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Philippine President Duterte: "Son of a Whore, I Curse You"
Photo: Eloisa Lopez / REUTERS
Son of a bitch.
Idiot.
Devil.
Bullshit.
Son of a Bitch.
Fuck.
Drugs.
Criminal.
Kill!
Murdered!
Shoot!
This is the result of the words of Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines, which he uses very often in his speeches.
He is the man who once said of former US President Barack Obama: "Son of a whore, I curse you."
Who, when he was still mayor, spoke of the case of a badly raped woman with the words: “She was so beautiful.
The mayor should have been the first to have them.
What a waste."
Rodrigo Duterte, 76 years old, is now stepping down as President of the Philippines after six years in office; the legislature will end in May 2022.
"I'm going to retire," he announced in early October.
He has to - although many in the country do not yet believe that Duterte will really leave the political stage: According to the Philippine constitution, a second term in office has been ruled out since 1987, after the then President Ferdinand Marcos had ruled the Philippines like a dictator for two decades.
He also turned down the post of future vice-president, which came as a surprise to many observers.
However, he wants to push his daughter to the front as a presidential candidate.
Sara Duterte-Carpio, Mayor of Davao City, like her father once did.
What kind of country does Duterte leave behind?
What is his political balance sheet?
Rodrigo Duterte ran as a presidential candidate in 2016, promising the Filipinos to take tough action: in the fight against drugs, against poverty.
For better educational opportunities, a better health system, land reforms.
"Change is coming," he shouted.
To measure him against his promises six years and a pandemic later is tantamount to a disaster.
Human rights organizations estimate that Duterte's war on drugs between July 2016 and March 2019 cost 30,000 victims - people who were arbitrarily murdered because they allegedly possessed or used drugs.
Including 61 lawyers who had defended drug addicts.
Very few cases were cleared up.
In his speeches, Duterte had stirred up security forces and the population from the start: “If you know any addicts, go and kill them.
Forcing their parents to do so would be too painful for them. ”The corpses of addicts would
"Make the fish fat in Manila Bay".
The result: police officers shoot instead of allowing alleged violators to go to court.
With the blessing from above.
Even outside of the drug war, Duterte systematically weakened human rights.
Tackled protesters who campaigned for climate protection, the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.
Imprisoned journalists.
Anyone who is socially or politically active must expect repression, imprisonment and death in the Philippines.
In September the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened an investigation against Duterte in The Hague for possible crimes against humanity.
According to investigators, there is "a systematic attack on civil society" in the country.
A mother, who lost two sons in the drug war, described the hope she attaches to the investigation in the British Guardian: "It's as if half the sun was shining for us all of a sudden."
How successful the investigations can be in the end is questionable: Duterte withdrew from the ICC three years ago, announced that he would block the investigations and not let the investigators into the country.
He wanted to "beat" the judges in The Hague.
Last week, there was another good news, perhaps the best news in a long time, for everyone who campaigns for freedom of expression in the Philippines: Journalist Maria Ressa, one of the president's loudest and most influential critics, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
"The award sends an important signal, namely that the world is keeping an eye on the Philippines," said the Filipino political scientist Nicole Curato to SPIEGEL.
"The Nobel Peace Prize and the ICC investigations act like a booster for those who expose disinformation and abuse of power, or who have lost a son or friend to Duterte's drug war and are hoping for justice."
Pandemic: Millions of families slide into poverty
There is much more reason to be angry in Filipino society: Duterte put up with one of the world's toughest and longest shutdowns, children did not come to the door for months, pupils from poor families were partially cut off from any education because homeschooling was in difficult to realize in their living conditions.
In a country comparison by the Australian Lowy Institute, the Philippines rank 81 out of 121 when it comes to coping with the corona crisis.
Because the tough restrictions - unlike in neighboring countries such as Thailand or Malaysia - have hardly had any effect in the Philippines: The Southeast Asian country sometimes counted more than 10,000 new cases per day, a total of 40,000 dead and 2.7 million infected.
Hospitals were overburdened.
And there is still far too little vaccine available.
In the years before the pandemic, Duterte managed to reduce poverty rates and underemployment.
And yet the corona crisis reveals how little he cared about resolutely tackling problems in schools and hospitals and questions of social justice during his tenure.
A perspective out of the crisis: missing.
While millions of men and women have lost their jobs and families slide into poverty, Duterte's government has a massive corruption scandal on its neck.
Billions of dollars have disappeared from the pandemic funds.
Duterte spent most of his money on a comprehensive infrastructure program; His motto "Build, Build, Build" was well received by the population in the hope of finding jobs. But part of the campaign are also bizarre and heavily criticized billion-dollar projects such as "Dolomite Beach", an artificial beach in Manila Bay, whose specially carted white and very expensive sand was washed away by heavy rains immediately after completion.
As for foreign investment, Duterte hoped for China. He ensnared Beijing - and looked over the violent territorial disputes that had existed for a long time between the countries in the South China Sea, especially around the »Scarborough Reef«. Jose Cuisia, former Philippine Ambassador to the United States, recently assessed Duterte's China diplomacy as follows: “He thought if he was nice to China he would get loans and investments - he got promises, but that's all he got. What have we really got? ”The President jeopardized the historically close ties between the Philippines and the United States.
Duterte's diplomacy in the South China Sea - or the West Philippine Sea - is rated as unsatisfactory by almost half of the population.
Otherwise, approval for the president is still high, around 70 percent of the people in the country are satisfied with their president - despite the catastrophic corona balance sheet and increased poverty.
How can that be?
"The Filipinos do not blame the president for their everyday misery," says political scientist Curato.
»You believe, for example: If the corona numbers skyrocket, it's because of the people who don't adhere to the hygiene rules.
And not the mismanagement of the government. «Presidents in office have historically always had good poll numbers, it is not a Duterte phenomenon, and the values are not a sensation.
For many, Duterte still symbolizes the powerful man who campaigns for the needs of the poor and against the elites.
Who speaks the language of the street.
He who understands, who changes.
Duterte's legacy, says Curato, depends on who succeeds him.
Whether it is someone from the family who will protect him from criminal prosecution in the future, cover him, and continue his policy.
Or someone like his opponent Leni Robredo, currently Vice President.
She announced her candidacy last week, alongside a few other dazzling candidates such as boxing world champion Manny Pacquiao, Ferdinand Marcos junior - son of ex-dictator Marcos and Christopher "Bong" Go, a close confidante of Dutertes.
Many associate the candidate Leni Robredo with the great hope of a new beginning.
In her speech, Robredo said:
“I will give everything I have.
Let's go into this fight together.
As a country, let us move towards a more just and humane future.
I want to look after this country like a mother. "
Words that sound strange after Rodrigo Duterte's six years.
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