Margin of Victory

The biggest difference between Duterte and Trump, I've always maintained, is the margin of victory between them and their closest opponents. Trump has every reason to feel besieged, as he truly is, because he didn't even get more votes than Hillary.

Duterte, however, was the runaway winner last May, garnering more than 50 percent of the votes received (through fair means and foul) by the surprise runner-up, the erstwhile bottom-dwelling Roxas.

And yet, Duterte and his supporters are beset on all sides by the raucous losers who are orphans of Roxas and the Yellow regime that backed him. How is this so, you may ask?

Well, the Yellows do have a still-formidable propaganda machinery all across traditional and new media. They have financial backers among those who are true believers and those merely scared of facing charges in court.

They have the support of liberal elites all over the world, in media, NGOs and multilateral bodies, which they leverage to great acoustic effect.

What they don't have -- and this is crucial -- is the support of the only constituency that matters: the Filipino people.

This is Duterte's strength. And the people should realize that he will be needing them from time to time, when the din generated by the Yellows threatens to make it appear that they somehow have seized the majority.

The judicious use of this real people power is what will give Durerte the strength to continue. It should always be ready to be deployed.

Noise never made a majority, after all. Often, it's just noise.

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