EJK VICTIM | Jennelyn Olaires weeps beside her partner, alleged drug pusher Michael Siaron, 30, a pedicab driver who was shot and killed by unidentified suspects in July 2016. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte, who steps down on Thursday, has earned international infamy for his deadly drug war and foul-mouthed tirades but remains hugely popular among Filipinos fed up with the country’s dysfunction and political elite.
A tough-talking populist and self-professed killer, Duterte launched an anticrime campaign that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of alleged dealers and addicts while drawing global condemnation.
Yet millions of Filipinos backed the 77-year-old’s swift brand of justice, even as he joked about rape in his rambling speeches, locked up his critics, and failed to root out the nation’s entrenched corruption.
His daughter Sara Duterte’s victory in the vice presidential race on May 9 showed his popularity remains sky-high, six years after being swept to power on a promise to rid the country of drugs.
That trust was dented by the coronavirus pandemic, which plunged the country into its worst economic crisis in decades, leaving thousands dead and millions jobless amid a slow-paced vaccine rollout.
‘God is stupid’
Duterte’s woes deepened during his final year in office as International Criminal Court judges authorized a full-blown investigation of a possible crime against humanity during his drugs crackdown.
Critics of his signature campaign ended up behind bars or facing lengthy jail terms, including opposition Sen. Leila de Lima and journalist Maria Ressa, who was named a Time magazine person of the year in 2018 for her work.
Duterte repeatedly said there was no official campaign to illegally kill addicts and dealers, but his speeches included incitements to violence and he told police to kill drug suspects if their lives were in danger.
“If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself, as getting their parents to do it would be too painful,” Mr. Duterte said hours after being sworn in as president in June 2016.
His unfiltered comments were part of his self-styled image as a maverick, which found traction with a public desperate for solutions to pervasive corruption, dysfunction, and bureaucratic red tape.
He freely used vulgarities and even called God “stupid,” a widely disparaged opinion in the majority-Catholic Philippines.
An ally of the Marcos family, Duterte even allowed Ferdinand, whose brutal regime silenced the legislature and killed opponents, to be buried in Libingan ng Mga Bayani.
During his long tenure as mayor of the southern city of Davao, he was accused of links to vigilante death squads that rights groups say killed more than 1,000 people there—accusations he has both accepted and denied.
‘I simply love Xi’
His rule was also marked by a swing away from the nation’s former colonial master, the United States, in favor of China.
“I simply love (Chinese President) Xi Jinping … he understands my problem and is willing to help, so I would say thank you China,” he said in April 2018.
As part of that rapprochement, he set aside the rivalry with Beijing over the resource-rich South China Sea, opting to court Chinese business instead.
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