The secret of Dutertes electoral success

May 30, 2018 14:14

'Since his May 2016 election, Philippines president Rodrigo Roa Duterte's approval rating has never been far from 80 percent, and his drug war is an important element of his popularity. According to a detailed poll carried out last year by Manila-based Social Weather Stations, voters approved of the drug war 77-14,' reports Christopher Caldwell in weeklystandard.com.

'Duterte came to power in a landslide two years ago, promising to wage a war on drugs. He did not use "war' as a metaphor. "You destroy our country, I'll kill you,' Duterte said as his presidency began. "You destroy our children, I'll kill you',' Caldwell writes.

And the president seems to have carried out his promise.

'Last August, the government's "One-Time Bigtime' busts left 52 dead in one night. By the turn of this year, 4,075 people had died in anti-drug operations, according to the government. But that does not include thousands more killings tallied up by human-rights organizations and investigative journalists. These have been carried out by masked men and pairs of assassins on motorbikes. Whether the killers are out-of-uniform policemen silencing witnesses to their own corruption or neighborhood hoodlums using the drug war as a cover to settle scores, the violence has been immense,' points out Caldwell, here.

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