THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Duterte lives up to bad boy image in first 100 days in office

Duterte lives up to bad boy image in first 100 days in office

Philippine president is popular despite a brutal drug war and cringe-worthy statements. But after three months in office, critics say he is alienating allies and bringing out the worst in Filipinos

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is living up to his bad boy image during his first 100 days in office, a period marked by a deadly drug war, a dispute with the country’s closest ally and a string of foul-mouthed remarks.
Three months into his six-year term, the 71-year-old has earned worldwide notoriety for telling US President Barack Obama to “go to hell” and a lot more, saying “f**k you” to the European Union and calling the United Nations “stupid”.
The former city mayor has threatened to “break up” with the United States and withdraw from the UN, while vowing to build new alliances with China and Russia as well as countries in the Middle East.
Analysts said Duterte risked alienating major economic powers if he continues with his boorish ways.
“An unwelcoming atmosphere in the Philippines could easily dampen the country’s economic relationships,” said Dindo Manhit, president of the Stratbase-ADR Institute for Strategic and International Studies in Manila.
“In the United States, as elsewhere, private investors have reportedly become skittish about the Philippines’ prospects,” he added. 
“The US economy is the Philippines’ largest source of private investment and second largest market after Japan.”
In his debut on the international stage at a regional conference in Laos in September, Duterte easily warmed to his Asian counterparts, including Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who told him he was a rock star in Japan.
But there was an obvious chill between Duterte and Western leaders, especially after Obama cancelled a one-on-one meeting following Duterte’s vow to curse at him if he brought up the issue of human rights in the Philippines.
“The message was clear: the new government in the Philippines isn’t in any mood for criticism from the West, particularly on the human rights front, and is ready to engage its neighbours on practical solutions to practical security and economic problems,” political science professor Richard Heydarian said.
“Thus, Duterte signalled his independence as an Asian leader,” said Heydarian, of De La Salle University in Manila.
The spat with the US arose from the Obama administration’s criticisms of Duterte’s aggressive campaign against illegal drugs, which has become the signature policy of his first 100 days.
Duterte initially promised to solve the entire problem in six months, but later said he needed another six months after realising that the issue was bigger than he had known.
Despite mounting criticism over the deadly drug war, which has killed 1,360 drug suspects, Duterte has vowed that the campaign will be unrelenting “until the last pusher is taken out of the street”.
Merceditas Silverio, a 32-year-old tomb caretaker at Manila’s North Cemetrey, said she was happy that Duterte was determined in his anti-drug campaign but admitted she was also afraid.
“It’s good that they are going after the drug addicts and pushers,” she said.
“Sometimes, I just worry that someone I know will end up dead in this drug war.”
Despite her fears, the mother of three said she still believes that Duterte is the only leader who can stop government corruption and end rampant criminality.
”Is there anyone else who has this much political will to end our problems?” she asked. “None of our previous leaders have been this determined to make the country great for the Filipino people.”
But social anthropologist Melba Padilla Maggay said Duterte’s strong will is really “an alarming drift toward an authoritarian barbarism”.
Maggay said Duterte has used “the full apparatus of power”, whether formal or non-formal, to “savage those who stand in his way, without regard for the law or the niceties of civility”.
She cited the harassment against Duterte’s staunchest critic, Senator Leila De Lima, whose personal life has been exposed to public shame and ridicule since she began an investigation into the drug war killings.
There have also been social media attacks against international media, which have been criticised for being biased in reporting about the drug war and Duterte’s inflammatory statements.
Maggay said that while Duterte is “a man who is morally obtuse”, he has remained widely popular because many Filipinos share his rage against institutions and frustration over the elite that has ruled the country so ineffectually for so long.
She lamented that Duterte’s leadership was bringing out the Hyde in many Filipinos.
“While there is blustering talk about fighting corruption and an unjust system, we are in fact experiencing an increasing moral rot in the very fabric of our society,” said Maggay, the founder and long-time director of the Institute for Studies in Asian Church.
“There is a subtle overturning of our values, a corrosion of our civic sense of what is just and decent and acceptable,” she added. 
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