Voters in the Philippines have elected as president Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte, longtime mayor of Davao City, and something of an outlaw in the usually smooth politics of those islands. ADVERTISING Voters in the Philippines have elected as president Rodrigo “Digong”
Voters in the Philippines have elected as president Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte, longtime mayor of Davao City, and something of an outlaw in the usually smooth politics of those islands.
Chosen in a turnout of 81 percent of the voters, receiving about 39 percent of the votes in a field of five candidates, Duterte’s election came as a shock to the Philippine political establishment. Matters could get worse for them once he has been installed, since he ran on a pledge to clean out crime and corruption. Adding credibility to his pledge was his record as seven-term mayor of Davao, a city of 1.5 million in the southern Philippines island of Mindanao.
In Davao he built a reputation for not hesitating to use what the media has politely called “extrajudicial killing” to root out crime and corruption. He also is known as a womanizer, and he does not hesitate to use rude and sexist language in his public speeches. These politically incorrect characteristics ended up serving him well, in fact, in his political campaign against establishment figures.
Their spokespersons are already assuring the world they will keep Duterte under control. The Philippine establishment includes businesspeople and bankers, the military, traditional political families and the Catholic Church.
Duterte appears to be ambivalent on whether the U.S. plays a positive or a negative role in Philippine affairs. His predecessor as president, Benigno Aquino III, has recently been active in reviving a more active U.S. military role in the islands’ affairs in return for money and for helping the Philippines stand up to China’s ambitions in the region.
Duterte’s success at the ballot box as a nontraditional politician inevitably has led to comparisons between him and Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president. Both can validly be considered political outliers and potty-mouth speakers, but there the comparison ends. Duterte has governed a tough, multicultural city of 1.5 million for 22 years, having been elected seven times. Trump has no previous such experience.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
