Populism in the Philippines

Trump of the East, Duterte Harry, the bastard child of Philippine democracy—these are some of what ways in which Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been depicted by the international press. This chapter seeks to go beyond these convenient labels and propose a historicized, contextualized, and critical approach to studying populism in the Philippines. It argues that the extraordinary popularity of Rodrigo Duterte has deep roots in the Philippines’ colonial history and in a national subjectivity that carries a lingering anxiety about freedom and sovereignty. It rejects the depiction of Duterte’s supporters as pathologically anti-democratic but is critical of the President’s failure to harness the grassroots momentum for democratic renewal and institution building.