The Philippines 2018-2019: Authoritarian Consolidation under Duterte (original) (raw)
Related papers
2016
Since assuming the presidency, Rodrigo R. Duterte has "stuck to his guns" in carrying out his campaign pledge to launch a violent anti-drug campaign. Duterte's presidency was preceded by six years of political stability and high growth under the relatively liberal and supposedly reformist administration of President Benigno "Noynoy" S. Aquino, III. What did voters find so appealing about Duterte given that drugs and criminality were not a major national concern until he launched his candidacy? Unlike previous populist politicians in the post-Marcos Philippines, Duterte's strongest support did not come from the poorest voters but rather from the elite and the middle class who most feared for their personal security. Although Aquino was widely perceived to be personally honest, his administration had become "systemically disjunctive" and vulnerable to replacement by violent illiberalism because its narrative of "good governance" had been...
Bloodied Democracy: Duterte and the Death of Liberal Reformism in the Philippines
Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs
Since assuming the presidency, Rodrigo R. Duterte has “stuck to his guns” in carrying out his campaign pledge to launch a violent anti-drug campaign. Duterte's presidency was preceded by six years of political stability and high growth under the relatively liberal and supposedly reformist administration of President Benigno “Noynoy” S. Aquino, III. What did voters find so appealing about Duterte given that drugs and criminality were not a major national concern until he launched his candidacy? Unlike previous populist politicians in the post-Marcos Philippines, Duterte's strongest support did not come from the poorest voters but rather from the elite and the middle class who most feared for their personal security. Although Aquino was widely perceived to be personally honest, his administration had become “systemically disjunctive” and vulnerable to replacement by violent illiberalism because its narrative of “good governance” had been undermined, its strategic allies were w...
The Philippines 2017: Duterte-led Authoritarian Populism and Its Liberal-Democratic Roots
Asia Maior, 2018
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte led a phenomenal campaign to win the 2016 national election. During his first two years in power Duterte as become the protagonist and exemplar of a key new development – the social formation of a regime of authoritarian populism. Based on an analysis of news reports, public debates, survey results, and official policy documents from 2017, the article examines various features of this emergent regime and then illuminates the historical-institutional mechanisms that brought it about. The inquiry is predicated on an understanding that the old EDSA Republic’s liberal-democratic regime has been marked by intractable socio-economic crises since its installation in 1986. This triggered different political tendencies and trajectories that Duterte has been able to mould into a new mode of regulation and governance. The central discussion elucidates some of the significant features that constitute the process through which the new regime of authoritarian populism is taking shape. The conclusion highlights the mutually reinforcing features of the dying EDSA-type liberal democracy and the emerging Duterte-led authoritarian populism. This suggests that the former has been a spawning ground for the latter.
Introduction From Aquino II to Duterte: Change, Continuity—and Rupture
2019
Democratic practices of the Philippines, Asia's oldest democracy and the second most populous country in the ASEAN region, have been a puzzle to many scholars and observers of democracy. While vibrant in terms of voter turnout, civic engagement, and institutional protections, there are widespread flaws in Philippine democratic processes-illustrated by persistent pernicious elite politics, continued institutional weakness, and widespread abuse of public office. 1 The country's economic record is as patchy as its democracy. The long-standing description of the Philippines as the "sick man of Asia" has been rebutted by the country's rapid economic growth over the last decade (2007-17). However, with regular boom and bust cycles, and persistent deep-seated poverty and inequality-concerns remain about the equity and sustainability of this type of growth in the Philippines. 2 Built on the legacies of Spanish and United States colonial rule, the Philippine state remains confronted by constant challenges to its legitimacy-including Asia's longest communist rebellion, Muslim separatist insurgencies in Mindanao, and large-scale public protests such as the first and second Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA 1 and 2) Philippine's People Power Revolution that forced changes in leadership through extra-constitutional processes. 3
In this paper, I examine the radical approach to politics of President Rodrigo Duterte. I will retrace the roots of this radicalism to the colonial history of the Philippines in which the Spanish regime has established an elitist democratic system that engendered a social divide that has made the people of Mindanao felt betrayed by the capital. The politics of exclusion also gave rise to terrorism in the southern part of the country, the latest incident of which was the crisis in Marawi that has left the city devastated to the ground. Political analysts have been critical of the ‘War on Drugs’. However, Duterte stays popular due to his progressive approach to governance. Previous administrations have been accused as lacking the political will to disturb the elite. Duterte, in contrast, has the character of a leader who is not afraid to institute change in Philippine society.
The Duterte phenomenon as authoritarian populism in the Philippines
The Routledge Handbook of Populism in the Asia Pacific, 2023
There has been growing interest among journalists and social scientists in covering and studying contemporary Philippines as news about the controversial President Rodrigo Duterte frequently hit world headlines. Duterte, who has assumed international notoriety yet national popularity since his astounding election in 2016, is often presented in political analyses as Southeast Asia’s representative strongman in the recent wave of global populism sweeping democracies from the West to the East. However, as this chapter explicates through an analytical framework, the Duterte phenomenon as a case of authoritarian populism, in which undemocratic politics is gaining popular legitimacy, has its own historical and conjunctural particularities. Specifically, a dozen of key defining dimensions have become manifest—in actual, conceptual, and discursive terms—during the six-year tenure, from candidacy to presidency, of Duterte’s authoritarian-populist regime.
Introduction. The Early Duterte Presidency in the Philippines
Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 2017
After only a little over a half year in power, as of this writing, Rodrigo’s R. Duterte presidency already represents a sea change in Philippine politics. Despite the personal popularity of Benigno “Noynoy” S. Aquino III (who had the highest opinion poll ratings among post-Marcos presidents), Duterte has quickly replaced a “liberal reformist” political order with its emphasis on civil liberties, if limited political participation, with an illiberal “law and order” regime.
The Philippines in 2016: Democracy in Dispute?
Asia Maior , 2017
President Rodrigo Duterte's 2016 election was a divisive moment in Philippine politics. The promise to disrupt élite-centric politics and restore national peace and order won him strong popular support throughout the country. His satisfactory track record of turning Davao City from a haven of criminals to the «safest city» in the Philippines raised hopes that he would make every effort to replicate this model nationwide. His supporters celebrated his authoritarian, haphazard leadership style, which, however, also provoked severe criticism at home and abroad. Both local and international media have been keen on condemning his «War on Drugs», which sanctions extra-judicial killings, and his crude approach to foreign relations. The tension between those for and against Duterte's leadership has caused many to question how it was possible for a nation that successfully toppled a dictatorship through a non-violent revolution to elect someone with strong authoritarian leanings. This article argues that Duterte's election was an outcome of the diminishing credibility of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution and the system it created as a model for Philippine democracy. It suggests that the 2016 Philippine national elections provided an opportunity for people to express their dissatisfaction with the country's democracy, which had come to be seen as a fractured system. It adds to the usual, personality-focussed, commentaries on Philippine politics, by also discussing a range of domestic and international issues and the irony of electing a strongman to represent the people's discontent with Philippine politics.
Two Faces of Dutertismo-Two Visions of Democracy in the Philippines.pdf
Social Ethics Society Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2018
In this paper, I present Randolf “Randy” David’s and Christopher Ryan Maboloc’s readings of President Duterte’s politics and leadership style. The former sees Duterte’s politics and leadership style as a form of authoritarianism while the latter views it as a form of radical politics. While their views can be brushed aside as grounded on their personal taste about the president, this does not do justice to their scholarship and personal integrity. In order to render a meaningful interpretation of their respective views, I propose to read their opposing analyses as two visions of democracy in the Philippines. David’s reading implicitly calls for political actors to stay within the democratic process, which succumbs to the vision of the ruling elite where any move to substantiate democracy must go through a process. On the other hand, Maboloc’s reading maintains that some “undemocratic ways” are important to shake the prevailing political order to move towards its substantive form.