Sheila S. Coronel
38 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
intimidated into docility. And many
among the public cheer the president’s
war on drugs, leaving the Catholic clergy
and human rights advocates tottering
on the high ground, alone.
In his three years as president,
Duterte has proved to be a consummate
power broker and a masterful political
tactician. His rambling rants against
elites, drug users, and criminals feed on
popular frustrations with the country’s
broken justice system and feckless ruling
class. He has lashed out against “impe-
rial Manila” and the “imperial” United
States, articulating festering resent-
ments against national and global elites.
Duterte is riding the crest o a political
wave, not just in the Philippines but
around the world, where his brand o
illiberalism is gaining ground. How
could a 74-year-old, gun-toting former
mayor from the Philippines’ southern
frontier have turned out to be so in tune
with the global political moment?
THE DAVAO PLAYBOOK
Before Duterte made it the laboratory
for his brand o muscular politics, Davao,
a sprawling port city on the southern
coast o Mindanao, was a petri dish for
a Communist-led insurgency. In the
early 1980s, the Philippines’ ailing dicta-
tor, Ferdinand Marcos, was losing his
grip on power. At the same time, Com-
munist guerrillas were gaining ground,
especially on Mindanao. In Davao, they
recruited followers in the slums, in the
universities, and among middle-class
professionals railing against the abuses
o dictatorial rule.
The Filipino Communists operated
mostly in rural areas, and at their peak in
the mid-1980s, they had a nearly 25,000-
strong peasant army. But they also had an
urban presence. As part o an experiment
in urban warfare, they formed “sparrow”
units, two- or three-person squads that
moved quickly and often unnoticed as
they gunned down police ocers and
soldiers on the streets. In Davao, their
stronghold was a slum called Agdao,
which became a battle¿eld between urban
guerrillas and the military, earning it the
moniker “Nicaragdao,” a reference to the
violence in Nicaragua.
Davao soon became known as the
country’s murder capital. Corpses were
turning up on the streets or being
¿shed out o the sea, victims o political
killings and personal vendettas, as well
as o hits by extortionists and common
criminals. Law and order had broken
down. In 1986, Marcos was overthrown
by a popular uprising on the streets o
Manila. Under pressure from both the
military and the United States, the
government o the new president, Cora-
zon Aquino, unleashed the army and
vigilantes in an iron-¿sted crackdown
against the Communists.
Davao then became a testing ground
for U.S.-backed counterinsurgency. In
1987, the former U.S. attorney general
Ramsey Clark led a mission to the
Philippines that found that the ¬ was
involved in the rise o vigilante groups.
The U.S. government also provided
technical assistance to the Philippine
army’s counterinsurgency operations on
Mindanao. During that time, civilians
armed with riÇes and long knives pa-
trolled the streets on the hunt for sus-
pected Communists. These anticommu-
nist vigilantes were egged on by
incendiary radio broadcasts hyping the
Red peril. While reporting on Davao
in the late 1980s, I encountered those
marauding armed bands on the streets.