MANILA - To
his critics, Rodrigo Duterte is a foul-mouthed, serial adulterer fixated on
killing criminals. But the millions who voted for the new Philippine leader see
him an anti-establishment hero.
Duterte, 71, was sworn in on Thursday as the
16th president of the Philippines after a controversial but wildly successful
election campaign dominated by his vows to kill tens of thousands of criminals
and tirades against the nation's elite.
He became the oldest president of the
Southeast Asian nation of 100 million people and the first from Mindanao, an
impoverished and conflict-plagued region that makes up the southern third of
the country.
Duterte rose to the nation's top job after
spending most of the past two decades as mayor of Davao, the biggest city in
Mindanao, earning a reputation as a ruthless leader willing to forsake human
rights to enforce law-and-order.
A lawyer and former city prosecutor, Duterte
is accused of links to vigilante death squads that rights groups say killed
more than 1,000 people in Davao -- accusations he has variously accepted and
denied.
Aided by bucketloads of charisma, Duterte was
undoubtedly a hugely popular leader of Davao, where many of the city's nearly
two million residents welcomed his authoritarian touch in helping to deliver
relative peace and economic prosperity.
To win last month's elections, Duterte
promised to roll out his style of governance across the rest of the country. He
vowed to end crime within six months, at one point saying 100,000 people would
be killed.
In an era where populist politicians are on
the rise around the world, Duterte also shrewdly capitalised on his image as a
man-of-the people with no tolerance for the nation's political and business
elite.
"When I become president, by the grace
of God, I serve the people, not you," Duterte told reporters in the final
stages of the election campaign, referring to the elite.
"Shit. My problem is the people at the
bottom of society... my problem is how to place food on the table."
In a nation where roughly a quarter of the
population live below the poverty line -- barely changed despite six years of
stellar economic growth under outgoing leader Benigno Aquino -- his disdain for
the wealthy proved a huge vote winner.
'Authenticity'
Duterte's man-of-the poor image was burnished
by his disdain for formal clothes, his preference for eating food with his
hands and living in a simple home in Davao.
The father-of-four's incessant swearing and
admissions on the campaign trail to being a serial adulterer, with two
mistresses kept in cheap boarding houses in Davao, seemed to add to his aura of
authenticity.
Other controversial campaign comments -- such
as calling Pope Francis a "son of a whore" and joking that he wanted
to rape an Australian missionary who was sexually assaulted and killed in a
Davao prison riot -- failed to stop his sensational rise.
Nevertheless, Duterte is in many respects a traditional
politician.
He is related to powerful clans from the
central Philippines and his father was an influential politician, serving for
three years as a cabinet secretary in Ferdinand Marcos's 1960s government
before the nation was plunged into dictatorship in 1972.
In Davao, Duterte has created his own
political dynasty, with his daughter taking over from his as mayor and his son
as vice mayor.
And since winning the election, Duterte has
highlighted his close relationship with the Marcos family.
Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, were
accused of overseeing widespread human rights abuses and plundering $10 billion
from state coffers during the strongman's rule, which ended with a famous
"People Power" uprising in 1986.
Duterte has in recent weeks said he will
finally allow the late dictator to be buried at the national hero's cemetery in
Manila.
Many Filipinos have no doubt that Duterte is
the right man to instil discipline in society, after three decades of chaotic
and corruption-plagued democracy that has condemned tens of millions to deep
poverty.
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