in a radio program I am co-hosting in mid-2015, where they declared that the erstwhile Davao City mayor was indeed running for president. Duterte at that time was still all denial that he was interested to become president but Masanguid and the seven or so other Davao barangay heads were already positive he was running. Since then, I robustly campaigned for him and agreed to be the legal counsel of two organizations campaigning for him, and even pushed a struggling Christian church named Anak ng Diyos Kadugo ni Kristo to support him and then Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. through block voting by its members nationwide. Because of this, I am pained and saddened to see Duterte being mindlessly reprimanded by his own trusted men--those whom he had appointed to sensitive positions as his alter egos--on many policy statements he had been making, in the guise of explaining what he, as the President, truly said or meant. My concern is that, would not these reprimand or corrections against Duterte, even if supposedly laced with good intentions by his mere appointees, result in the erosion of his credibility? Indeed, as the Chief Executive, the Chief of State, and the undisputed head of the government and the country, Duterte should have the last say on anything--even if he is wrong! But what pains me and saddens me all the more is the silence of Duterte when his officials are rebuking or correcting him, in public yet! The image I am getting from all these is no longer that of a strong and no-nonsense President which is what Duterte really is, but that of a small child, unable to think and say things by himself, being sternly rebuked by his elders, with a pinch on one ear, to boot. The fact is, it is as if I could even hear the words, “you naughty child, what mischief are you blabbering about?” every time Duterte’s subordinates claim to clarify or correct or rebuke him. This is greatly humiliating, and a nauseating spectacle among the men and women, 16 million of them, including me, who voted for him. I say, Duterte should now tell his men to put a stop to this practice, because it not only degrades the presidency, but greatly insults and distorts likewise his own personality. If anyone in the Cabinet, or anyone else for that matter in the Duterte government, thinks or believes Duterte should be corrected in whatever he had said or did as President, the correction, if any, must be done in private. Otherwise, anyone publicly going against what the President said, whether in the form or a correction or otherwise, should immediately be fired from office. E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com