The miracle unfolded when rally after rally Filipinos who preferred to stay home only a few years back than support a candidate, began to attend Duterte’s rallies in droves. They gave their support to Duterte because he personified change. He was different and matched our aspiration for change. We believed that as he often said in his rallies. He would cuss and curse and speak uncouthly in the language of the wretched and the poor. We did not know how many we were until the crowds came, rally after rally. The campaign reached its triumphant culmination in Luneta on May 7, 2016 which was more than a crowd. It was a multitude of over one million. Two days later, he garnered 16.6 million votes. Despite the attempt to cheat him, Duterte won. His victory for change is seen by some as a sign of God’s favor.

It cannot stop there. The people must nail down the victory as we had wanted him to win. It is unfinished and we must now finish it.

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As BayanKo’s adviser Jose Alejandrino posted in social media we must mobilize the people for the next revolution in support of President Duterte. Let us be clear on what it will entail.

“The principal objective of the next revolution is to vest the president with revolutionary powers that will allow him to complete his program of change for which he was elected. Such powers are necessary to end the plots from the Opposition to unseat him by obstructing his program of reform.

“In a democracy, it is the will of the people that is sovereign. People power was the rationale for abrogating flawed Constitutions and institutions, replacing governments, as happened at Edsa I and in Eastern European countries.

“A people’s revolution brings with it a revolutionary government and the person bestowed to head it, revolutionary powers. He can rule by executive decree. In other instances, it can be rule by a revolutionary council with a chairman as its head.”

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This column agrees with Alejandrino that we need a people’s revolution that will grant revolutionary powers to Duterte, the man elected to change Philippine government and society.

He must have the power to abolish Congress. However, he may decree the re-institution of an interim House of Representatives based on its previous membership.

He must have the power to re-appoint the members of the Supreme Court. This will allow for the cleansing of the Court and do away with political justices.

He must have the power to arrest the corrupt and criminals and bring them to trial in a special tribunal created to try cases of crimes against the Filipino people.

He must be able to re-impose the death penalty for heinous crimes such as plunder and treason.

He must have the power to appoint an independent panel of jurists and constitutional experts to draw up a new Constitution with public hearings, based on a parliamentary-federal system that will be submitted directly to the people for ratification in a plebiscite. Thus politicians and vested interests are excluded from the process.

Once the people ratify the new Constitution, elections can be called for members of parliament. With a parliament in place, the revolutionary government will cease to exist and the transition to real democracy completed.

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How is Duterte to achieve all this if his hands are tied by the old system ruled by oligarchs and dynasties? Only by giving him revolutionary powers. Duterte has not asked for them. It is the people who must give them.

BayanKo’s adviser says, “It boils down to a question of trust. We all know the enormous problems facing the nation and what it will take to clean up the mess. The question is, do we trust Rodrigo Duterte enough to give him the vast powers needed to do the cleaning?”

None of the candidates in May came anywhere near a leader we can trust to do all that. “Firstly, he has an honest record. In our country, an honest public servant is a rarity. Secondly, he is dedicated. He truly loves his country and is ready to risk and give his life for it. How many people would do the same?”

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Alejandrino had met Andre Malraux, a renowned French writer who had fought in the Spanish Civil War and later served under President Charles de Gaulle. He asked him why he had volunteered to fight in that war. He answered, “When you believe in a cause, it is not enough to talk about it, you must be ready to die for it. That is the ultimate test of a man’s belief.”

This is why a multitude attended Duterte’s Luneta rally and more than 16 million voted for him. But if we want him to succeed with his program of change, Rodrigo Duterte must be given the revolutionary powers he needs to finish the job.

He has said often enough that he won’t stay one day longer in office after he has cleaned up the mess. BayanKo believes him.

He said we would have a new Constitution to transit to a new form of government by the middle of his term. By that time he will be 74 and only looking forward to playing with Sara’s triplets. He had never cared to be president. If he accepted the job, it was because of his deep sense of dedication and patriotism.

But that will only happen if the millions who voted for him and the millions more who now give him a 91% trust rating hand him the tools to accomplish it. We must repeat or even surpass the Luneta multitude to show that we have not wavered despite his many enemies now trying to destroy him.

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see more at: http://www.philstar.com/opinion/2016/08/28/1617990/next-revolution