From World Politics Review (May 16, 2019):
With Even Fewer Checks on His Power, Where Will Duterte Take the Philippines? (By Joshua Kurlantzick)
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, left, arrives for a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, April 25, 2019 (Photo by Kenzaburo Fukuhara for Kyodo via AP Images).
Although divisive internationally, President Rodrigo Duterte has remained popular at home in the Philippines despite a deeply illiberal streak. And with this week’s midterm elections, he has amassed even more
political power—probably more than any Philippine leader since dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
After pro-Duterte candidates
dominated elections for the Senate—the only real remaining source of resistance to Duterte’s agenda—his allies control both chambers of the Philippine Congress. There will now be even fewer constraints on Duterte, who has already been working to weaken the checks on his powers, including by reshaping the Supreme Court. By the end of the year, he will have appointed
12 of the court’s 15 justices.
What will Duterte do with this victory? Given the past three years, it is easy to imagine him using his expanded political powers to move the Philippines further from an illiberal democracy and closer to an outright autocracy, while also taking steps to entrench his influence well beyond the end of his term in 2022. Greater centralization of power not only threatens what is left of Philippine democracy; it could also hurt the economy, unsettling local and foreign investors.
Duterte’s big win will have a lesser impact on foreign policy. Even though he is now in near-total control of the Philippines’ political system, the country still has a weak hand to play regionally and internationally, though Duterte may be emboldened to defy the national security establishment’s preference for close links with Washington.
The election results hardly could have been worse for the opposition. Although the opposition had many big names on its Senate slate, including former presidential candidate and Cabinet secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas, its unified ticket
won noneof the 12 Senate seats it contested. With Duterte’s aura of invincibility magnified, any remaining political opponents may be cowed during the second half of his presidential term.
The opposition is left stymied, with no clear path to recapturing popular support absent some massive misstep by Duterte. And the political situation may still get worse. In the run-up to the election, Duterte added many opposition politicians to a public
list of people allegedly involved in the drug trade, and thus potentially targeted for extrajudicial murder. It remains unclear whether those listed as “narcopoliticians” actually have any links to drugs, but this type of tactic can chill political discourse, and it didn’t hurt Duterte at the polls.
Most likely, Duterte will ramp up this type of repression, including possibly pursuing more trumped-up charges against remaining opposition politicians. He will likely continue narrowing the space for independent media, since he paid no price at the ballot box either for his campaign against reporters like
Maria Ressa, probably the country’s most famous journalist and a founder of the investigative outlet Rappler. She was arrested, for the second time, in March. He may also try to reinstate the
death penalty as part of his crackdown on crime.
On domestic policy, Duterte has promised to
cut corporate taxes to boost growth and attract investment, and he certainly now has the power to do so. But a tax cut probably won’t be enough to spark much higher economic growth, and the Philippines continues to be hit hard by
inflation.
//Greater centralization of power under Duterte not only threatens what is left of Philippine democracy; it could also hurt the economy, unsettling local and foreign investors.//
Duterte otherwise shows no signs of building on the key areas of reform championed by his predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, like seriously cracking down on corruption. The Philippines’ rating in Transparency International’s annual corruption perceptions survey
has not improved under Duterte. Indeed, more power in Duterte’s hands might mean more graft in the second half of his term.
His centralization of power may also scare investors for other reasons. In the first half of his term, Duterte mostly left the details of economic policy to others, focusing instead on his drug war, foreign policy, and the unsettled situation in the southern Philippines. With even more power, and fewer restraints on him, Duterte could take over more decision-making on economic policy, an area where he knows very little and about which he
cared little in the past.
Duterte’s controversial plan to shift the country to a more federal system of government could further destabilize the country’s politics and undermine growth. Although this plan, which requires changing the constitution, has
not proven popular in polls, Duterte now has the numbers in Congress to push it through. The plan has some merits—Manila has been overly powerful, and other diverse and archipelagic countries like Indonesia have benefited from
decentralization.
But a transition to federalism would probably be chaotic initially, and there are real worries that the constitutional change could allow Duterte to
prolong his presidency, past the current limit of one six-year term, taking the Philippines back to an outright dictatorship. Or, he could use his power to
set the stage for his daughter, just
reelected as mayor of the southern city of Davao, to become president in 2022, creating the type of dynastic rule that has not served states in Southeast Asia well in the past.
Just because Duterte is more powerful doesn’t mean he will conduct a smarter or more effective foreign policy. In fact, the reverse could be true, with fewer limits on him, and an ever more subservient team of allies and advisers.
The biggest foreign policy issue for Duterte remains balancing between the United States, the Philippines’ treaty ally, and China, especially after Beijing’s recent
brazen encroachment on Thitu Island in the South China Sea, the largest of the Spratly Islands claimed by Manila. Between
January and March, more than 200 Chinese fishing vessels reportedly sailed close to the island. The opposition tried to make Duterte’s approach to China a major issue in the campaign, criticizing him for not driving a
tough enough bargain on deals with Beijing for new investment, and over issues related to the South China Sea, where Duterte has vacillated between moving to accommodate China and pushing back. Of course, those charges didn’t help the opposition win, but China’s growing influence in the Philippines is still
generally unpopular among Filipinos, putting something of a brake on relations with Beijing.
Still, given Duterte’s own, longstanding anti-American instincts and his now increased power over foreign policy, he will probably swing at least somewhat toward Beijing again, especially if China’s promised investments—including a potential
$12 billion in deals struck at the recent Belt and Road Forum—actually come through this time around. A Duterte-allied Senate will surely have less interest in conducting
investigations into concerns about Chinese influence in the Philippines.
After the election results came in, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo
told reporters, “Undoubtedly, the Duterte magic spelled the difference.” Duterte could maintain that magic for a long time.
[Joshua Kurlantzick is senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.]https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/27854/with-even-fewer-checks-on-his-power-where-will-duterte-take-the-philippines
