Rodrigo Duterte

Since the election, last spring, of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines has witnessed the effects of increasingly demagogic politics on its culture and institutions. While Duterte has won praise domestically and internationally for some of his efforts, including plans to resolve the southern insurgency and strategies to reduce economic inequality in the Philippines, he also has increasingly personalized politics, while dramatically undermining the rule of law. Campaigning as a demagogue, he has often governed as a demagogue, brooking little opposition and overseeing bloody policies. His war on drugs, which has descended into a bloody killing spree with few seeming constraints on the power of the security forces, is but one example of how the rule of law has deteriorated in a few months. [The New York Times has a compelling and graphic new look inside the antidrug campaign here.]. Duterte also has threatened journalists and other members of civil society, while embarking upon a foreign policy that has bewildered many Philippine security experts. The president’s mercurial style, although popular with many Philippine citizens so far, has often made it difficult to know what policy initiative---in both domestic and foreign policy---to take seriously, and which to ignore. The country’s politics, always noisy and vibrant, have become especially dangerous, and currents of opposition to Duterte appear to be forming. After Duterte’s administration approved the burial of the body of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos in a hero’s cemetery, with little warning, anti-Duterte protests have swelled in Manila. (Although Duterte comes from a left-leaning background, he has long expressed warm feelings for the Marcos family, and Duterte’s father served in the former dictator’s cabinet.) The protests, which began as Philippine citizens realized Marcos was going to be interred, quickly spread from Manila to other parts of the country, and included not just older Filipinos who remembered the Marcos era but some younger men and women who objected to the burial, and who used the demonstrations to voice anger at some of Duterte’s dictatorial approaches to politics. As Mong Palatino notes in The Diplomat, Duterte seems to have underestimated the strong lingering anger over the Marcos era and over giving Marcos any hero’s burial. The president also seems to have underestimated the possibility that anti-Marcos burial protests could become rallying points for supporters of the previous administration, and opposition parties, to air grievances about Duterte’s policies and approach to governing. Duterte’s administration, meanwhile, has repeatedly responded to the demonstrations by calling the protesters agitators who are seeking to foment violence. Now, just after the burial demonstrations, a new crisis has emerged. In the Philippines, the vice president and the president are elected separately, and so the country often winds up with a vice president and president from different parties---indeed, two political figures who are major rivals and who clash, rhetorically, for the president’s whole term. This is the current situation; in the same election in which Duterte was elected president, Leni Robredo, a respected human rights lawyer and former mayor from a different party as Duterte, was elected vice-president. Predictably, Robredo and Duterte, who is not known for his interest in human rights norms, have clashed from the first day of his administration. While she was given a Cabinet position in addition to her vice presidency---she was working as a housing secretary in the Cabinet---Robredo claims she was essentially frozen out at Cabinet meetings and her agency was ignored. Earlier this month, she quit her position as housing secretary, while retaining her post as vice president. She told reporters she had sent Duterte a letter saying “remaining in your cabinet has become untenable.” More worryingly, she publicly insinuated that the administration had been maneuvering to remove her from the vice presidency, possibly to replace her with Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the son of the former dictator and a close ally of Duterte’s. According to Bloomberg, she warned of a “plot to steal” the vice presidency from her. There are several dangers from Robredo and Duterte becoming more publicly alienated from each other. Duterte could maneuver more aggressively to replace Robredo, though the constitutionality of such a move would prove challenging. Still, if he succeeded he might trigger much larger protests, since Robredo is nearly as popular as the president. The second, also worrying implication, is that Robredo could increasingly be seen, by many Filipinos who oppose Duterte’s brutal style of governing, as a viable alternative leader---especially if Duterte continues to abuse the rule of law. Although Duterte’s actions are dangerous, corrosive to the rule of law, and potentially dislocating to the Philippines’ safety and security, if his opponents want to challenge him they should do so in the legislature and the courts and the media. Doing so in these ways would push back against the president’s reported abuses while reinforcing the rule of law. But too often in the past, Philippine leaders have been forced from power in murky, sometimes extralegal ways---and having a vice president beloved by Duterte’s opponents exacerbate the risk of some kind of extralegal challenge to the presidency. One does not have to look too far back for an example of a controversial, even dangerous president being removed through questionable means---with his vice president ready to take over and possibly playing a role in his ouster. In fact, this is roughly what happened to former president (and now mayor of Manila) Joseph Estrada in 2001. He was replaced by his vice president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Estrada was no role model. His removal certainly rid the Philippines of a president who did little to promote the rule of law---after stepping down following massive street protests, an impeachment, and the withdrawal of army support for him, Estrada was later convicted of graft. In office, he had weathered massive allegations of graft and widespread complaints from advisors and foes alike that he was uninterested in public policy. But Estrada’s removal, a combination of a legal process, street protests, and a kind of coup, did little to strengthen Philippine institutions or set any precedent for how to address illegal activities by a president.

Although Southeast Asia was not mentioned often during the presidential campaign, the new U.S. administration will face several imminent regional challenges. For one, the relationship between the United States and the Philippines has deteriorated significantly since the election of President Rodrigo Duterte earlier this year. Duterte has publicly blasted U.S. officials and U.S. policy in the region, suggested he wants to move Philippine foreign policy closer to China, and threatened to scale down joint military exercises. Duterte expressed seeming approval of Trump’s election, presenting a possibility to restore closer ties, but the fact that Trump—a figure with some similar characteristics as Duterte—was elected will probably not change the Philippine president’s underlying anti-American worldview. Over decades, Duterte has grown increasingly suspicious of the United States and U.S. intentions in the Philippines, and it is hard to imagine that, in his seventies, his fundamental views of the United States will change that much. The Trump administration may please Duterte by criticizing his brutal war on drugs less than its predecessor did, and the death of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is unlikely to affect Philippine views of the United States, since the Philippines was not (yet) in the TPP. But the new U.S. administration likely will still want to pursue close bilateral ties, joint exercises, and a continuation of the new enhanced defense partnership with the Philippines, all of which Duterte apparently is skeptical of. Figuring out some way to maintain continuity in the bilateral security relationship and continue preparing the Philippine military for its own defense, while simultaneously assuring Duterte that the United States respects Philippine sovereignty and respects Duterte, will be a complex task. At the same time, the next U.S. administration will have to recognize that, even if it criticizes Duterte, it must be sure not to encourage critics within the Philippine security establishment to oust Duterte by illegal means. In addition, the new administration in Washington will have to handle the United States’ other treaty ally in Southeast Asia, Thailand, which has been ruled by a military junta for more than two years and appears ready to hand back government to civilian leaders next year, albeit under a new constitution that will dramatically weaken the powers of elected politicians. The country’s economy is stagnating, its politics are in crisis, and like the Philippines it appears to be drawing closer, strategically, to China. The new U.S. administration will probably be less critical of any Thai government’s abuses, but it will need to shore up support within the Thai political and military leadership for a continued close bilateral security relationship. At the same time, a new U.S. administration will need to ensure that, in a time of regional crisis, the United States could count on Thailand for basing access and other critical support. Third, the United States will have to address the increasingly contentious South China Sea issue. Countries like Vietnam, Singapore, and to a lesser extent the Philippines (under Duterte), Malaysia, and Indonesia, all fear that China is militarizing the sea and will soon be able to limit freedom of navigation in regional waters. Indeed, with some reason they fear that China’s long-term strategy is total dominance of the South China Sea. Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam, Singapore, and Indonesia have been aggressively modernizing their navies, coast guards, missile capacities, and air forces, and the incoming U.S. administration will have to decide how much to help them. This is especially true in the case of Vietnam; the United States only recently lifted the embargo on lethal arms sales to Hanoi, and Vietnamese leaders, alarmed by the Philippines’ shift toward China, may want to dramatically expand Vietnam’s U.S. arms purchases and other strategic ties. Meanwhile, a new presidential administration that appears committed to modernizing and expanding the U.S. navy will have to decide whether to take more assertive, regular actions of deterrence in the South China Sea, as some current U.S. admirals have proposed—a plan endorsed by many top Singaporean, Vietnamese, and Australian defense specialists and naval officers. These could include more regular patrols of the South China Sea, building floating bases in the South China Sea, sending U.S. planes and ships through areas of the South China Sea every time China takes assertive steps, such as potentially announcing an air defense zone, and sanctioning Chinese companies involved in the buildup of artificial islands and military installations in the South China Sea. Read more about how the Trump administration should approach U.S. policy toward China (here and here), Japan, Korea, and South Asia.

Richard Javad Heydarian is an assistant professor in political science at De La Salle University in Manila, and, most recently, the author of Asia’s New Battlefield: The U.S., China, and the Struggle for Western Pacific. During his four-day visit to Beijing (October 18-21), the Philippines’ firebrand leader, Rodrigo Dutetre, once again grabbed global headlines by reportedly bidding goodbye to and “separation” from the United States. Instead, he spent his time in China declaring his realignment with China’s “ideological flow.” Not shy of melodramatics, he dropped another bombshell by declaring he thought it could now be Russia, China and the Philippines “against the world.” The visit came amid festering diplomatic tensions between Washington and Manila over human rights concerns, particularly Duterte’s war on drugs. During his trip, Duterte sought to reopen communication channels with Beijing, break the ice in frosty bilateral relations, expand areas of economic cooperation, and explore bilateral discussions about resolving contested claims to areas of the South China Sea. A cursory look, however, shows that commercial considerations dominated the agenda. A total of $24 billion in economic deals were put on the table, although it remains to be seen whether these deals will all actually come through. Many leading Philippine tycoons accompanied Duterte on his visit to China, where he was granted a formal state visit. Duterte managed to also secure a pledge from Beijing of $9 billion in soft loans and grants, with a particular focus on revamping the Philippines’ decrepit public infrastructure through big-ticket projects. China also lifted a travel advisory on Chinese tourists bound for the Philippines and relaxed restrictions on the Southeast Asian country’s banana exports. Eager to woo the Philippine president, China also rhetorically backed Duterte’s campaign against drugs, and is currently negotiating a 25-year military deal with the Philippines. There were, however, little indications that any breakthrough in the disputed waters were achieved, whether it is a joint fisheries agreement in and around the Scarborough Shoal or proposed joint exploration deal in the energy-rich Reed Bank in the South China Sea. Nonetheless, the two parties triumphantly declared their relationship as fully normalized, after years of tensions during the Aquino administration. In their joint statement, they agreed to “make concerted efforts to cement the traditional friendship of the two peoples.” But far from creating clarity in Philippine foreign policy direction, Duterte injected more confusion into the picture when he publicly backtracked from his most controversial comments upon his return to the Philippines. Crucially, back in the Philippines he acknowledged that it’s “in the best interest of my countrymen [Philippines] to maintain that [military] relationship [with America]." This comes as no surprise, since as I have argued earlier, the Philippine security establishment is extremely close with their peers in the United States, and supportive of continued close strategic ties. Yet Duterte seemed to contradict himself once again, when he declared days later that he wants U.S. troops out of the country in two years without providing more policy details. Interestingly, just before Duterte embarked on his China visit, a survey showed that Filipinos view America, by far, highly favorably, while viewing China, by far, with tremendous mistrust. Steeped in left-leaning ‘anti-imperialist’ thinking, the self-described “socalist” Duterte has a long record of tense relations with the United States, dating back to his mayoral days in Davao city, when he blocked joint U.S.-Philippine military exercises and usage of Davao airbase for American drone operations in Mindanao. Since taking power, he has tried to convince the public to have support his more “independent” foreign policy, moving the country away from the U.S., but surveys still suggest that vast majority of Filipinos see Washington favorably. As an elected leader, Duterte will have to take public opinion into consideration, lest he risks undermining his popularity, especially among sectors that are deeply dependent on U.S. investment and aid. To be sure, Duterte may be willing to slightly downgrade military cooperation with the United States, such as suspending joint exercises in disputed waters or restricting access to Philippine military bases, in exchange for Chinese concessions in the South China Sea. But if China refuses to grant the Philippines any tangible concession in the South China Sea such as a formal joint fisheries agreement in the Scarbrough Shoal and an end to its harassment of Filipino oil exploration activities in the Reed Bank, Duterte will be under increasing pressure to change his foreign policy approach. With Beijing itself seemingly baffled by Duterte’s mercurial character and contradictory statements, it may indeed shun making any lasting compromise with Manila on sensitive territorial issues. As for China’s economic carrots, they are pledges that are yet to be translated into concrete, consequential and quality investments that could dramatically improve its image among Filipinos. And China faces stiff economic competition from Japan, the leading investor, trading partner and source of development aid to the Philippines. Unlike major Western powers, Japan has enjoyed excellent relationship with Duterte over the past decades. And Duterte’s subsequent visit to Tokyo has shown that Japan is willing to ensure the Philippines doesn’t become too dependent on Chinese investments. In fact, Duterte went the extra mile to reassure his Japanese hosts that he is not seeking an alliance with China, and welcomed Japan assistance in resolving the South China Sea disputes. During his visit to Japan, both sides vowed to expand areas of maritime security and economic cooperation, with Japan offering surveillance aircraft on lease and billions of dollars in soft loans. In many ways, the Philippines’ rapprochement with China, therefore, is more a strategic recalibration in favor of calibrated engagement with Beijing rather than a revolutionary break from existing alliances.

Over the past decade, the United States and the Philippines have bolstered what was already a strong strategic and diplomatic relationship with deep historical roots and a 65-year treaty alliance. During the George W. Bush administration, after 9/11, the U.S. launched a training and assistance program for the Philippine armed forces, designed to help combat terrorist networks based in the southern Philippines, especially Abu Sayyaf. For a time, a significant detachment of U.S. Special Forces was based there, training Philippine soldiers. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. and the Philippines have moved even closer together. For the last six years under President Benigno Aquino III, the Philippines was a major recipient of increased U.S. assistance for maritime security in Southeast Asia—the result of frequent travels to Washington by Philippine officials to plead for aid to modernize their navy and coast guard. Two years ago, Manila and Washington signed a 10-year enhanced defense partnership that is supposed to allow U.S. forces to rotate through the Philippines for extended periods of time at local bases. But since Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Philippines earlier this year, Manila has staked out a drastically different approach to its relations with the U.S.—or at least, it appears to, based on Duterte’s bombastic rhetoric. In his latest tirade Tuesday, the new Philippine president said that Obama could “go to hell” for criticisms of Duterte’s vigilante war on drugs and if the U.S. refuses to sell his government weapons, although that possibility seems unlikely. Last week, Duterte likened himself to Hitler, boasting he would potentially kill three million drug dealers and users in the Philippines. For more of my analysis of the future of the U.S.-Philippine relationship, see my new article for World Politics Review.

Richard Javad Heydarian is an assistant professor in political science at De La Salle University in Manila, and, most recently, the author of Asia’s New Battlefield: The U.S., China, and the Struggle for Western Pacific. The Philippines’ controversial president, Rodrigo Duterte, has once again grabbed global headlines with his inflammatory statements. This time, he reportedly invoked Hitler to underscore his commitment to continuing a ‘shock and awe’ campaign against illegal drugs, which has provoked global outcry. In response to a chorus of international condemnation, senior Philippine officials were quick to dismiss Duterte’s latest off-the-cuff remarks as a joke that should not be taken literally. Recognizing his mistake, the president himself apologized “profoundly and deeply” and clarified that there “was never an intention to derogate” the Holocaust. With suspected drug users and sellers surrendering to the government, there is growing pressure on the Duterte administration to adopt a more public health-centered approach on the issue. And the cash-strapped Philippine government is in need of significant foreign assistance to deal with the public health crisis. Some foreign actors have responded, despite Duterte’s criticism of them. Though at the receiving end of Duterte’s tirades---he has called the European Union “hypocrites” and sworn at them---the European Union has stepped up its assistance for new drug rehabilitation centers in the Philippines. The United Nations could also pursue common ground with Manila in addressing the country’s real drugs problems by focusing on augmenting the Philippines’ limited rehabilitation capacity for drug users. Meanwhile, Duterte has also forcefully questioned the foundations of Philippine foreign policy, taking aim at existing security agreements with the United States, and most recently threatening to cancel the new Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). In the past month, Duterte has called for the expulsion of U.S. Special Forces from the southern island of Mindanao, where they have been advising their Philippine counterparts on counterterror operations since 2001. He also has called for the cancellation of joint patrols with foreign powers within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone in international waters, and for the termination of U.S.-Philippine joint military exercises. Duterte has further suggested that, while reducing security ties to the United States, the Philippines could bolster links with China and Russia. A major problem, however, is that it is not clear whether any of these comments are instances of Duterte-style bluster and bravado, or actual policy statements, and it is hard to know how to confirm which comments indicate policy shifts. So far, there has been no confirmation from the presidential palace that the Philippine government has formally requested these changes in the security relationship with the United States. Similarly, despite suggesting that Manila would bolster security ties to Moscow and Beijing, Duterte subsequently clarified that he was mainly seeking closer trade and investment ties with Russia and China. But reports suggest that Manila and Beijing are exploring a 25-year military deal that might allow Manila to purchase advanced Chinese weaponry. There are three possible and interrelated explanations for Duterte’s latest remarks regarding Manila’s security relationship with Washington. First, his comments, while not necessarily meaning an end to joint exercises, are still consistent with his geopolitical vision of the country as more balanced between major foreign powers. Unlike many Philippine politicians, including his predecessor Benigno Aquino III, Duterte has consistently emphasized his preference for an “independent” foreign policy, which, to him, apparently means less dependence on the United States. Duterte believes that his country has been too subservient to Washington, and has repeatedly expressed his doubts about whether the U.S. military would be willing to come to the Philippines’ rescue in an event of war with China in the South China Sea. Second, Duterte’s latest tirades could be a means of expressing his frustration with Washington over human rights issues. The Obama administration---in addition to many international and domestic human rights organizations---has progressively stepped up its criticism of Duterte’s war on drugs campaign as the casualty count rises and Manila has no clear strategy for dealing with the public health ramifications of the growing drug crackdown. This criticism has, unsurprisingly, not gone over well with the blunt president, who has accused America of interfering in domestic Philippine affairs. Finally, these remarks could be part of his diplomatic charm-offensive vis-à-vis Beijing. Later this month, Duterte will make his first state visit to China, where the two neighbors are expected to negotiate the outlines of cooperation over the South China Sea, ranging from a joint fisheries agreement regarding the Scarborough Shoal to the establishment of a China-Philippine emergency hotline, as well as other confidence building measures. In exchange, Duterte may tinker with existing Philippine-U.S. security agreements. It is possible, for instance, that the Philippines may relocate annual Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises from the South China Sea to a less controversial site. It is doubtful though whether Duterte will move ahead with complete severance of existing security agreements, such as the new Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) or the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), or the 1951 Philippine-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty. Actually cutting these links this could alienate the Philippine armed forces and security establishment, which is close to and reliant on its U.S. counterparts, as well as undermine the president’s appeal among the population. Surveys consistently show that residents of the Philippines have the most pro-U.S. views of any country in the world. The United States is also home to millions of Filipinos, and is the biggest source of remittances, and one of the largest investors and trade partners of the Philippines. Any significant downgrade in bilateral ties would surely alienate a significant portion of the population.

Having already launched a grim, brutal war on drugs that has reportedly led to thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of arrests, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is now turning his eye to southern Philippines, where a collection of insurgent groups/terrorist organizations/bandits have wreaked havoc for decades. (Southeast Asia is also now home to more piracy attacks than any other region of the world, and the waters of the southern Philippines are part of this massive piracy problem.) In recent days, Duterte has, in his usual tough guy style, vowed to step up the government’s war against the Abu Sayyaf, which in the past year has allied itself with the Islamic State group, increased its number of kidnappings, and appeared bolder in its ability to stand toe-to-toe with Philippine army troops in gunfights in the deep south. Duterte now has promised to have the army totally destroy the Abu Sayyaf militarily. In early September, the president vowed that he would “eat [the Abu Sayyaf] alive,” and declared that the Abu Sayyaf were trying to build a caliphate in the southern Philippines. But destroying the Abu Sayyaf, a wily group with havens in some of the most remote and lawless areas of the southern Philippines and the waters between the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, is going to be very difficult. For fifteen years, Philippine presidents, and the Philippine army, have tried and largely failed with various strategies to destroy the Abu Sayyaf. These have included all-out wars (including plans by the Aquino administration to declare martial law in the deep south), special operations designed to kidnap the top Abu Sayyaf leaders while pressuring their followers to surrender, and putting feelers out to the Abu Sayyaf for a negotiation that would lead to a permanent ceasefire. Duterte has not explained how his war on the Abu Sayyaf will differ from those of previous administrations, and the Philippine armed forces face the same challenges in their battle now as they did during the Aquino or Macapagal-Arroyo administrations. The army has limited intelligence about the Abu Sayyaf’s strongholds. Graft remains a huge problem in the Philippine armed forces, as is keeping details about impending maneuvers secret. Meanwhile, the Abu Sayyaf is widely reviled in the deep south, but the army’s history of brutality in the south---and its inability to protect informants---badly undermines its chances of effectively tracking the Abu Sayyaf’s movements. The Duterte administration has shown few signs that it has a new approach that could comprehensively eliminated the Abu Sayyaf, or lead to some kind of negotiation in which the Abu Sayyaf would join other southern groups in accepting a peace deal for Mindanao and the deep south. It doesn’t help matters that Duterte’s brusque, wild style could alienate many of the regional partners whose support he needs in the fight against the Abu Sayyaf. Duterte has, in recent weeks, condemned the United States for criticizing the abuses that have become common in his war on drugs, but U.S. assistance and training has been crucial in helping Philippine troops learn modern counterinsurgency strategies and develop battle plans for combating the Abu Sayyaf. It will be challenging for the Duterte administration to take the fight to the Abu Sayyaf if Duterte is serious about reducing U.S. assistance for the Philippine army and coast guard. In addition, although the new president has not yet alienated Malaysia and Indonesia and Singapore, whose cooperation he needs to improve the quality of patrols in the lawless Sulu Sea, don’t count out the possibility. Duterte needs Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur’s cooperation to implement a deal the three nations made in August to allow their navies to pursue Abu Sayyaf members who have taken hostages into each others’ territorial waters. But earlier this year, Duterte slammed Singapore publicly. Given his personality, it is probably only a matter of time before he says something that alienates leaders in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, further undermining cooperation in combating the Abu Sayyaf and piracy in general.

Richard Javad Heydarian is an assistant professor in political science at De La Salle University in Manila, and, most recently, the author of Asia’s New Battlefield: The U.S., China, and the Struggle for Western Pacific. Three months into office, the Philippines’ firebrand president, Rodrigo Duterte, made his global diplomatic debut, when he attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia Group summits earlier this month. No less than the leaders of China, Japan, Russia, India, and the United States as well as the Secretary General of the United Nations were in attendance. The Duterte administration scheduled nine bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the sidelines of the regional gathering, including with U.S. President Barack Obama. Duterte was also slated to formally accept the Philippines’ (rotational) chairmanship of the Southeast Asian regional grouping. (The Philippines technically become ASEAN chair next year.) The ASEAN summit in Vientiane, Laos, thus was a perfect opportunity for him to showcase a more statesmanlike and composed demeanor, in contrast to the blunt style he has used as president this summer. After all, shortly after securing an election victory earlier this year, the controversial leader promised not to be rude anymore, reassuring citizens of the Philippines that, “when I take my oath of office . . . there will be a metamorphosis.” Duterte’s promise was put to test just hours before he landed in Laos for the ASEAN summit. In another spontaneous, long-winded press conference in the Philippines, Duterte apparently referring to President Obama with a curse word, when he was asked about Washington’s criticism of Duterte’s antidrug campaign. Soon after, the White House announced that the bilateral meeting with Duterte was called off, provoking diplomatic alarm in Manila. In response, the Duterte administration released an official statement of “regret” for Duterte’s words, prompting Washington to reiterate that U.S.-Philippine relations remain “rock solid” and that Obama never took the insults personally. But just when everyone thought the issue was smoothed over, Duterte went on the offensive again, making an impromptu speech in Vientiane criticizing what he called the United States’ colonial-era crimes against the Philippine population. Duterte also skipped the U.S.-ASEAN summit portion of the Vientiane event. This was a snub to the United States. To be sure, Duterte remains an extremely popular leader at home, but the reception in the Philippines for Duterte’s first efforts at diplomacy were, at best, mixed. According to one survey, the Philippines is the most pro-United States nation on earth. So many Philippine citizens were unsurprisingly shocked to see such an open dispute between their government and Washington. Instead of holding back, Duterte has upped the ante in recent days since the Vientiane meeting, even suggesting that he may consider scrapping existing military agreements with the United States. In one of his characteristically spirited speeches, he asked U.S. Special Forces, who have for more than a decade been training Philippine soldiers in fighting extremist groups, to leave the southern Philippines. He also announced the termination of joint patrols with U.S. forces in the South China Sea, while indicating that his country would begin sourcing its military hardware from Russia and China. Duterte tried to justify his controversial statements by invoking the Philippines’ constitutional commitment to an “independent” foreign policy. Critics, meanwhile, were quick to portray Duterte as essentially decoupling the Philippines from its traditional alliances, including with the United States, in favor of other regional powers, like China. Yet the United States continues to enjoy deep and institutionalized ties with the Philippines’ security establishment and other influential Philippine policymakers. Thus, it would be very difficult for any Philippine president to upend security cooperation with the United States without suffering a domestic backlash. Reports also suggest that there has been no formal request by the Manila to actually terminate any U.S. military presence in the southern Philippines. It is more likely that Duterte is simply signaling what he hopes becomes a new normal in bilateral relations with the United States during his time as president. Duterte wants to make it clear that when it comes to human rights issues and his war on drugs, he is in no mood to be lectured. With Duterte also likely to visit Beijing in the coming month, in hopes of negotiating a modus vivendi in the South China Sea, his recent anti-American tirades also could reflect a calibrated maneuver to communicate to China Manila’s independence from Washington.

Richard Javad Heydarian is an assistant professor in political science at De La Salle University in Manila, and, most recently, the author of Asia’s New Battlefield: The U.S., China, and the Struggle for Western Pacific. While the world is transfixed by the Duterte administration’s ‘shock and awe’ crackdown on the drug trade, which has drawn global condemnation for its alleged widespread use of extrajudicial killings yet enjoys significant domestic support, the newly-inaugurated President Rodrigo Duterte, a self-described ‘socialist’, is also shaking up Philippine foreign policy. So far, however, under the country’s new firebrand leader, the country has seen more change than continuity in its foreign policy. Earlier this year, before the presidential campaign formally kicked off, the Philippines was generally regarded as one of the stronger liberal democracies in Asia, as well as a vibrant emerging market and a staunch ally of the United States. The United States and the Philippines are treaty allies, but under the previous Aquino administration, Washington and Manila signed a new bilateral defense pact, and U.S. security assistance to the Philippines rose markedly. A new administration in Manila, however, is rapidly reshaping the country’s domestic politics, but its impact on foreign policy remains unclear. When it comes to Duterte’s overheated rhetoric, sometimes it seems he really means what he says, as evidently shown in his uncompromising ‘war on drugs’ campaign. As president, he has followed through on the promises to combat the drug trade, even through extralegal means, that he made on the campaign trail. Shortly after his election victory, Duterte declared, "I will be charting a [new] course [for the Philippines] on its own and will not be dependent on the United States." Since then, when it comes to relations with Washington, the new president has broken one diplomatic taboo after the other. On multiple occasions, he has openly questioned America’s commitment to come to the Philippines’ aid in an event of conflict in the South China Sea. He has intimated that he will put new restrictions on the movement of American military personnel on Philippine soil, though vowed to honor existing bilateral security agreements. So far, the Obama administration has tried to walk a diplomatic tightrope with Duterte, generally avoiding any criticism of the new Philippine government. In fact, President Barack Obama was the first head of state to call Duterte and congratulate him upon his election victory. Secretary of State John Kerry made a trip to Manila shortly after the new Philippine president was inaugurated. Washington has begun, though in a carefully crafted language, to criticize Duterte on human rights concerns. President Obama is expected to raise the issue again when he meets the Philippine leader at the upcoming Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit. Yet Washington’s diplomatic outreach apparently has neither prevented Duterte from publicly insulting the American ambassador nor impacted Duterte’s domestic political agenda. If anything, Duterte has moved closer to China in recent months, extending an olive branch to China, despite the latter’s refusal to even acknowledge a United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) ruling at The Hague this summer, which debunked the bulk of Beijing’s claims over the South China Sea. Over the past few months, Duterte has met Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jinhua more than any other diplomatic envoy in Manila. The two met shortly before the final award from The Hague was announced. By all indications, the exchanges were cordial and intimate, underlining the Duterte administration’s determination to renormalize relations with Beijing after years of icy relations under the Aquino government. In recent months, Beijing has generously offered large-scale investments in Philippine infrastructure, including in Mindanao, where Duterte served as mayor of Davao for decades. To ensure maximum diplomatic success, Duterte has appointed former President Fidel Ramos, who deftly managed South China Sea disputes in the mid-1990s and maintains friendly relations with Beijing leaders, as special envoy to China. After a five-day ‘ice breaker’ visit to Hong Kong, where he informally met a senior Chinese official, Ramos received an invitation for direct talks in Beijing. Duterte himself will likely meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on the sidelines of the ASEAN in Laos, paving the way for a potential state visit by Duterte to Beijing later this year. A joint fisheries agreement in the Scarborough Shoal, which is consistent with The Hague ruling, is one potential compromise on the horizon. To ensure smooth progress in his diplomatic outreach to China, the Duterte administration has de-emphasized the arbitration outcome and has sought to de-multilateralize the disputes by not vigorously raising the South China Sea disputes in the ASEAN. Obviously, improved ties between the Philippines and China aren’t necessarily inimical to American interests, since the Obama administration has welcomed diplomatic resolution of regional disputes. But Duterte’s approach to the United States has certainly raised eyebrows in Washington.

Over email, Professor Richard Javad Heydarian of De La Salle University in Manila and CFR Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia Joshua Kurlantzick discussed some of the potential effects—both positive and negative—of the administration of new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Richard Javad Heydarian: By many indicators, Rodrigo Duterte is emerging as the Philippines’ most powerful president since the fall of the Marcos dictatorship three decades ago. Fresh into office, and after months of aggressive campaign rhetoric, the new president enjoys excellent trust ratings, has amassed super-majority support in the Philippine Congress, and is set to appoint a majority of Supreme Court justices in coming years. The Ombudsman office, which has been waging a relentless campaign against corrupt officials, also enjoys close and cooperative relations with Duterte. From a maverick candidate, who galvanized nationwide support and gained notoriety internationally, Duterte has seemingly transformed into a more statesmanlike, unifying figure. Or at least, that is how a growing number of Filipinos are coming to see him, despite his unorthodox style and still colorful language, which tends to estrange the polite society. Less than a month into office, Duterte sits confidently atop the Philippine state, relishing an unprecedented amount of political capital, potentially granting him enough space to overhaul the Philippine political system—although this will require a constitutional amendment, which is not easy to pass. Much of this is a reflection of his leadership dynamism, but also profound public yearning for meaningful change. A month into office, Duterte has already instructed his allies in the Congress to form a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution, paving the way for a federal form of government with both parliament and a president, if the changes to the constitution pass. Duterte plans to finalize the transition before the end of his term. Many experts, however, doubt whether such move is necessary or even desirable, since federalism could further empower local political dynasties and exacerbate regional divides, not to mention weaken the Philippines’ already fragile state institutions. Joshua Kurlantzick: Richard, I agree with you about the desire for change, since the previous Aquino administration clearly failed to make serious inroads into inequality, and to convince most voters that the political and economic system works for anyone but elites. This despite strong GDP growth, a more stable macroeconomic environment than the Philippines had enjoyed in decades, and an overall high level of political stability.  But is it actually true that Duterte has more political capital than any other leader in recent memory? After all, he was just inaugurated president, and new presidents always have a fairly high degree of political capital in their early months in office. He won a race with multiple candidates and only with a plurality of votes, and it is very early in his relations with Congress. Also, what’s the hard evidence to show he’s suddenly become a more statesmanlike figure?  I’ll quote from this Sydney Morning Herald article on Duterte’s State of the Nation speech: “Mr Duterte shrugged off alarm over the rising body count in his first state of the nation address to parliament, declaring that drugs were drowning his country and human rights were no excuse to shield criminals. ‘Double your efforts. Triple them if need be,’ the tough-talking former provincial mayor said in a message to police.” Is this statesmanlike? Or worryingly undermining the rule of law? Heydarian: More than nine out of ten Filipinos, latest polls show, have expressed confidence in the new Filipino leader. This is the highest  figure enjoyed by any Filipino president in modern history, although it is very early in Duterte’s term. Six out of ten Filipinos, another poll shows, expressed high confidence in Duterte’s ability to fulfill most of his campaign promises. Yet, these numbers could be more a reflection of high public expectations and an ephemeral “benefit of the doubt,” which can significantly diminish in the medium-run if Duterte fails to fulfill his wide-ranging promise of political transformation. Nonetheless, Duterte has yet to roll out a coherent and feasible national vision.  During his recent first State of the Nation address, the new president promised a more caring, responsive and, above all, effective government. Though entertaining, and in many ways unorthodox, it ultimately evinced lack of proper organization and policy clarity in the new government. Kurlantzick: The lack of organization and policy clarity—that is a major concern. In his time as mayor of Davao, Duterte, despite policies that encouraged extrajudicial killings and other potential violations of human rights, also was known for courting advice from a wide range of experts and actually rolling out detailed policies on a wide range of issues. How could he not have a clear, detailed vision in the SONA, when it was his best, first chance to show the country how he actually plans to transform his big rhetoric into policy? How does he plan to really get constitutional change, if it is so hard to do so with a constitutional amendment? Heydarian: Duterte dedicated the bulk of his speech to defending his relentless war on organized crime, which has provoked growing opposition from the liberal media, human rights groups, and the Catholic Church for his seeming toleration for abuses by security forces. “Human rights must work to uplift human dignity,” Duterte exclaimed. “But human rights cannot be used as a shield or an excuse to destroy the country—your country and my country.” He explained his peace and security agenda to the conflict in Mindanao, calling upon Moro Islamic rebels in the south to unify under the banner of a multi-ethnic, inclusive society. Duterte has also promised more political autonomy for the Muslim-majority regions in the south through a modified version of his predecessor’s proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which faced stiff opposition in the Philippine Congress and did not pass by the time Aquino left office. Kurlantzick: My understanding is that even a modified BBL is still going to face strong opposition in Congress. What is the evidence otherwise—especially if there are new rounds of violence in the south? Also, aren’t some of Duterte’s own appointees known for being highly skeptical of a southern peace deal, or have poor relations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)? I am noting Zachary Abuza’s piece here, in which he writes that: “Duterte immediately selected Jesus Dureza as his advisor on the peace process. Duereza held the same position in the cabinet of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from 2001 to 2003. Duereza had a terrible reputation as a back-channel wheeler dealer.” Abuza further notes: “Secretary of Agriculture Emmanuel Piñol had cut his teeth as an elected official in North Cotabato, where some of the most fierce fighting between the government and the MILF, and later the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, has taken place. North Cotabato has always been contested space between Christian dominated eastern Mindanao and lands claimed by the Bangsamoro. Piñol has been a leading critic of the BBL and a hardline Christian advocate within Congress, opposing the peace process.” How do you reconcile these cabinet officials’ backgrounds with movement toward peace in the south and some kind of BBL? Are you saying that, because these officials are so close to Duterte, if he wants to push for a revised BBL, they will be more effective interlocutors with the MILF this time, simply because Duterte is a stronger leader? Heydarian: In Philippine politics, personality, trust, and political will matters. We saw how this helped previous President Aquino’s efforts to rekindle peace talks, which were unfortunately undermined by Mamasapano tragedy, and undermined similar efforts by his less trusted predecessors. As far as Duterte is concerned, he is not only the first president from Mindanao, with intimate understanding of the conflict in the region, but he has nurtured his close ties with various rebel leaders. Among Muslims in the Philippines, Duterte is right now highly popular. And there is a growing sense that if there is any president who can end the conflict in Mindanao, it is him. But of course, the challenge is to translate this unique political capital into actual gains in peace negotiations. So far, there is no indication that any of his cabinet members are going to use their posts to come out now against peace in the south. He also hopes to revive Mindanao’s economic fortunes by containing terrorism, ending insurgencies and brining in massive infrastructure projects, likely with the help of China and Japan. Meanwhile, Duterte dedicated only few lines to external security concerns, particularly the South China Sea disputes. Eager to re-open communication channels with the Chinese leadership, Duterte has adopted a “keep it quiet” pragmatic policy in the aftermath of a landmark legal victory against China in the South China Sea. No less than former President Fidel Ramos is expected to serve as Duterte’s special envoy to China. For Duterte, who is more focused on domestic security challenges, sometimes the best form of communication is calibrated silence. There is, however, a huge risk that China will take advantage of the Philippines’ recalibration under a new leadership to expand its presence across disputed waters and renege on any provisional deal with the Duterte administration. Kurlantzick: I think to say that Duterte’s so far low-key approach to the South China Sea runs a risk of allowing China to further entrench its gains in the South China Sea is kind of a major understatement. The Philippines got a significant victory from the tribunal in The Hague in July. Sure, Duterte can leverage this victory to help make gains in negotiations with China. There’s nothing wrong, I think, with bilateral negotiations, as long as other Southeast Asian nations are informed, and both the Philippines and China know they can’t negotiate away areas that are claimed by Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and Vietnam. But there’s little evidence from the past—in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, or elsewhere—that China responds to calibrated silence by being willing to make deals.  

It doesn’t look like there is going to be a more presidential Rodrigo Duterte. The former mayor of Davao made his name on the campaign trail for his blunt rhetoric, which often offended many civil society activists, journalists, and other Filipinos. He had a reputation, as mayor of Davao, for both effective management and for allegedly condoning extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects. He had a highly testy relationship with the press. Not much has changed, even though Duterte is now president. Since he was elected, there has been a rash of suspicious killings of criminal suspects---killings that seemingly resemble the “encounter killings” common in India in which police are believed to have just executed suspects. While president-elect, he also has made a series of statements that could be construed as highly insulting to women, and questioning the rule of law. Duterte also has brought his seeming contempt for journalists to a national stage. As president-elect, he announced that journalists could be assassinated if they were corrupt, a terrible public signal in a country where more journalists are killed each year than anywhere else in East Asia. He appointed as his presidential spokesman a man who had worked as a lawyer for the leaders of the Ampatuan clan, which was linked to a massacre of 58 people in 2009. The dead included at least 34 journalists. Now, Duterte banned journalists from his swearing-in, even though the Philippines has a vibrant media culture and one of the most media-hungry populations in East Asia. (The swearing-in was shown only on a state television station.) As Foreign Policy reported:   “The move [to ban reporters from the inauguration] is in line with Duterte’s promise to boycott the media: Earlier this month, he subjected a female reporter who was mid-sentence in asking a question to catcalling and then a serenade---all during a televised news conference. Three days after that, he cut his losses and announced he would no longer grant interviews until the end of his term.”   On the other hand, Duterte has long demonstrated that he hates Manila, that he wants the country to have a larger and more diverse set of political and economic capitals, and that he plans to include a broader range of Filipinos in his government. On the campaign trail, he repeatedly disparaged Manila, and he has now appointed many of his allies from Davao to his cabinet. He also seemingly plans to run the government, at least some of the time, from Davao rather than from the Palace in Manila. More importantly, Duterte appears willing to push hard for a constitutional amendment that would shift power from a highly centralized system to a decentralized one, potentially modeled on the political and economic devolution tried in Indonesia, which has been highly successful. Although passing an amendment will be extremely difficult---as hard as pushing through a constitutional amendment in the United States---there is deep popular desire for systemic political change in the Philippines. Just don’t expect Duterte to change.

The new president-elect of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, came into office without a clear policy platform. On the campaign trail, Duterte had vowed to get tough on crime, duplicating his efforts as mayor of Davao on a national level. He had made vague promises of changing the Philippines’ political system to reduce the power of entrenched elites, and he had offered contradictory, sometimes confusing statements on the Philippines’ major security challenges---the ongoing threat of militant groups in the southern Philippines, and the growing contest with China over control of disputed parts of the South China Sea. Since his election in early May, Duterte’s plans for his six year presidential term have become clearer. The first president to have come from the southern Philippines (Duterte was not born in Mindanao, but he served as mayor of Davao for decades), Duterte clearly intends to make ending the decades-long wars with southern insurgents and communist militants a centerpiece of his administration. He also clearly sees a need for a dramatic decentralization of power away from Manila, both to reduce the power of elites and to end insurgencies in the south. The decentralization of political and economic power in Indonesia since 1998 is an obvious inspiration for Duterte, according to several of his advisors; before the end of the Suharto regime, Indonesia was one of the most centralized states in the region. Today, Indonesia is one of the most federalized states in Southeast Asia, and other countries in the region, like Myanmar, also are looking at Indonesia as a potential model of decentralization. As a new Wall Street Journal article notes, Duterte intends to change the constitution to transform the Philippines into a more federal country, proposing a national referendum for these constitutional change by 2019. Duterte will confront significant hurdles; as the Journal notes, previous Philippine presidents have not been able to push through constitutional changes. Still, the idea of decentralization makes real sense in such a large and diverse country, and decentralization has been effective in Indonesia in fostering political engagement and promoting economic competitiveness. Duterte also has made clear that he intends to continue many of the Aquino administration’s economic policies, which should be reassuring to domestic and foreign investors. The Duterte administration, however, hopes to shift the Philippines’ economy in a way that brings broader growth. Duterte has promised to use his power to foster growth that not only expands the economy but helps reduce the Philippines’ high income inequality. Such a strategy includes fostering investment in the south and other outlying regions, and in making the economy more reliant on agricultural and manufacturing exports, rather than consumption, according to Duterte economic advisor Ernesto Pernia. As he notes, an economy so dependent on consumption is not creating enough jobs, especially given the Philippines’ high birth rate. The government also apparently plans to create new special economic zones, designed to attract investment, in areas other than Metro Manila and Central Luzon. Finally, Duterte has begun to offer some clarity about his policies on the South China Sea. Although, on the campaign trail, he often offered an olive branch to Beijing, suggesting he would break from the Aquino administration’s tough rhetorical approach and increasing military buildup. But there is little evidence that Duterte is going to completely break from Aquino’s policies. He has said that he will not rely on the United States for long-term security guarantees, and that his administration would be open to direct talks with Beijing about disputed areas, but he also has stated that the Philippines is not going to give up its rights to Scarborough Shoal. He also has not pulled back from the Philippines’ case before international arbitration in The Hague, as some of his critics suggested he might.

Richard Javad Heydarian is an assistant professor in political science at De La Salle University in Manila. His latest book is "Asia’s New Battlefield: The US, China, and the Struggle for Western Pacific." The Philippines’ new president, former Davao mayor Rodrigo Duterte, won last week in a five-way vote. His tough-talking style, effective social media campaign, and vows to reduce the power of the country’s elite and crack down on crime resonated enough to deliver him the win. Promises to give political autonomy and fiscal resources to peripheral regions also helped with many voters, especially in the central and southern Philippines. Overall, Duterte captured a large plurality (38.5 percent) of votes cast, with much of his support from Manila and its outskirts, Cebu (his paternal homeland), and the island of Mindanao, where Davao is the largest city. In a single-round, first-past-the-post system, where reformist voters were split between Senator Grace Poe and former Interior Minister Mar Roxas, this was enough to give Duterte a clear victory. But who is Duterte? His critics have compared him to Donald Trump, while supporters describe him as the Lee Kuan Yew of the Philippines. But neither comparison holds much water. Unlike the real estate mogul from New York, Duterte boasts more than two decades of actual political experience. He is widely credited for transforming, albeit with an iron fist, the Hobbesian city of Davao into a (supposedly) ‘Switzerland of Mindanao’. Yet, Duterte is also no Lee Kuan Yew. The late Singaporean leader, a Cambridge-trained lawyer, was polished and sophisticated, both an effective domestic leader and a diplomat and statesman. Although Lee Kuan Yew could be blunt when discussing Singaporean politics, he was skilled in working with neighbors and major foreign powers like Japan and the United States. In addition, Lee Kuan Yew managed a city-state a tiny fraction of the size of the Philippines. Duterte, in contrast, is known for his intemperate outbursts, which have already scared some investors and worried some of the Philippines’ foreign partners. During the campaign, he vowed to form a “revolutionary government” if he could not pass legislation he wanted, and just in the past week he has promised to be a “dictator” against crime and to bring back the death penalty to be used against a wide range of criminals. In fact, Duterte vowed to hang criminals twice. He also will have to govern a nation of hundred million people and navigate difficult rural-urban dynamics and entrenched socioeconomic inequalities. As a result, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could serve as a better comparison for Duterte, in terms of the challenges Duterte faces and the bulldozer style Duterte employs. Like Modi, Duterte will face both enormous challenges and the difficulty of balancing expectations he created among his supporters with the reality that combating entrenched interests will take significant time. Indeed, Duterte faces the difficult balancing act of reassuring investors, civil society leaders worried about some of his promises on crime and international partners, on one hand, and continuing with the tough talk and rapid action that has attracted his supporters. A look at his potential presidential cabinet, which is set to be filled by a ‘team of rivals’ of communists, technocrats and military men, reflects Duterte’s desire to signal simultaneous continuity as well as radical change in both the domestic and international realms. Domestically, he is expected to focus on infrastructure development, suppression of crime, and effective tax collection, while maintaining many of the Aquino administration’s macroeconomic policies, which helped deliver six years of strong growth. Externally, he is expected to transform the Philippines’ foreign policy into one less reliant on ties with the United States and more willing to balance between Washington and Beijing. For Duterte, a realist at heart, safety and development come first. By launching a comprehensive anticrime initiative, he hopes to create the basic security that would undergird long-term development. On multiple occasions, he also has telegraphed his willingness to launch direct dialogue with China, explore joint development agreements in the South China Sea, and invite large-scale Chinese infrastructure investments in the country. He apparently hopes that Manila and Beijing can settle their disputes over the South China Sea amicably, and that Chinese companies are interested in heavily investing in the Philippines. The biggest challenge for Duterte, however, is the lingering fear among many Filipinos that he is a dictator-in-the-making. No less than the outgoing president, Benigno Aquino, has made such accusation. Human rights groups, members of the security establishment, as well as the Catholic Church have also been alarmed by Duterte’s rhetoric and track record in Davao. Thus, the moment Duterte tries to dramatically reconfigure the country’s institutional checks and balances, it is reasonable to expect a huge political backlash and a concerted pushback by his legions of supporters. For now, however, there is cautious optimism that Duterte’s more pragmatic dimension will prevail. Without a doubt, the Philippines has entered a new period of uncertainty, filled with high hopes and deep fears.

With Rodrigo Duterte now officially confirmed as the winner of the Philippines’ presidential election last Monday, it is time for some brief thoughts on the immediate implications of his victory. Duterte will now try to win a mass of defectors from the president’s party. Although the Liberal Party performed reasonably well in some local elections, political parties in the Philippines are notoriously weak, which is one reason why charismatic figures like Duterte and celebrities are able to win higher office. Expect the president-elect to try to win over large numbers of Liberal Party members who won local elections earlier in the week. Duterte is not going to focus on foreign affairs; he might not be as accommodating to China as some suggest, but he is also not going to prioritize the conflict in the South China Sea---no matter what he said on the campaign trail about jet skiing to contested waters to reinforce Philippine claims. Like President Joko Widodo in Indonesia, Duterte has been elected with a mandate to focus on domestic issues, principally inequality, perceived needs for political reform, and crime. He has already promised to continue many of President Aquino III’s macroeconomic policies. He is a mayor, and he will likely stick to these domestic challenges. He is unlikely to just jettison Manila’s South China Sea arbitration case, as some Philippine and U.S. commentators have feared; the case is near completion, and the decision will probably be released this summer. Duterte surely realizes that if Manila wins, it will be a boon for the Philippines’ claims. Even if he ultimately wants to take a more accommodating stance---which would surely worry the United States and other partners---and work more closely with China in resolving South China Sea claims, winning the arbitration might provide some leverage. Duterte is going to press hard for major reforms to the Philippine political system. The president-elect surely understands that the idea of changing to a parliamentary, more decentralized system is popular with most voters, and also might help entrench his rule in the long run. In addition, there are substantial, serious arguments to be made for switching to a parliamentary system or some kind of hybrid presidential/parliamentary system. Such a switch would potentially empower more regions of the country, foster wider development, reduce the influence of a small number of political elites, and eventually make for stronger and more ideologically coherent political parties. Getting there---reforming the constitution---will however be extraordinarily difficult. And while Duterte’s at it, he might consider changing the laws on the presidential election to mandate runoffs, French-style, so that the winner has to take at least the majority of the votes. Leni Robredo makes an unlikely coup-plotter. Leni Robredo, who appears to be the next vice president, is a left-leaning social activist, lawyer, and politician. She is renowned for her advocacy for better governance. Although it is true that, in the Philippines, previous vice presidents have collaborated with the military and helped facilitate presidents’ downfalls, putting the vice president in office, Robredo is hardly close to military elites. She is also a member of the Liberal Party---where top leaders remember the many attempted coups against Aquino’s mother.

As the Philippines ushers in the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, the longtime mayor of Davao, the country is poised for dramatic changes from the leadership of Benigno Aquino III. Aquino’s tenure was generally stable, and he oversaw the longest sustained period of growth the country had enjoyed in decades. Aquino rhetorically touted the need to retain strong democratic institutions, and he also used typical political methods of trying to achieve policy successes: he consulted with advisors, unveiled policy platforms, and then tried to build support for them in the legislature and with the public. His persona was rarely controversial. Yet even as he tried to combat corruption and oversaw high growth, Aquino achieved only modest success in reducing income inequality, long one of the most significant problems in the country. Despite new cash transfer programs, inequality in the archipelago has grown in the past three years, according to Patricio Abinales of the University of Hawaii. Indeed, he notes, despite consistent growth rates of six percent or above during Aquino’s tenure:   “Job-generation has not caught up. Unemployment continues to hover between 6 and 6.6 per cent. The Philippine poverty rate remains one of the highest in Asia at 16.6 per cent, while income inequality has worsened in the last three years, though the remittances of overseas Filipino workers---which rose to a high of US$28.4 billion in 2014---mitigate this sad portrait."   Duterte, a charismatic speaker who affects a Hollywood-style tough guy persona, took advantage of the perceived failures of Aquino’s tenure. He touted his anticrime record in Davao, even if that record included condoning extrajudicial killings of suspects, according to Human Rights Watch. He emphasized that he would fight inequality and would take on Manila’s economic and political elites, at one point claiming that he would establish a “revolutionary government” as president. With five presidential candidates dividing the vote, and Aquino failing to broker a unity ticket between the two candidates closest to him, Senator Grace Poe and Interior Minister Mar Roxas, Duterte only had to win between 30 and 40 percent of the vote to triumph. On Monday, he took nearly 39 percent of the vote, good enough to win (according to unofficial election results). Poe took 21 percent and Roxas took 23 percent---perhaps making Aquino wonder why he waited so long to publicly call for a unity strategy in which Poe or Roxas dropped out and supported the other. (Although the Philippines’ presidency has substantial powers, there is no runoff to ensure that the winner gets a majority of votes, as there is in some nations like France.) What will Duterte actually do as president? He has no national level policy experience. His campaign speeches were usually light on policy specifics; appearing before Manila’s most prominent business group just before the election, Duterte offered few details on economic proposals but repeated his promise, delivered often during campaign season, to have criminals killed without due process. Domestic and foreign investors are worried; the last time the Philippines had a president who seemed as uninterested in economic policy, Joseph Estrada, growth stagnated, popular protests forced him from office, and Estrada eventually went to jail on graft charges. But at the same time, Duterte has established a record, in Davao, of promoting investment and growth, where he relinquished significant control over economic policy-making to technocrats, and oversaw significant infrastructure development. As Reuters reported, under Duterte, it took fewer days to start a business in Davao than in Manila, and the Davao region grew even faster than the rest of the country over the past five years. Despite his populist pledges on the campaign trail, it seems more likely that Duterte will focus his presidency on crime, corruption, and national security and maintain the Aquino administration’s moderate, pro-investment economic policies. In addition, Duterte has pledged to work to pass and implement the peace agreement for the restive south launched by the Aquino administration. With his record as a southern mayor, Duterte could be just the figure needed to convince both the remaining militant holdouts, and Filipinos from other parts of the country, that the peace agreement is worth passing. The deal could foster greater stability in the south and unlock Mindanao’s vast economic potential. However, as I have written, Duterte’s rise---and now his election---is a very troubling sign for the country’s politics, and for democracy in Southeast Asia overall. In some ways, Duterte resembles other elected autocrats in the region and elsewhere, like Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen or former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who notably presided over his own “war on drugs” that included reports of thousands of extrajudicial killings---leaders who cared only about winning elections, after which they would undermine or destroy legal and constitutional institutions of democracy. In the run-up to Election Day, Duterte gave no signs that he would moderate his antidemocratic promises, like presiding over the killing of criminals or trying to pass policies without working through the legislature. Even if Duterte turns out to be an economic moderate, his election raises the prospect that another of the success stories of the third wave of global democratization will slide back into authoritarianism.

As I wrote last week, the Philippines’ presidential race is still extremely close, going into the final days before Election Day. But as numerous Philippine polling organizations have reported, Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte maintains a slim lead over his closest challenger, Senator Grace Poe, and over the other three major candidates. Since there is no runoff system like that of the French presidential election, which has more than one round, Duterte could win the presidency with a plurality 30 to 35 percent of the total votes. The Davao mayor is certainly thrilling his base. His rallies have drawn large, fevered crowds. As The Economist noted in a piece on the Philippines election last week, Poe’s recent rallies have attracted crowds that seem more “dutiful” than passionate, and that sometimes seem to be appearing to haul off free T-shirts and other gear. By contrast, Duterte’s rallies, where he often speaks off the cuff and makes macho promises to crush crime and corruption, feel like raucous parties, his supporters screaming and applauding. Duterte made his name as mayor of Davao, the largest city in Mindanao, where he supposedly oversaw significant reductions in the crime rate and inroads into corruption, although both of these achievements have been questioned by independent analysts. He is, however, originally Visayan and, as the Economist notes, can draw votes from both Visayan areas and from Mindanao, the biggest island in the south. He boasts of his long relationships with Muslim leaders in the south, but also seems to be running strongly, in polls, with some groups of Catholics and evangelicals. More generally, however, Duterte’s image rests on a popular perception, stoked by him throughout his tenure in Davao, that he is a blunt-talking strongman who will be able to resolve longstanding political challenges---corruption, high inequality, business cartels in many sectors, violent crime, the continuing banditry and insurgency in the south---more effectively than politicians who follow democratic norms and institutions. As Davao mayor, Duterte became famous for allegedly sanctioning death squads against criminal syndicates. As the Economist notes, Duterte has already promised that his presidency is “going to be bloody. People will die”---in other words, he will use harsh, possibly extrajudicial means to combat crime. He also has promised to kill all the criminals in the Philippines if they resist his crime control methods. (One prominent Duterte campaign symbol is, perhaps unsurprisingly, an iron fist.) In addition, he has repeatedly mocked many of the Philippines’ democratic institutions and customs. Duterte’s strongman promise seems to have hit a chord, in particular, among middle and upper middle class Philippine citizens who believe that democracy is controlled by a handful of elites, mostly based in Manila, and who think that a more authoritative leader also could help boost the growth rate and spread wealth more equally. (It is unclear whether Duterte, even if he took on more powers than previous elected presidents, would be able to boost the growth rate, already one of the highest in Asia.) These middle class voters in some respects resemble middle classes in neighboring Thailand and Indonesia, where growing skepticism about democracy led to middle class support for the May 2014 Thai military coup, and for the 2014 presidential campaign of Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto, who himself seemingly expressed grave doubts about the need for democratic rule. The mood in the Philippines today, writes prominent political commentator Richard Jayad Heydarian is:   “One of grievance politics and yearning for change---for better, or for worse. The Philippines is steadily giving into ‘strongman syndrome’, the misguided belief that tough-talking and political will alone can address complex 21st century governance challenges.”   Duterte’s apparent popularity coincides with the growing popularity of vice presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the late dictator. The younger Marcos, in his own way, also taps into popular dissatisfaction with Philippine democracy, and into an increasingly rosy, ill-informed popular view of the authoritarian era. Although the vice president in the Philippines wields few substantial powers, the office is often a stepping stone to running for the presidency. A Marcos victory in the vice presidential race (vice president and president are elected separately in the Philippines) would put the younger Marcos, who has downplayed the abuses of his father’s regime, in line to win the presidency six years from now.