What makes President Rodrigo Duterte and his alleged war on drugs popular?

Hal MacLean

Owner at Several Small Businesses (2011–present) 4y

What makes an internationally condemned violent, strongman like Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and his alleged war on drugs popular with unlawful deaths by decree? His 2019 approval rating is reported 81%; but is it independently accurate?

Speaking as a complete outsider, I’ve watched the work of DU30 and was initially amazed at the support, given my initial reaction to his aggressive stance (being from Europe, it’s not something you see everyday here). However, you need to consider the recent history of the country to understand that what he is doing is seen as very positive by most (not all).

His war on drugs (to many in the west a huge human rights abuse) is seen as a necessary step to ridding the country of the prevalent drug culture. Will it work? Not sure - but it seems to be. People are glad they are not suffering so much from the drugs culture, the streets are ‘cleaner’ and there are apparently less robberies by drug addicts looking for a few peso to buy their next hit. This hits home with the general population and no matter the methodology, people feel it is working.

His investment in infrastructure - could be seen as competing against the spending of previous presidents, and wanting to ‘out do’ them. Or you can look at the dire traffic problems in and around the capital and recognise that something has got to be done. He’s initiating it, and is winning the hearts of commuters by doing so.

His character - often abrasive, often shocking to those from the West, could be seen as naive in the world politics around him, or you could look further and see he is tapping in to the uniquely Filipino sentiment and is perceived as ‘getting the job done’. This is something most of his people want to see.

So yes - it’s easy to write him off as a strongman, a dictator even, but that would be doing him a huge injustice. He is popular because he is taking action against the things people struggle with on a daily basis. Whether it is a long term plan that will see an ongoing economic boom or not is hard to say - the economy is booming right now, and ordinary folk like that.

And yet there’s still so much to do to help reduce poverty, improve access to education, medicine and welfare… but to measure that against western standards is to completely miss the point that this is an Asian country - a proud one at that. The psychology is different.

81%? I don’t doubt it. There are some very vocal opponents, but nearly everyone I meet says they did or would vote for him. Very few say otherwise - it’s not unknown, but it is rare, at the moment at least.