An year of Rodrigo Duterte who makes Trump look like an angel 

In the current era of populist strongmen, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte stands out from the rest.

The 71-year-old leader, who came to power around this time last year, has kept true to his dreaded election pledge, the one that had won him two-fifth of the vote and propelled him to presidency.

"If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor. All of you who are into drugs, you sons of bitches, I will really kill you. I have no patience, I have no middle ground, either you kill me or I will kill you idiots," Duterte had promised in the lead-up to polls last year.

That is exactly what he did. Human Rights Watch claims that police and “unidentified gunmen” have killed at least 7,000 suspected drug users since July 1 last year. Many of the victims of these “extrajudicial executions” came from poor families. Close to a quarter of the Philippines’ population lived below the poverty line in 2014, and the number of poor has been on the rise in recent times.

With the poor forming such a large political constituency, one would expect a democratically elected leader to tread carefully around such allegations. Instead of calming his people down, Duterte raised the hackles further, declaring that killing the poor “who get quick money from selling drugs is necessary in destroying the apparatus.”

The answer to Duterte’s political confidence lies in his surging popularity among the haves of the Philippine society. Opinion polls peg his popularity at an all-time high upon completion of first year in office. While the heavily criticised “War on Drugs” has spread terror among the poor and raised prices of cheaper drugs, the price of cocaine, the wealthy’s choice for a high, has remained more or less the same.

To a large section of the Philippine population, Duterte’s ‘War on Drugs’, his foreign policy reversal on siding with Beijing on the South China Sea or his inability to contain the rise of Islamic State in the country don’t seem to matter much. While he enjoyed the support of 76 per cent of the population last year, that figure has been on the rise.

The main reason why many Filipinos continue backing him, analysts say, is the strong performance of the domestic economy. The south-east Asian maritime nation remains among the fastest growing economies, growing at nearly 7 per cent last year. It has been reported that Duterte’s stance on the South China Sea dispute has won his regime large-scale Chinese investments which, in turn, have played a part in the country’s strong economic performance.

This, coupled with his larger-than-life social media presence, has gone a long way in sprucing up his image in the face of international criticism. Peddling fake news and trolling of dissenters is what Duterte’s social media army specialises in.

His shortcomings notwithstanding, Duterte is here to stay. Worrying, however, is how Filipinos continue to back the man who often brags about murders, besides making a mockery of the international liberal order.