In a year of global anti-establishment politics, Philippine voters appear ready for a renegade president: Self-confessed killer Rodrigo Duterte, a 71-year-old Viagra-chomping womanizer whose promise of a “bloody war” on crime has seen him race ahead in opinion polls.
Duterte has been mayor of Davao City on the southern island of Mindanao for two decades, where his strongman swagger and endorsement of extra-judicial killings of criminals earned him the nicknames “Duterte Harry” and “The Punisher.”
He has been likened to US presidential candidate Donald Trump, using populist rhetoric to reach Filipinos who feel the mainstream political parties are out of touch.
Photo: AP
“Duterte’s main asset is that, rightly or wrongly, many people see him as having led a ‘Filipino life,’ with all the frustrations and hardships that entails,” said Stephen Norris, senior Southeast Asia analyst at Control Risks in Singapore. “To voters, it’s conceivable that he would actually make a difference on traffic, crime and corruption from the top down, because he has done so locally.”
The leadership in the Philippines has for decades been the realm of powerful families whose main assets are their wealth and dynastic connections.
However, the latest Pulse Asia Research Inc survey shows Duterte, whose father was a lawyer and mother a teacher, holding a double-digit lead over the other candidates, which would see him take the presidency under a first-past-the-post voting system.
While Philippine President Benigno Aquino III delivered average growth of more than 6 percent — one of the fastest rates in the world — and nearly 4 million jobs in his six-year term, the stronger economy has also spurred frustration. Record car sales have clogged the already gridlocked capital Manila, while infrastructure spending has not improved public transport.
Graft, illegal drugs and crime are concerns of voters nationally, according to Pulse Asia, and poverty rates remain stubbornly high.
Often casually dressed in jeans and a polo shirt on the campaign trail ahead of next Monday’s vote, Duterte’s style is described by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies senior fellow Malcolm Cook as a mix of former New York City mayor “Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump and Mad Max.”
While his remarks resonate with voters, and the influential Philippine church Iglesia ni Cristo reportedly backed Duterte this week, investors are voicing concern over his lack of economic experience, plus suggestions he will trade Aquino’s fiscal discipline for spending on populist programs.
Last month, the Philippine peso slumped 1.7 percent, the worst-performing currency in Asia, and stocks fell 1.4 percent.
Duterte has sought to reassure business leaders, but he has also been unpredictable on the campaign trail and avoided specifics. He has pledged to keep spending on public transport and cash handouts to the poor, while identifying education and agriculture as priorities.
“Our best-case scenario is that Duterte will be pragmatic in choosing his policies,” said Euben Paracuelles, an economist at Nomura Holdings Inc in Singapore.
Businessman Fervie Termulo, 35, is one voter in the staunchly Catholic nation of about 100 million people looking for a change.
Termulo’s life has improved in some ways under Aquino: The owner of an electronics repair shop has also become co-owner of a car wash shop, opened two barbecue stalls and drives part-time for Uber Inc. He has tripled his income to US$640 a month, well above the minimum wage.
Yet his wife was robbed at knife-point two years ago in their home province north of Manila, and Termulo says petty theft and drug abuse have risen.
“I want these criminals to be stopped and Duterte is the man for the job,” he said. “I don’t know how he will do it, but I believe in him.”
Accusations from groups such as Human Rights Watch that Duterte’s advocacy of extra-judicial killings led to the deaths of more than 1,000 suspected criminals since the late 1990s have not dented his approval rating.
“Duterte is tapping into a few key sentiments,” said Greg Poling, a Southeast Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “In a country with persistently high violent crime, his tough talk and track record in cutting crime as mayor of Davao are attractive to many people, even if his methods were deeply troubling.”
In a radio interview in December last year, he admitted to helping kill at least three suspected rapist-kidnappers during a rescue operation in Davao in 1988.
“I said ‘Put your hands up.’ No one did, so I attacked,” he said.
Duterte said he fired two magazines from his gun but denied committing a crime, saying he was trying to stop it as a “person in authority.”
He has also unnerved other countries, spurring criticism from Australia after he told supporters at an event he should have been first in line for a turn when an Australian missionary was gang raped in 1989.
He said later that is just the way he speaks, though his camp issued an apology.
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