Duterte Research Articles

From Aquino to Marcos: political survival and Philippine foreign policy towards China

ABSTRACT How does the Philippines form its foreign policy toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC)? Existing work on the Philippine foreign policy toward China explains the country’s stance solely through geopolitical or domestic factors. By examining the political calculus of, and the policy formulation by, the Benigno Aquino III (2010–2016), Rodrigo Duterte (2016–2022), and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (2022-) administrations, I argue that a combination of domestic politics, geopolitical considerations, and economic realities have shaped the approach of the Philippines toward China. Rather than focus on one factor to explain the Philippines’ foreign policy, I suggest that the combination and interaction of these three factors accounting for how various Philippine administrations have operated explains the Philippines’ China policies. Furthermore, I nuance these three factors through the lens of political survival. I suggest that leaders stay in power by accumulating political power and staving off challengers. In the Philippines, I suggest that leaders capitalize on criticizing or deviating from the prior administration’s China policies, which have resulted in economic or political effects that generate resentment from the population. As a result, Presidents often reverse or modify the policies set about by the previous administration, resulting in a new set of approaches toward China. Data on this paper was facilitated by years of fieldwork conducted in the Philippines between 2017 to 2020. I interviewed officials in the Aquino, Duterte, and Marcos administrations, Filipino oligarchs, political brokers, lawyers, political party representatives, and in-country observers.

Drugs and State Vigilantism as a Strategy of Political Activity: The Example of Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia

The problem of distribution and consumption of intoxicating substances is considered a socially harmful phenomenon and Southeast Asia is a region particularly affected by drugs. In the face of this challenge, the heads of many states undertake radical actions, going beyond the legal framework, referred to as state vigilantism. Based on the example of three selected political leaders (Thaksin Shinawatra, Rodrigo Duterte and Joko Widodo), the author points out how radical strategies for fighting the drug problem contribute to increasing popularity, even though the problem has not been resolved since the early 1970s. Cross-comparison analysis of the three mentioned cases aims at identifying sources of effectiveness and attractiveness of populist methods that have not changed significantly for fifty years. Among them the author argues that vigilantism grows out of populism and takes the form of a spectacle containing such elements as dehumanising discourse, extrajudicial killings and the theme of the nation’s morality at risk.

Behind the Bars: Public Opinion Towards the International Criminal Court's Investigation on President Duterte's War on Drugs

Behind the Bars: Public Opinion Towards the International Criminal Court's Investigation on President Duterte's War on Drugs

An Analysis of the Variation and Impact of Sino-Philippines Economic and Trade Relations during the Duterte Administration

This paper aims to investigate the variation and impact of Sino-Philippines economic and trade relations during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte. The Duterte administration had implemented a foreign policy that differed significantly from its predecessor, adopting a strategy of "balancing relations equally between China and the United States" and suspending the contested South China Sea arbitration ruling. By analyzing relevant data and policies, this study explores changes in trade volume, investment patterns, and collaborative projects, while assessing the consequences of these transformations for economic development and bilateral relations. The findings reveal a significant shift in Sino-Philippines economic and trade relations during the Duterte administration, leading to a remarkable turnaround in the overall bilateral relationship. This transformation has had profound implications for the Philippines domestic economy, regional cooperation, and interactions between the two nations. The results of this research contribute to a deeper understanding of the dynamics of Sino-Philippines economic and trade relations during the Duterte era and offer insights for further studies.

Awareness and Impact of Belt and Road Construction in the Philippines

The Philippines is an important partner in China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative. Since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016, China-Philippines relations have improved and the two countries have started to actively cooperate. To further implement the Belt and Road Initiative, it is important to understand the perceptions and attitudes of Filipino communities toward the Belt and Road. In this paper, I will analyze the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on the construction of the Belt and Road by sorting out the attitudes and perceptions of various sectors of Philippine society. This will help to understand the effectiveness, problems and challenges of China's Belt and Road construction in the Philippines, which is of some significance for China and Southeast Asian countries to steadily promote the Belt and Road construction.

Beyond Controversial Speeches: Ideologies of Duterte as Philippine President

The study examined the ideologies embedded in the speeches of President Duterte on controversial issues using a qualitative design, mainly through a Critical Discourse Analysis of Fairclough. The material used was the ten speeches of Duterte from 2016-2019 that contained controversial topics. The study’s results revealed that his ideologies include negative representation, freedom of speech, social responsibility and good governance, transformational leadership, anti-corruption policy, liberal democracy, protection and security, public order and trust, civil service, and love for the country. These related beliefs and his policies form the basis of how he views things around him and the proper role of government in society as the Philippine president. By analyzing his language and the underlying meaning of his words and uncovering the ideologies underpinning discourse, people would get to know his beliefs, positions, and ideas in various matters, assisting them in interpreting issues, events, and conditions.

Policy implementation in crisis: Lessons from the Philippines

AbstractLike many countries, the Philippines faced severe economic, social, and political challenges during the COVID‐19 pandemic. In March 2020 President Duterte issued an executive order announcing a national state of emergency that introduced a highly restrictive system for community quarantine and lockdown. While these measures led international observers to rank the Philippinesʼ pandemic response among the worldʼs most stringent, it is unclear whether subsequent health outcomes were sufficient to justify the severity. In this article, we evaluate discrepancies between COVID‐19 policy goals and outcomes in the Philippines via a compelling but under‐utilized method of democratic deliberation, the ‘mini‐public’. The mini‐public that we held brought together a random sample of citizens who heard testimony from local public health experts and political leaders, and then used this information in conjunction with their own experiences to identify policy shortcomings and develop recommendations for policymakers. The most substantial challenges to the governmentʼs pandemic response were reported to be inadequate enforcement and under‐resourcing of government officials tasked with policy implementation. These challenges created a disconnect between policy objectives and their performance in practice. We conclude by summarizing the mini‐public participantsʼ recommendations.

The Philippine Pivot to China and Russia: Duterte’s Foreign Policy Revisited

Reexamining Rodrigo Duterte’s tirades against Western power blocs and the results of his diplomatic efforts to obtain Chinese and Russian assistance has never been more relevant, considering the measures his successor adopted to reinforce or reconfigure his foreign policy. To this end, the article revisits Duterte’s pivot to China and Russia, refining the discussion of their rationale and providing a qualitative assessment of their outcomes. Through a critical review of presidential speeches and news reports, the article unpacks the connection of the strategy to the following: first, Duterte’s anti-colonial narrative; second, his drug war; third, the desire to improve the country’s military, trade, tourism, and infrastructure; and fourth, the management of the South China Sea conflict. While the foreign policy considered the country’s geopolitical and economic realities, the article found that it failed to achieve its desired outcomes. With mounting pressure at home to demonstrate the gains of his Beijing-friendly policy and the political and economic repercussions of transacting with Moscow, Duterte appeared to have recalibrated the strategy before he left office. The policy’s failures should offer lessons to international relations researchers, the administration that preceded Duterte, and, more importantly, to less powerful nations engaging with competing major powers.

Preventing the Philippines from pivoting toward China: The role of the US–Japan security alliance

Shortly after becoming the Philippines’ 16th president in mid-2016, Rodrigo Roa Duterte had unraveled his predecessor's agenda of standing up to China's expansive claims in the South China Sea. He distanced his country from its long-time treaty ally and gravitated toward China which is resolute in reconfiguring the global commons in the Asia-Pacific region. He also set aside the 2016 UNCLOS decision on the South China Sea dispute favorable to the Philippines. His appeasement toward China contrasted sharply with the late President Benigno Aquino III's balancing strategy. President Duterte reoriented Philippine policy alarmed both the US and Japan. Consequently, Washington and Tokyo shored up their respective security ties with the Philippine military. The effort was aimed to prevent the Philippines from being pulled into China's orbit. Moreover, the US is the hub while Japan and the Philippines are spokes in the San Francisco System of alliances. This article concludes that the 1950 San Francisco Peace Conference not only established the series of US bilateral alliances in Asia, but also laid down the foundation of regional order and security which outlives the Cold War, and prevailed way beyond the second decade of the 21st century.

Societal disorder as a precursor to dangerous minds in politics

Violence as a public health emergency, and the rise in recent years of dangerous, mentally impaired leaders across the globe demonstrates vividly the importance of education and prevention with respect to the public health and mental health factors that play a role in contemporary international politics. “Strongmen”—or, more accurately, fragile men—including Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte, Mohammed bin Salman, Kim Jong-un, and Xi Jinping, amongst others, all portray themselves in a defensive and overcompensating show of force that threatens not just their own people and neighbouring countries, but the survival of humankind. This article will outline the importance of considering these leaders in public health terms, as manifestations of a societal and cultural disorder after decades of toleration of structural violence and violent policies. As personality disorder writ large, cultural disorder not only gives rise to but supports the rise of dangerous personalities in leadership positions.

Democratic backsliding in the Philippines: Are voters becoming illiberal?

Democratic backsliding by incumbents is one of the most prevalent forms of backsliding in recent global trends of democratic erosion. Understanding the attitude of voters toward backsliding incumbents is crucial because popular support is the basis of legitimacy for these incumbents. This article studies voter attitudes in the Philippines, where democracy was subverted by the incumbent president, Rodrigo Duterte, who served from 2016 to 2022. Specifically, we examine the validity of the claim that Filipino voters are acquiring a “taste for illiberal rule” made by some scholars. First, we analyzed the survey data regarding the support for various types of political systems, where part of the data comes from our originally commissioned survey at the Social Weather Stations. Second, we explored Pulse Asia's longitudinal survey data on martial-rule support. Our investigation of these survey data did not find substantive support for the “taste for illiberal rule” proposition. Further, we argue that Filipino voters are contingent supporters of illiberal politics while supporting the procedural principles of democracy at the baseline.

The Alteration of the Philippines Foreign Policy towards China over Disputes in the South China Sea


 
 
 
 As one of the most protracted issues in the world politics, South China Sea (SCS) disputes have frequently sparked boiling tension among claimant states- China, Taiwan Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and in particular the Philippines - one of the most assertive claimant states aside China. During the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, the Philippines managed to internationalize the case of SCS disputes and ultimately won a victory over China in the Permanent Court Arbitration (PCA), the Netherlands. However, when a government transition occurred from Benigno Aquino III to Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, those PCA credits appeared to be not followed up by President Duterte. This ensued due to the differences in views and political will between Aquino and Duterte on foreign policy. This article aims to unravel and explain on the Philippines’ foreign policy alteration towards China over SCS disputes under Duterte’s administration, using the concept of Realpolitik and Rational Choice to comprehend why President Duterte decided to seemingly abandon his predecessor’s policies. This research employed qualitative method - data collection was obtained from the secondary data and literature study, comprising written documents related to the Philippines foreign policy in responding to the disputes. The results showed that the reason why Duterte abandoned his predecessor’s footpath is because he assumed that the way Aquino applied such assertive approach is not effective enough in resolving this prolonged maritime jurisdictional disputes between the Philippines and China. In this way, Duterte applied a more considerate diplomatic approach to China as his rational choice in a sense that he would rather take cooperative instead of confrontational way of settlement in resolving the disputes of maritime territory over the South China Sea.
 
 
 

Politeness indicators of President Duterte’s speeches: A content analysis

Politeness indicators of President Duterte’s speeches: A content analysis

#DefendPressFreedom: Paradigm Repair, Role Perceptions and Filipino Journalists’ Counterstrategies to Anti-Media Populism and Delegitimizing Threats

ABSTRACT Journalists increasingly have to cope with severe attacks – ranging from Fake News accusations to violence and death threats. To better understand how journalists can counter delegitimizing attacks such as anti-media populism and online harassment, this study examines their paradigm repair strategies to ward off assaults in the unconsolidated democracy of the Philippines. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 18 Filipino reporters and editors from three influential media outlets that then President Rodrigo Duterte targeted as enemies – the broadcaster ABS-CBN, the newspaper Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the website Rappler – this paper offers novel insights on journalists’ counterstrategies with appeals to their strengthened roles as watchdogs, interpreters and disseminators of populist communication. Findings indicate that journalists discard practices like false equivalence and shift roles including from being detached observers to media freedom advocates and truth activists to respond to institutional attacks, rising disinformation, and perceived democratic erosion as they seek to speak truth to a populist in power. The study provides theoretical and empirical contributions by combining paradigm repair and role perceptions as tools in analyzing journalists’ responses to legitimacy threats, and by presenting an understudied case of anti-media populism in the Global South.

The Persistence of Ethnopopulist Support: The Case of Rodrigo Duterte's Philippines

AbstractThe past few years have seen an emergence of populist leaders around the world, who have not only accrued but also maintained support despite rampant criticism, governance failures, and the ongoing COVID pandemic. The Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte is the best illustration of this trend, with approval ratings rarely dipping below 80 percent. What explains his high levels of robust public support? We argue that Duterte is an ethnopopulist who uses ethnic appeals in combination with insider vs. outsider rhetoric to garner and maintain public support. Moreover, we argue that ethnic affiliation is a main driver of support for Duterte, and more important than alternative factors such as age, education, gender, or urban vs. rural divides. We provide evidence of Duterte's marriage of ethnic and populist appeals, then evaluate whether ethnicity predicts support for Duterte, using 15 rounds of nationally representative public opinion data. Identifying with a non-Tagalog ethnicity (like Duterte) leads to an 8 percent increase in approval for Duterte, significantly larger than any other explanatory factor. Among Duterte supporters, a non-Tagalog ethnicity is associated with 19 percent increase in strong versus mild support. Ethnicity is the only positive and significant result, suggesting that it strongly explains why Duterte's support remains robust. Alternative explanations, such as social desirability bias and alternative policy considerations, do not explain our results.

The Political Economy of the Philippines and Its Development Strategy under China-USA Power Rivalry and Hegemonic Competition: Hedge with Balance

The competition between the United States and China has intensified since the Trump administration, and the two sides have clashed in the areas such as the economy, military, politics, technology, and human rights. This conflict presents countries in the Indo-Pacific region with the challenge of navigating foreign policy with these two hegemonic powers. The Philippines is one such country facing the challenge of maintaining a balanced relationship with the two countries as a major concern for a strategic triangle. The incumbent Philippine president must calculate the benefits and risks before formulating policies. Facing such a dilemma, former President Aquino chose to file a lawsuit with the International Arbitration Court and strengthen cooperation with the United States to defend the sovereignty of the Philippines in the SCS, whereas former President Duterte chose to shelve the sovereignty of the SCS and to cooperate with China under the framework of the BRI. However, President Duterte quickly changed his anti-United States stance in the climate of the ongoing conflict between the Philippines and China over islands and reefs in the SCS and then cooperated with the United States to reinstate the military cooperation agreement that he had suspended. Current President Marcos Jr. has adopted a more subtle approach. He declared that he would maintain economic cooperation with China and, at the same time, would strengthen bilateral cooperation with the United States, thereby attempting to maintain a balanced relationship with the two countries. In sum, the Philippines has adopted a dynamic balancing strategy to defend its national interests in the face of the strategic competition between the United States and China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Negotiated harms in moralized policies: The case of Duterte’s war on drugs

Viewing a policy as harmful can lead to its moral condemnation. However, this harmfulness can be constructed and negotiated to lead to different moral positions by building upon available, accessible, and relevant discourses. This study examined how individuals constructed and negotiated harm in moral reasoning about a contentious policy, Philippine President Duterte’s war on drugs, locally known as tokhang. We conducted thematic analysis with attention to discourse to analyze interviews with 12 Filipino young adults, using the Theory of Dyadic Morality as a starting point to make sense of constructions of harm. Reasoning about tokhang showed different constructions of intentional agents and vulnerable victims serving as the basis for moral positions. Moral condemnation of the war on drugs emphasized the vulnerability of its victims and the intentionality of the government and police as agents. On the other hand, moral justification of the policy constructed drug war victims as agentic and guilty of crimes, the police as potentially vulnerable victims acting according to protocol to defend themselves, and rogue agents acting independently of the policy. Ambiguous positions were also made possible when the causality of harm is unclear. These constructions and negotiations were built upon broader discourses deployed in the sociopolitical context of urban young adults, with individual contexts and characteristics contributing to variations in the accessibility and relevance of certain discourses and resulting moral positions.

Philippine Catholic Festivals during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Performing Live in the ‘New’ Normal

On 16 March 2020, then Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte imposed the Enhanced Community Quarantine putting the main island of Luzon – where Manila, the National Capital Region, is located – on a total lockdown to protect the spread of COVID-19. The lockdown restricted mobility, social gatherings were prohibited, and everyone was mandated to stay inside their homes. Moreover, there was a temporary closure of what were considered as non-essential establishments, including religious institutions. Being a predominantly Roman Catholic nation, religious rituals and festivals were heavily affected by the lockdown. Many of its ritualistic and festive performances involve human contact, which serves as the faithful’s direct and intimate relationship to the heavens. This essay interrogates how cultural festivals in the Philippines, mostly organised by the Church, adapted to the global health crisis. It reflects how the adaptations challenged and recontextualised the understanding of the live vis-à-vis the context of the digital or the virtual. Finally, a preliminary speculation on the future of the religious festivals in the Philippines is provided as a concluding reflection.

The people vs. the power bloc? Popular music and populism

On 12 November 2017, the Philippine celebrity musician Pilita Corrales was singing the popular song ‘Ikaw’ (‘You’) at a gala event in Manila, attended by some of the world's most powerful politicians at the time, US President Donald Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Suddenly, she noticed a male voice singing along with her, its intonation off, its volume increasing. Aware that the event was being recorded, Corrales at first tried to disregard the intruding voice. Eventually however, she could no longer ignore it and, shielding her eyes from the lights with one hand, she tried to spot the uninvited singer in the audience. ‘Where are you, sir’? she asked. Realising that the singer was on one of the balconies, it dawned on her that he was none other than Duterte himself. After giving Duterte room to sing a section by himself, she then joined the president in the song's finale (BBC News 2017; Guardian News 2017; Rappler 2017).

Climates of control: Violent adaptation and climate change in the Philippines

This paper considers the limits of adaptation as a concept in global environmental governance and advocacy by examining the climate change policy of the populist Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte. By focusing on heterogenous state responses to the 2018–2019 El Niño drought, I demonstrate how the Duterte administration has worked to achieve a violent vision of climate adaptation through a jarring combination of practices: exhorting the devastating reality of climate change; denigrating multilateral mitigation efforts as colonial injustices; subverting indigenous peoples' land rights; and fostering the extrajudicial assassination of activists. Though Duterte's wider climate change policies are often viewed as a strategic distraction or the isolated product of an erratic populist, I argue that these recent responses to climate change in the Philippines, which fuse decolonial and nationalist sensibilities to confrontational forms of illiberalism, should be examined as part of the larger unfurling of illiberal adaptation politics across Philippine history and the Global South. These politics, and their considerable (though far from total) local resonance, challenge both universalist Western political rationalities and new directions in climate justice movement calling for ontological inclusivity. I highlight the need for a closer examination of the origins, practices and implications of violent adaptions.