Comment on “Dutertenomics: Populism, Progress and Prospects”

Abstract

Philippines under the current Duterte administration is perhaps an interesting though unsurprising case which shows illiberal democracy and liberal economic policy can coexist. Capuno (2020) clearly illustrates the phenomenon by first distinguishing and then relating Duterte's authoritarian-populist political style (“Dutertsimo”) and his economic agenda (“Dutertenomics”). I agree with Capuno's observation that President Duterte delegates the task of economic management to his team of economic mangers due to his lack of interest in economic affairs. The role of these economic managers and their relationship with the President cannot be underestimated. They are seasoned academics and technocrats who are liberally minded, focused on long-time economic issues, and very conscious of macroeconomic stability as well. As mentioned by Capuno (2020), Dutertenomics consists of not only liberal economic policies, but contains some populist ones which would exert pressure on fiscal expenditure, however, by taking advice from his economic managers, President Duterte could make orthodox decisions in several cases. It remains to be seen whether this balancing act works throughout the rest of his term. As seen in robust economic conditions, Duterte's authoritarian-populist political style has had no crucial negative impact on the Philippine economy so far. Nonetheless, there still remains an issue among Duterte's populist rhetoric whose impact on the economy is still ambiguous, namely, his anti-oligarchs stance. Not many measures have been taken in the past 3 years of the Duterte administration except on a few occasions. However, very recent developments on water concessions such as Duterte's resentment toward Ayala-led Manila Water and Pangilinan-led Maynilad Water Services Inc. for the alleged “onerous” provisions in their contracts with the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, as well as his continuing threat to block the media franchise extension of Lopez-led ABS-CBN can be considered as illustrating that Duterte's anti-oligarchs stance has finally surfaced. The move may raise concerns about regulatory uncertainty and negatively affect investor confidence unless handled properly. The role of oligarchs and conglomerates cannot be belittled especially in the area of infrastructure projects which are the core of Dutertenomics. It is of interest then to know how and to what extent economic mangers and the other cabinet members as well as close associates of President Duterte handle and influence him on these cases. Finally, Capuno (2020) analyzes Dutertismo as a social political process which is leading toward “a solution to the public goods failure” with a few convincing episodes. Meanwhile, the paper in its concluding remarks also mentions that the Duterte's authoritarian style is weakening liberal democratic institutions. A similar view of the weakening of institutions by Duterte's authoritarian-populist political style is given by several scholars including David (2019) who noted in his column that “so long as populist authoritarianism draws approval from the people who feel betrayed by their past leaders, so long will we have institutions that, instead of checking the executive, permit themselves to be weaponized by it”. If so, Dutertismo may yet solve the weakness of institutions and regulatory governance and that it may turn out to be generating collecting action problems only to be salvaged by the strongman rule. Is there any hope left for Dutertismo to morph further to remedy the core issue of the country?