Month: May 2016

Written by Francis Domingo and Pauline Eadie.

In late 2015 we started musing over the idea of running a series of articles about the Philippine Elections in 2016 for Ballots and Bullets, a blog run by the School of Politics and International Relations at The University of Nottingham. We knew that the official campaign would be three months long and that this task would be a big commitment. After canvassing a number of friends and colleagues on whether they would write for us we decided to go ahead. When the election campaign started on 9 February so did our blog.

Written by Roland G. Simbulan.

The clear mandate given by the Filipino electorate for Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte as the next president of the Philippines in the 2016 elections is a clear signal that the nation urgently seeks meaningful social change. The Commission on Elections estimates that 84% of voters participated in the 2016 elections, making it the largest turnout in Philippine electoral history. It was an election that gave a landslide victory to a provincial mayor from Davao, a city that was once the bloody battleground between New People’s Army guerrillas and government security forces. The military and police forces then also organized the Alsa Masa, a dreaded paramilitary group that assassinated even sympathizers of the armed and unarmed Left. It is to the credit of Duterte that Davao is now considered one of the safest places in the country to live in. The mayor from Davao is also known to be on speaking terms with the outlawed New People’s Army (NPA) who have occasionally turned over policemen and soldiers to him who had been captured as prisoners of war (POW). He is also known to be a supporter of indigenous peoples’ rights, Moro people’s rights, in general for the poor and underserved in Mindanao, though in a controversial speech during the campaign he threatened labour unions with annihilation should they disturb industrial peace under his administration.

Written by Vladimir Guevarra.

Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency is upon us. The stance of the tough-talking mayor of Davao city on crime and corruption is pretty clear, but his policies on the economy are less so. Here’s the outlook for the Philippines under Duterte over the next six years:

#1 On Society – Expect more discipline

Right after Duterte’s mammoth miting de avance at the Quirino Grandstand, social media was gushing over how hundreds of thousands of supporters picked up their trash and left the park clean and orderly – something nearly unheard of in the Philippines. You can call it the “Davao effect”– in which people became more conscious about their conduct in public. Already, Duterte is proposing restrictions on the sale of liquor as well as a curfew past 10p.m. for minors.

Written by Pauline Eadie.

Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of Davao City in Mindanao is now president elect of the Philippines. His path to the presidency was controversial, riddled with expletives and reduced his detractors to mud slinging and comparisons with Hitler. But the mud failed to stick: with almost all precincts reporting, he looked to have won the race to the presidency with more than 15m votes and nearly 40% of the vote. His nearest rivals have conceded defeat.