At the halfway point of his presidency, Rodrigo Duterte is as popular as any other Filipino chief executive has been at this stage of his administration. Based on a survey done by Social Weather Stations (SWS) in March 2019, Duterte enjoys a nearly 80% satisfaction rating, a number that would make any leader cry with envy.
So I ask the question: how does Duterte stay highly-popular among Filipinos despite his well-documented human rights abuses (EX: extrajudicial killings), his repression of elements in the media and in politics (EX: Rappler magazine, Leila de Lima), his caustic pontificating on external criticism, and his tepid response to Chinese actions in the South China Sea?
Let’s get one thing straight: no, Duterte was not dispatched to the Philippines by God Almighty. According to a June 28, 2019 Rappler article, large swaths of Filipinos believe “that Duterte was appointed by God to bring swift justice to the Philippines.” The article went on to say that top men in the country’s Christian denominations have asserted that “God appointed Duterte to cleanse Philippine society of its social ills” and that “God appointed Duterte to root evil out of communities.”
Such supernatural claims as they are applied to modern paradigms and attitudes are absurd. But let us assume for a moment for argument’s sake, that God was indeed Duterte’s transcendent benefactor. Now if you are talking about the vindictive, interventionist, and angry God of the Old Testament, then perhaps it would only seem right to religious believers that he sent a similarly vindictive, interventionist, and angry Rodrigo Duterte to ruthlessly punish Filipinos for their transgressions.
But what about the New Testament God, in the person of Jesus Christ? Would Jesus Christ have approved what Duterte has done as president, specifically his bloody drug war which has taken the lives of thousands, men, women, and children alike? From what the New Testament has told us about the life and sayings of Jesus, the answer would be unequivocally in the negative. So how do Christian supporters of Duterte’s drug war reconcile their faith with something clearly and blatantly antithetical to what Jesus taught and preached in the Bible?
An explication of Duterte’s popularity however, goes beyond nonsensical religious rationalizations. We have all heard by now the refutation and disillusionment felt among the Filipino masses of what Richard Heydarian writes in his topical book, “The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy,” as “the failure of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution to fulfill its greatest emancipatory potentials.”
Heydarian explains that “The upsurge of right-wing populism in the Philippines [as it is embodied by Rodrigo Duterte] is the “natural byproduct” of EDSA I and the progressive liberal-democratic order it was supposed to give rise to. It is this wasted golden opportunity to structurally-reform Philippine society, politics, and economics that has made millions of Filipinos distrustful of the rhetorical promises of good government, mass political empowerment, and socio-economic redistribution that were put forth by the post-EDSA I elite.
This palpably widespread feeling of marginalization and injustice among the masses with the post-EDSA elites is what made the ascension of Rodrigo Duterte possible. The Filipino version of what has become known worldwide as “grievance politics” has greatly helped Duterte to maintain his favored polling status. His enormous polling advantage translates into an equally enormous populist advantage for Duterte who effectively comes across as the quintessential Filipino populist leader. He does after all, speak profusely in the vernacular, look every bit like the common Filipino everyman, and perhaps most of all, appears to be a man of action and not just words in the hearts and minds of his supporters.
As one perspicacious tweet by “JoeAm@societyof honor” put it:
“Pres. Duterte connects because of his gross imperfections.
Many Filipinos know, intuitively, of their own imperfections
and rough bearing. They don’t have to live up to impossible
standards with the President. He’s them.”
But as the old saying goes, appearances can be deceiving in this day and age of “fake news,” “alternative facts,” and other forms of deceit and misinformation. Duterte’s approach to the facts hasn’t exactly been on the up and up. Truth tends to the good and betterment of any society so when a ruler subjects that same concept of truth to quarrelsome confusion and pernicious manipulation as Duterte and his camp has the darkest fears, suspicions, and delusions of a society are let loose in defiance of democratic norms and values.
As part of his murderous drug war in which thousands of Filipinos, guilty or not, have seen their lives cut tragically short, Duterte has generated a social movement that has employed the Internet to depict the president’s opponents as purveyors of “fake news.” By doing so, these Duterte netizens have deliberately rendered truth into a jumbled, intangible, and hopelessly convoluted proposition.
In a July 2019 Philippine Daily Inquirer column, Richard Heydarian lamented that in Duterte’s Philippines,
“As truth becomes untethered from verifiable facts, a mélange of disinformation, alternative facts and sensationalist pronouncements has formed the mist that blurs our vision of reality. And as societal consensus over the very nature of reality dissipates, largely driven by the free-for-all toxicity of social media, our ability to form sober, sound and even sane views on politics has become increasingly impossible.”
Barely 30 years ago, Filipinos felt lucky that they had received the gift of freedom and democracy after twenty years of dictatorship. Along with that rebirth of democracy was supposed to come adamantine principles of truth and honesty. At the time for Filipinos, it was taken for granted that there was no other way to go after the damage the Marcos regime had done.
Too many Filipinos have retained little memory of those heady days as they have given up on the idea of a liberal democracy working for their welfare. This is a scandalous development for the Philippines and the future of its democracy. Filipinos as much as any other people have an inherent desire to be free. But they also long to be sharers in and contributors to something bigger than their individual selves---their country. Rodrigo Duterte is a threat to both those ideals.
ALLEN GABORRO
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