He had promised war and kept his promise. War to drug dealers and drug addicts. War to the rebel Islamists and their American cooperators. War to the corrupt and the powerful.
Rodrigo Duterte, now known as the “Punisher”, has been president of the Philippines since last June and it can not be said that he has not kept his promises in these 14 months. The last one is a few days ago, during the second state-nation speech: “If it’s useful, I will bomb with aviation the schools in Islamist areas because the rebellion is taught there.” Nothing compared to the insults to President Obama (“I’m not a puppet of America, I assure you, son of a bitch”) or to all the Filipino Episcopal Conference (“Bitches, churches should be closed”).
Even Pope Francis took his ration of “son of a bitch” because of the traffic jam caused in Manila by his visit. Not happy, he was able to compare himself to Hitler: “He has killed three million Jews, in the Philippines there are three million drug addicts and I would be happy to kill them.” About the European Union he said they should learn to mind their business only, Trump is a “bigot” and the American ambassador is “a faggot son of a bitch.”
Dialectical excesses on which he has often been apologetic, but which are the trademarks of his speeches in which he mixes English, Tagalog and Ilocane. When he was a mayor he held a weekly tv program: the broadcast was always recorded to be able to include the “biiipp” to censor the swear words. Unpredictable and unlimited, recently Duterte has assured that he will stop with swearings, sooner or later.
Last year he had promised the Philippine people order and justice, although he has a very own idea of order and justice. He promised 100 thousand dead in six months to solve the problem of delinquency. For the moment he stopped at about 8,000 in eight months. But in the speech to the nation he claimed no more than 5,200 dead, of whom 3,000 in conflicts with the police in which the policemen are barely injured. He himself urged citizens to collaborate: “If you have a gun, shot freely to drug addicts and Islamists, no condemnation guaranteed.”
About corrupt and insubordinate policemen, 228 of them were sent to areas controlled by Abu Sayyaf’s Islamic rebels: immunity was promised. The motto: “I slam human rights.” Concept reiterated last Monday when he said he would reintroduce the death penalty very soon.
Trump tried to invite him to the White House but Duterte “does not like bitches and bigots”.
Born in 1945, the second of five children, presented himself as the new man came to sweep away the corrupt establishment that rules the country for decades. A passion for motorbikes, women and weapons, he took seven years to finish high school before graduating in law. As a student he fired at a college student who was bullying: he wounded his legs. An episode that did not stop him from starting a procuratorship career in his hometown, Davao, on the island of Mindanao.
After the dictatorship of Marcos, he was elected as mayor candidate in 1988. As always Duterte promised legality and order, and he won. With seven mandates and 22 years as mayor changed the face of the city. People say that in Davao young people respect the curfew at 22 o’clock, that taxi drivers do not exceed the limits of 30 kilometers per hour and that all refrain from smoking in public. Davao’s experience has re-launched his techniques of combating crime.
He was formally accused of supporting a group of assassins who would kill more than a thousand people in his town. The death squads worked on the basis of lists provided by the police and were paid between one hundred and one thousand dollars for each execution. Accusation that he has never denied.
Oppose his policy attracts trouble. Senator Leila de Lima, chair of the “Senate Human Rights Committee”, had started a parliamentary inquiry into the fight against drugs. A storm fell on her, which led to the removal after she had been accused of taking tangents from the narcos. Duterte with his jeans and flannel plaid shirts is the extreme example of the populist politician who despises the law.
He offers simple solutions to complex problems, without taking into account diplomatic practices, jurisprudence, democratic rules. According to surveys, today Duterte is supported by 80% of the population. Much more than that 39% who voted him just over a year ago.
Source: Gli occhi della guerra