example of speech about politics in the philippines

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Contemporary politics in the Philippines shows how emotions can inform human rights advocacy

Syme de Leon

On 30 June 2022, Rodrigo Duterte concluded his six-year term as the President of the Philippines. During his presidency, Duterte was perhaps best known for his vocal scrutiny of human rights, and strict defence of the killings committed as part of his administration’s strategy to combat criminality. Many of his controversial statements on human rights captured media headlines across the globe. There is, for example, an infamous speech during a pre-election rally in 2016 where he urged the public to ‘forget the laws on human rights,’ promising instead that if he makes it to the presidential palace he would kill criminals. There is also another speech where, in relation to his administration’s war on drugs, he said he does not ‘care about human rights’, and again another , where he said he would be ‘happy’ to go jail for the killing of human rights activists. These ‘anti-human rights discourses’ were not mere words. They shaped the contours of the country under his leadership, during which thousands of suspected drug dealers and users were killed in police and vigilante encounters, and scores of human rights defenders endured various forms of harassment.

While Duterte’s anti-rights discourse was met with resistance by civil society organisations in the Philippines—especially by organisations advocating for human rights—it was also met with overwhelming acceptance by many Filipinos, who supported Duterte as their leader. Polls show that Duterte consistently sustained high approval ratings throughout his six-year term, and left his post as ‘the most popular president’ who has ever served under the 1987 Constitution. The support he amassed ‘cut across classes, generations, gender and geography.’

In the wake of his departure, many questions remain: How did Duterte’s anti-rights discourses gain such widespread acceptance? What lessons can human rights organisations take from this history? Part of answering these questions, I suggest, necessitates a deeper consideration of the emotional appeal of Duterte’s discourses, and how an understanding of it can inform the work of human rights organisations.

What do emotions have to do it?

Emotion is not often a concept associated with human rights. This may be explained, in part, by the dominance of legalistic approaches in human rights theory and practice. In such approaches, human rights are seen primarily as law, and commonly involve claims addressed to States. These legal approaches are useful in many contexts, but generally adopt a ‘rationalist’ view of human rights, which disregards emotion for its potential to hamper ‘objective’ analyses. In the legal realm, human rights are commonly imagined as entitlements or obligations—neither of which, as scholar Kathryn Abrams puts it, ‘brings emotion to mind’—and as belonging to individuals who are seen as ‘rationalist subject[s]…hardly a creature brimming with affect.’ Another reason that explains the disconnect between emotions and human rights is that emotions have traditionally been assumed to belong in the ‘private’ or ‘personal’ sphere , which human rights, with its State-centric focus, generally overlooks. Yet, emotions figure centrally in the human rights issues civil society face, as poignantly exemplified during the Duterte administration .

Many scholars who have written about Duterte, have defined him as a populist, with an uncanny ability to enliven or mobilise people’s emotions. While endless definitions can describe populism—a strategy or ideology, for example—one that highlights its emotional or affective nature, comes from scholars Benjamin Moffit and Simon Tormey. They define populism as ‘a political style ’ composed of a series of performances that aim to influence political relations between a ‘populist leader’, the ‘people’ they claim to represent, and vice versa. To speak of populism as composed of ‘performances’, is to speak of it as affective; for performances—whether plays, concerts, or in this case politics—function to evoke emotional reactions from an audience. Populist leaders enact stories, symbols, and tropes to forge a connection with the public.

Duterte does this strategically through, for example, his enactment of fear. Duterte was a known storyteller , who wove together narratives about the drugs crisis, with the objective of creating a climate of fear. While this was partly directed towards criminals , who Duterte said he wanted ‘ to scare ’ into following the law, fear was also directed towards the public. Duterte often heightened existing fears about drug problems among the public—many of whom already believed in a ‘ perceived seriousness of the national drugs/crime problem ’ —and use this fear to justify his anti-rights agenda.

One emblematic example of this tactic is evident in a section of his speech during a meeting in 2020 where he spoke about ‘the evil of drugs,’ his anger about it, and why he does not ‘give a shit’ about human rights. Here, Duterte tells a story about an unnamed family, in which the father gets addicted to drugs, and as a result, starts beating up his wife and children. His drug use forces his wife to work to provide for the family, which leads her to be trafficked abroad or relocated to the Middle East for work, where she may be treated as a ‘slave’, subject to rape and forced to get abortions. The man’s drug use also leads him to engage in vices like drunkenness and robbery. His children, left in his care, turn to drugs themselves. If this is what can happen in one family, Duterte argues, ‘multiply it with the …thousands in our midst’ and we can see why drugs are a problem for society. This, he said, ‘is why I don’t care about human rights’ and part of why he orders authorities to kill suspected drug users.

Here, Duterte narrates one of his classic stories about the drug problem. In it, he frames drug users as causing personal and, by extension, national suffering, and from here advances the claim that violating the rights of these actors is a public good. The story is, in many ways, incoherent. It simplifies and distorts the drug problem and scapegoats drug users. Duterte is also inconsistent in his usage of rights, claiming, on the one hand, that he does not care about rights, yet speaking at length about why drug users do not deserve them. But Duterte does not aim to be coherent. As a populist, his objective is to make his performance resonate.

To do so, Duterte affectively frames human rights violations against drug users in the form of their killings, not as acts of merciless violence, but as a commonsense matter of self-defence against an alleged aggressor. The logic is that he is not attacking anyone; it is drug users who are poisoning society. This deflects wrongdoing from Duterte, justifies the violence he promotes, and makes his controversial statements about human rights seem more acceptable to those who already fear drug users. The story is also moving as it gives a detailed account of the suffering many Filipinos know intimately and have lived, either first-hand or within their networks: addiction, family separation, physical violence, and the abuse of overseas workers. Duterte may not speak to the complex politics that shape these issues, but he does speak well to how painfully they manifest in people’s lives. This was something Duterte was commended for by his supporters: his ability to speak about and represent people’s misery with fluency.

Additionally, the story benefits from Duterte’s emotional performance. When Duterte speaks about social issues, he uses an enraged tone, swears out of frustration, and admits his anger about it. He acts as though the people’s pain is also his pain. As part of this, he is careful not to distance himself from the public by using political jargon or dressing extravagantly. This was welcomed by his supporters, who saw Duterte’s ‘authenticity’ as a sign of reliability. One study of Duterte supporters, for example, showed that many appreciated Duterte’s perceived ability to bring ‘authenticity to politics,’ citing ‘his style of speech, manner of walking, and even his clothing as material proofs of his supposedly authentic political act.’ Another study showed Duterte supporters commending his ‘reliable’ character, describing him as ‘a man who talks the language of the poor.’

What the above suggests is that the acceptance of Duterte’s anti-rights discourses hinges largely on his ability to perform them in ways that have emotional resonance and appeal among voters. Emotions, in other words, are an important channel through which Duterte mediated his relationship with the public: he used affective discourses to promote an anti-rights agenda, and the public evaluated their support for Duterte based on how his performance of these discourses resonated with their experiences.

Characterising Duterte’s relationship with people as emotional does not reduce it to ‘ superficiality ’— as somehow based on fleeting feelings as opposed to ‘real’ politics. Rather, it brings to light the emotional nature of politics and political nature of emotions. Politics is emotional, in the sense that leaders such as Duterte depend upon forging affective relationships with the public to challenge human rights. Emotions are political, since what resonates emotionally depends largely on the context one exists in. Evidently, Duterte played on existing fears about drugs. This fear is not inherent: people are not born fearing drug users. Duterte’s representation of them as fearsome thrives only because the image of drug users as people to be feared is already well-codified in ‘cultural histories and memories.’ In the Philippines, the idea has long been institutionalised that the recurring cases of violence committed by drug users,can be attributed singularly to the drug user, as opposed to, say, an array of socio-economic and political factors such as structural poverty, inadequate access to health services, violent policing practices, and poor public infrastructure that make those violent encounters possible in the first place. Similarly, nothing is innately appealing about Duterte’s ‘man of the people’ character. It has appeal largely because there has been a growing perception among many in the Philippines that since the downfall of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.—who ruled the country from 1965 and, having been responsible for widespread human rights abuses, was overthrown through the People’s Power Revolution in 1986—preceding politicians have failed to deliver on their promise to restore democracy and improve standards of living. To the dismay of many, political systems in the post-Marcos era remained dominated by a handful of elites, standing above the Filipino people who endured hardships in the form of, as Duterte pointed out, physical violence, job insecurity, and so on. If the context were different, Duterte’s discourse might not have drawn the emotional appeal it did.

What does this mean for human rights organisations?

Human rights organisations in the Philippines, though diverse , are primarily composed of non-governmental organisations, alliances and networks that adopt the defence of human rights in their mandate. Under Duterte’s term, these organisations relentlessly challenged his anti-rights approach to politics, facing various abuses along the way. In line with traditional human rights practice, much of their advocacy efforts tended to concentrate on criticising Duterte’s anti-rights agenda and calling on State actors to address it. A substantial amount of work was, for example, focused on demanding that the Duterte administration put an end to rights violations , and for inter-governmental bodies to condemn Duterte, impose sanctions , and launch examinations and investigations against him. This was often done with support from international and regional organisations as their allies. These strategies were useful for exposing Duterte’s violence, his breach of international norms, and the necessity for the international community to act upon it. The resulting examinations and investigations by the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines , the United N ations, and the International Criminal C ourt reflect the success of their efforts. Yet if, as outlined above, a central aspect to Duterte’s power exists in the emotional appeal of his discourses among the public , it follows that advocacy work focused on the State addresses only part of the problem. It addresses Duterte’s violations and breaches, but not the societal acceptance that existed for such actions.

Duterte’s popular appeal highlights the value of conducting human rights work that go beyond lobbying governments and diplomats, and focus more on fostering relationships with communities and individuals who sit at the margins of such realms of power. These are the people who voted for Duterte, and who showed him support throughout six years as president, despite the scrutiny he faced. While communities who enthusiastically supported Duterte are commonly represented as unthinking people manipulated by Duterte, as shown in preceding sections and by other scholars , many were critical agents, who invested in Duterte because they felt his investment in them.

It also speaks to the importance of not only criticising Duterte, but considering what his emotional appeal reveals about the contemporary political landscape. Studying this may provide important guidance for organisations, as they reflect upon developing advocacy strategies that resonate with this audience. For example, in one study , during interviews conducted with human rights organisations, some advocates shared that while external factors made it difficult for them to draw public appeal, such as Duterte’s attacks towards them, they may also have alienated people by promoting discourses that presented rights as self-evident truths, used ‘jargon’ tailored for those ‘already politically engaged’, and adopted a ‘preachy tone.’ In observing Duterte’s appeal, we see that shifting away from these technocratic discourses, which are cold and distant in emotional orientation, may be key. As signalled above, many were moved by Duterte’s ‘authenticity’ precisely because they rejected the ‘inaccessibility of traditional politicians and institutions’, and demanded politics with ‘ popular appeal and emotional identification that cut through technocratic smokescreens ’. Human rights advocacy that speaks to people in a language they can relate to is important for meeting this demand. While more research is needed to explore what human rights beyond technocracy may look like, artists ’ work in highlighting the affective dimensions of rights, point to promising directions. Beyond discourse, however, work also needs to be done to address the discontentment people express towards the exclusionary nature of political systems in the Philippines, which gave Duterte’s ‘man of the people’ routine its appeal. The context signals the importance of placing these issues of systemic inequality as a priority in the work of human rights organisations.

Another reason advocates’ claims may have dissuaded the public from the human rights movement is the tendency for some to promote discourses that stoked ‘ anger and indignation .’ This approach aligns with traditional strategies of ‘naming and shaming’ violators, which was prevalent during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr, but was critiqued for concentrating heavily on the negative aspects of rights. In response, some, especially the younger generation of activists, have called for ‘positive’ or ‘hope-based messaging.’ This aligns with global trends, where positive narratives are gaining traction as a strategy against populism. Its aim is not to conceal the negative aspects of rights, but to highlight the hopeful future it can create.

Striking this balance, however, is as difficult as it is important. Romanticising human rights can also be alienating, especially if obscures the violations many still face, and the structural work needed to address them. Arguably, it might be useful to go beyond discussions about ‘negative versus positive’ emotions. Framing the discussion in binary terms makes it appear as though there is one answer to the issue. Yet while ‘negative’ emotions such as anger may be dissuading for some, as shown in the case of Duterte, anger can also foster solidarity for political action. Moreover, Duterte supporters were not drawn by anger alone, but a variety of emotions, including a politics of anxiety and hope. There is thus no single set of emotions that resonates with people. Duterte’s discourses were only emotionally ‘appealing’ in so far as they spoke to people’s socially accepted fears and lived experiences.

Drawing on this, it could be valuable to focus less on finding the ‘right’ emotions, but on translating human rights into the language of emotions. This might mean recognising and representing rights violations not as mere breaches of international agreements, but as harms felt physically and emotionally; as phenomena, ‘ bound up with pain, distress and desperation. ’ This would necessitate challenging preconceived ideas of human rights subjects as devoid of emotion and recognising them as affective beings: as people, who, when faced with hardship—whether hunger, poverty, or insecurity—will first feel this hardship, before they think of the treaties and conventions. It can also mean measuring the realisation of rights not only in terms of legal accountability, but the fulfilment of human needs and alleviation of suffering. Putting food on the table, having access to education, expressing oneself openly, are human rights in practice. Translating human rights into the language of emotion, in other words, is about translating it into the language of the personal, everyday and lived. Doing so helps opens possibilities for more people to see how human rights may resonate with their lives and political visions.

Again, however, this focus on lived experience in discourse must be complemented with other actions that address the structural issues that give rise to those circumstances of suffering in the first place. The systemic issues mentioned above that give Duterte’s anti-rights discourses against drug users its emotional appeal—structural poverty, lack of access to health services, among others—ought to be addressed not only in discourse, but in holistic practice. As enormous undertakings, addressing these issues through collective action alongside a variety of actors outside the traditional human rights advocacy groups, from academics to cultural workers, to medical practitioners and funding bodies, is essential.

It is said, after all, that the number of populists being elected to leadership are steadily growing, with many incorporating anti-rights discourses in their performances. And while emotions lie at the heart of any politics, its role in today’s mediatised political landscape is becoming magnified. As politics become ‘ increasingly dependent on and shaped by mass media ’—an industry where emotion is an important currency—politicians are using innovative ways to draw emotional appeal. Signs of this are already evident with the recent election of President, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of Ferdinand Marcos Sr, whose victory was largely made possible by a systematic, decades-long media campaign to re-narrate his family’s legacy of human rights abuses, into a yet another discourse of peace and order.

A protest on the 46th anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos’ imposition of martial law. Credit: 350.org/Flickr

Date: November 22, 2022 |
DOI: 10.37839/MAR2652-550X12.12 |
Edition: Edition 12, 2022

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Clan politics reign but a family is divided in the race to rule the Philippines

Julie McCarthy

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter Sara Duterte arrive for the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2018. AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter Sara Duterte arrive for the opening of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2018.

A foiled succession plan, sensational allegations, and a family feud at the pinnacle of power — these are the ingredients in what promises to be a riveting race to succeed outgoing Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

The no-holds-barred contest scheduled for May 2022 has already produced what some observers see as an unsettling alliance: the offspring of two presidents pairing off in an unprecedented bid to run the country.

Taking full advantage of their prominence, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., has teamed up with Sara Duterte, daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte in the national election.

He is running for president in this dynastic duo, while she vies for vice president.

Are dynasties and celebrities narrowing democracy?

Political dynasties in the Philippines are nothing new.

Richard Heydarian, an expert on Philippine politics, says they are such a dominant feature in the country that between 70% and 90% of elected offices have been controlled by influential families.

But even by those standards, this Marcos-Duterte coupling takes powerful clan politics to a new level, says University of the Philippines Diliman political science professor Aries Arugay.

Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. is surrounded by supporters after attending the recount of votes in the 2016 vice presidential race at the Supreme Court. Marcos narrowly lost that contest to Leni Robredo, the current vice president. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Speaking at a recent online forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Arugay says second generation dynasts are behaving like a "cartel".

He says their calculus is as damaging as it is simple: "Why can't we just share power, limit competition, and make sure that the next winners of the presidential and national elections come from us?"

Then there is the celebrity factor.

Heydarian notes a narrowing of democracy in the pairing of dynasties with the celebrity class, which includes former film stars, television personalities and sports figures. He says the two elite groups monopolize national office, putting elected office beyond the reach of a lot of ordinary Filipinos who he says may have the merit and passion to serve, but are effectively blocked from fully participating.

It makes a "mockery" of democracy, Heydarian says, but it's also a trend that could be difficult to reverse.

"After all, in politics you need a certain degree of messaging, communications machinery and charisma," he said. And, he added, especially in the age of social media, "It's not for dull people."

Running on a name, not a track record

Consider Manny Pacquiao.

His stardom as one of the legends of the boxing world has catapulted him into the race for president next year. He is currently a sitting senator and is in the running for the highest office not on the power of his record in the upper chamber marked by absenteeism, but on the strength of his career as the country's most acclaimed athlete.

So prized have name recognition and celebrity status become in winning Philippine elections that observers worry it's turning democracy into the preserve of the rich and well-connected.

Marcos is part and parcel of the phenomenon, according to Manila-based analyst Bob Herrera-Lim, who notes that his undistinguished career as a senator and congressman has been no barrier to his ambition for the presidency.

"[Marcos] is running on entitlement. He is running on the weaknesses of the system," Herrera-Lim said.

Sara Duterte poses for a selfie with city hall employees in Davao city, on the southern island of Mindanao. Manman Dejeto/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Sara Duterte poses for a selfie with city hall employees in Davao city, on the southern island of Mindanao.

Marcos' vice presidential partner Sara Duterte is an accomplished politician, occupying the post her father held for decades as the mayor of Davao City, the third largest in the country. But the fact the 43-year-old First Daughter, whose work is little known outside Davao, led in a presidential opinion poll this past summer can only be put down to the power of a famous family name.

Revisionism, a PR campaign of distortion — and fond memories of the Marcos era

Bongbong Marcos is now making waves, rewriting the past and embellishing his family's legacy.

It's been 35 years since his father was ousted by a popular uprising, exiled, and exposed for rights abuses and kleptocracy.

Marcos Sr. is believed to have amassed up to $10 billion while in office, and now his son has been resuscitating the family's image with a sophisticated social media campaign.

Marcos Jr. narrates seamlessly scored videos that cast his parents, Ferdinand and Imelda, as generous philanthropists, and his father as a great innovator who made possible new strains of rice and united the archipelago with infrastructure heralded as the "Golden Age" of the Philippines.

Critics decry what they call the revisionist history and systematic airbrushing of the sins of the father's 20-year rule that turned the country into his personal fiefdom.

Marcos Sr. engaged in land-grabbing, bank-grabbing, and using dummies to hide acquisitions from public view, according to Professor Paul Hutchcroft of the Australian National University, who has written extensively on the political economy of the Philippines.

The late dictator dispensed special privileges to relatives, friends and cronies, writes Ronald Mendoza, dean of the School of Government at Ateneo de Manila University, providing them access to the booty of the state, "even as the country failed to industrialize and was eventually plunged into debt and economic crises in the mid-1980s."

Activists wear masks with anti-Marcos slogans during a rally in front of the Supreme court in Manila in 2016 as they await the high court's decision on whether to allow the burial of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the "Cemetery of Heroes." Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Yet, despite all of it, the Marcos family is not without its loyalists among both the elites and ordinary Filipinos.

At a small community market in central Manila, where fishmongers congregate amid aquariums and chopping blocks, vendors and shoppers talk about the Marcos era with a sense of nostalgia.

Chereelyn Dayondon, 49, says she likes how Marcos Sr. ran the country before and she wants that to come back. The single mother earns $80 a month directing traffic and worries that the cost of living is getting too high.

"It's not going to be enough," she says. "You never know, maybe Bongbong can change the Philippines. Let's try him out."

Meanwhile, fish seller Teodora Sibug-Nelval, 57, reminisces about the old Marcos era and memories of cheap food and law and order.

"I had a good life. I was able to send my sibling to school ... I was able to buy a house," she says.

In the pandemic, however, Sibug-Nelval lost her home and her vending stall. And now she wants her life back. She says she believes that if Marcos wins the election, "our lives will be better."

Herrera-Lim also says that many Filipinos see a confusing, chaotic political situation: "There is no clear delineations, political parties don't work for our benefit, we are looking for order."

And that, he says, is what Marcos is offering.

"Bongbong Marcos is saying that during his father's time, there was this order. There was peace in the country, which again, is a myth," he says.

The challenger to the dynasty

Leni Robredo is the current vice president of the Philippines and a liberal progressive.

A lawyer by training, Robredo co-authored an anti-dynasty bill when she served as a member of the Philippine House of Representatives.

In the Philippines, the vice president and president are elected separately and Robredo is on the opposite end of the political spectrum from President Duterte, with whom she has repeatedly sparred over human rights, the handling of the pandemic and Duterte's close ties with China.

Among the many candidates for president, including a former police chief, the mayor of Manila and Duterte's closest aide, Robredo appears to represent the greatest challenge to Bongbong Marcos.

Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo gestures to a crowd of supporters in Manila on Oct. 7, 2021, the day she filed her candidacy for the 2022 presidential race. Jam Sta Rosa/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo gestures to a crowd of supporters in Manila on Oct. 7, 2021, the day she filed her candidacy for the 2022 presidential race.

Robredo defeated Marcos Jr. for vice president in 2016, and now she has pledged that if she wins the top office, she will recover the Marcos family's plundered riches.

Alluding to Marcos' perceived popularity, Robredo told a news conference last weekend that it was "sad that the people allow themselves to be fooled" into believing Marcos would save the country when the family's ill-gotten wealth "was the reason they are poor."

Yet Robredo may need more than tough rhetoric and moral rectitude.

Marites Vitug, the editor-at-large for the online news site Rappler, whose CEO won this year's Nobel Peace Prize , said the country was witnessing the "rehabilitation of the Marcos dynasty." Young people were especially susceptible to the Marcos rebranding, she said, because there were no standard history textbooks in the Philippines that explained the Marcos martial law years.

"I was shocked to hear from some millennials that this was never discussed in class," she said.

Vitug said the odd teacher or professor may present it, but it was not systematic.

"It should have been required reading," she said.

Political economist Calixto Chikiamco adds that the revived Marcos family fortunes represent a counter-revolution to the one that ousted Marcos Sr. in 1986. That so-called Yellow Revolution was a model that Chikiamco says has failed to deliver genuine change.

"Because our politics remain dysfunctional, our economy is still not doing so well, a quarter of the workforce is unemployed ... still a large number of people go abroad to seek better opportunities. So it is a revolt against their present situation," he said.

"That's the reason the Marcoses are making a comeback."

The Duterte dynasty is a house divided

The campaign promises to be one of the Philippines' most bitterly fought contests in years, not least because the Marcos-Duterte tie-up has not won the blessing of Sara Duterte's father.

Rodrigo Duterte did make the controversial decision to allow the late dictator's remains to be moved to the "Cemetery of Heroes," a decision confirmed by the Supreme Court. But the once-friendly relations between Rodrigo Duterte and Bongbong Marcos have frayed, possibly beyond repair.

Duterte had wanted his daughter to seek the presidency, not play second fiddle, to provide him protection from the International Criminal Court investigating his violent anti-drug war. The probe has been suspended for a procedural review, but court watchers expect the case of alleged crimes against humanity to resume. Meanwhile, Chikiamco says while Sara may talk of continuing her father's policies, by declining to run for the top job, she has gone her own way.

"The daughter is fiercely independent and didn't want to be under the thumb of President Duterte. And also she could not perhaps tolerate the president's men," Chikiamco said.

A grandmother and her grandchild light a candle beside mock chalk figure representing an extra judicial killing victim during a prayer rally condemning the government's war on drugs in Manila in 2017. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Herrera-Lim adds that daughter and father apparently "did not see eye to eye on many things related to the family or on the governance of Davao."

Fundamentally, though, Herrera-Lim says President Duterte doesn't trust Bongbong Marcos to shield him from ICC prosecutors.

"On these matters, family is very important," he said.

And even if there were such a bargain between the two men, Herrera says Duterte would worry it might not hold.

In what analysts regard as a means to protect himself, Duterte is making a bid for a seat in the Senate in the 2022 election.

One authoritative poll shows Marcos the early frontrunner to succeed him. But not, it seems, if President Duterte has anything to say about it.

He ignited a stir earlier this month by declaring in a televised address that an unnamed candidate for president uses cocaine.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. AFP/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

Without identifying who, he said the offender was a "very weak leader" and that "he might win hands down."

Marcos took a drug test this past week, saying he was clean. Other candidates hurriedly lined up to clear their name.

Marcos is also under attack by groups eager to have him disqualified from running at all. The Commission on Elections is reviewing four separate petitions challenging his candidacy. At least one charges that Marcos misrepresented his eligibility to seek the presidency by stating he had no criminal conviction that would bar him from office. Petitioners argue that his 1995 conviction for failing to pay taxes for several years in the 1980s ends his bid for the presidency.

The Commission on Elections announced no ballots will be printed until the petitions are decided.

The campaign that officially begins in February is already generating drama enough for some to lament that the race for president is fast becoming a "political circus."

But Richard Heydarian says circuses are not always the worst thing. "Sometimes," he says, "they can produce a magical outcome. Let's see."

Correction Dec. 16, 2021

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Aries Arugay was a professor at Philippine University. He is with the University of the Philippines Diliman. Also, Ateneo de Manila University was misspelled as Ateno de Manila University.

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Political rhetoric in the Philippines: What's the matter and why it matters

2017, UPLB General Education Conversation Paper

The rise of populist leaders like Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has arguably revived public interest in political rhetoric—that is, what political leaders say and how they say it. However, this revived interest is often oriented towards a vilification of the role of rhetoric in our socio-civic life. On the one hand, there are those who still view rhetoric as empty signifiers or vacuous attempts to conceal inaction. On the other hand, there are those who regard rhetoric as an instrument that incites actions inimical to public life. While there is value in understanding the dangers of rhetoric when used for manipulative purposes and how to shield oneself against them, these preoccupations only offer us a part of the larger picture. In my lecture, I propose a general framework for studying political speeches in the Philippines that goes beyond the current and dominant perspectives circulating in traditional and social media and other public platforms. In the hope of sparking further conversation, I argue that there is a compelling need to study political rhetoric in the Philippines for at least three reasons: (1) to guard ourselves against the allure of political speeches’ manipulative intent, (2) to understand how these speeches shape our socio-civic life, and (3) to generate context- and culture-sensitive ways of producing and making sense of public discourse at large.