About Duterte

A lot of people want current Mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo Duterte, to make a run for the presidency. A lot of people too voted for the current clown-in-chief so who cares what "a lot of people" think.

Duterte is an infamous figure. It's always just assumed that he's behind the "Davao Death Squads" that allegedly prowl the streets of his city and summarily execute criminals. He denies personal involvement of course but let's just say that he's "tough on crime", alright?

Vigilante justice is another topic for another time. For now, I think that the people who want Duterte to run for President are naive. The common idea is that Duterte will bring his toughness and brutality to Malacanang and whip this country into shape. The more delusional of his followers think that he'll bring his penchant for vigilantism with him and start rounding up criminals nationwide to be shot.

Let's go over how this might not work:

1. A single city is not the country contrary to what Manila folk like to believe. This applies to Duterte. Duterte may be able to impose his will on a number of people in a limited area but I doubt he can do that on an entire nation of millions, over thousands of islands.

2. He will meet his match. Duterte is the big boss man of Davao because he's entrenched there and nobody has the will to oppose him. Put him in Malacanang and he'll be out of his element. He'll be up against the worst of the worst of Philippine politics; backstabbers, power brokers, murderers and thieves. They won't give two shits about some guy from Davao and will most definitely have the means to retaliate and take care of Duterte if they have to.

3. Duterte is not as well known as his supporters think. People in the South and people connected to Davao know of him. I doubt people in Manila care about places other than Manila. The same goes to the more far flung areas. Duterte even getting close to the number of votes he needs to be a legitimate threat is itself doubtful.

4. No fear factor. Citizens of Davao may fear him but that's the extent of his influence. You can't grip an entire nation in terror by yourself unless you're North Korean.

All of these have to do with his reputation as a strongman. I don't like strongman politics but there is something that I like about Duterte. It's not explored by the media as much as his reputation but Duterte is a federalist. That's something I can agree on.

If he runs on that, I think that's a broader and more appealing message.