Asia’s Trump takes over The Philippines

Clarita Alia trembled in anger when asked about the likelihood that the mayor of her home city of Davao in the southern Philippines could soon be the country's next president.

Her worst fears have come true.

At press time, tough-talking Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, 71, was declared the winner for the next president of the Philippines. He has vowed to kill criminals and rid the government of corruption.

Although the official result has not yet been declared, main rival Mar Roxas admitted defeat after polls gave Mr Duterte an unassailable lead, tallied by the Parish Pastoral Council on Responsible Voting (PPCRV).

Third-place finisher Senator Grace Poe, who received 8.42 million votes, conceded defeat late Monday to Duterte.

Duterte, nicknamed "the Punisher" for his tough talk against crime, shocked the country during the campaign as he often cursed in his speeches and even joked about rape.

He once said that Manila Bay would turn red from the bodies he will dump there and that "God will weep" if he becomes president.

On Monday, he toned down his language and called for healing after an acrimonious campaign for the welfare of the country.

"I offer my hand in friendship to those who were my opponents in this elections," he said. "It's time for healing."

"He is the devil," said CLaria Alia, tears streaming down her wrinkled face. "He cannot become the president of the Philippines. He has no good morals and runs a rotten system."

The 62-year-old grandmother of three blames Mayor Rodrigo Duterte for the murder of her four sons, all teenagers, between 2001 and 2007 in Davao City, about 960 kilometres south of Manila.

The youths were stabbed to death in the streets after being accused by police of rape, theft, and selling and using illegal drugs.

Alia said her boys did not hurt anyone, but admitted that they liked to party with friends and could have been involved in some trouble.

"Even if they were troublemakers, who gave anyone the right to kill them?" she asked from her tiny shack at the public market in Davao. "Why not arrest them? Put them in jail and give them a chance to reform. Why kill them?"

Duterte was the frontrunner in Monday's election, despite allegations that he is behind vigilante killings by the so-called Davao Death Squad that has victimised more than 1,400 people since the late 1990s.

Most victims were suspected of using or peddling drugs, of being involved in petty theft and public disturbance, while some were critics of the mayor.

Supporters credit Duterte for transforming Davao from the former "killing fields" of communist rebels in the 1980s, into a bustling and safe metropolis of nearly 1.5 million people.

Streets are visibly clean, drivers strictly follow speed limits on roads, children are not allowed to be out unaccompanied after 10 pm, while bars and other establishments can only serve alcohol until 1 am.

Smoking is largely prohibited around the city, except for parking lots, and visitors are reminded of the ban as soon as their plane touches down at the airport.

"If Mayor Duterte can do what he did in Davao for the entire Philippines or even a portion of it, it will be a tremendous change," said businesswoman Catherine Beling, who owns several clinics and a restaurant in Mindanao.

The 47-year-old mother of three daughters said her family moved to Davao five years ago from her hometown of Parang in Maguindanao province due to fears for their safety amid kidnapping and extortion threats.

"I sleep better at night here, knowing that my daughters are safe," she said. "There are also more opportunities for business to grow here."

Beling also said she believes that those who were murdered by vigilantes deserved to die.

"Those who died were bad people," she said. "It's true that they could have been arrested, tried and jailed, but it's probably better for them to get killed."

Attorney Tristan Dwight Domingo, an assistant city administrator, said peace and order are Duterte's top priorities but acknowledged that just like other cities in the Philippines, Davao also has crime.

"It's a continuing process to ensure the safety and security of the city," he said. "We do have crimes here, but people are not alarmed by the criminality because crimes are solved."

The alleged vigilante killings were also being investigated by the police, he added.

But no one has been jailed or prosecuted for the extrajudicial killings, and the murders have not stopped.

Just four months ago, Rubylyn Abi-Abi's 21-year-old son was shot dead in their home by alleged police operatives who later claimed that the victim resisted arrest.

Abi-Abi, who has nine other children, said she knew that her son Arvee was peddling illegal drugs and had been warned in the past to stop.

"If he was given a chance, maybe he could have been rehabilitated," she said. "Police claimed he was one of the 10 most-wanted criminals in Davao. That's a lie. If he was a big-time drug dealer, how come we're still poor?"

Father Amado Picardal, a priest who has lived in Davao for 20 years and has documented the extrajudicial killings, expressed concern that anyone could take the law into their own hands amid the current climate.

"Anyone can become judge and executioner - not only the police and public officials," he wrote in a blog recently. "We could be entering another dark period of our story - like the dictatorial period in the past, or worse."

Meanwhile, a former Philippines police intelligence chief has warned that an election victory for Duterte could trigger a coup d’etat among military and police concerned at his promise to bring rebel communist forces into government.

Rodolfo Mendoza told The Australian there was “serious” talk within security forces, which have fought a long-running communist insurgency in the country’s south, of overthrowing a Duterte presidency.

“I have been receiving information from my former colleagues that if the election is rigged, or if it results in the takeover by political extremists like the Duterte group, there are insinuations and serious thinking among police officers and military that they can’t allow such a takeover,” said Mr Mendoza, who heads the Philippines Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research.

“Most of the current high ranking police and military officers have been decorated for counter-insurgency work and feel that the Communist Party of The Philippines and the New People’s Army is not a joke.”

Duterte’s perceived closeness to leaders of the Communist Party of The Philippines, particularly chairman Jose Maria Sison, who has lived in exile in The Hague since his release from jail by former president Corazon Aquino.

Ms Aquino faced seven coup attempts during her six-year presidency, following the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos, because of perceived lenient treatment of communists, and in 1989 was forced to call in support from US troops to help suppress a violent uprising.

He is said to have forged a tactical alliance with leftist groups to end armed violence in Davao city, while still allowing them to operate in certain parts of the city.

That approach has alienated the military, which continues to fight insurgents in other parts of Mindanao, and led some analysts to question how he will address the problem nationwide.

“He could save Davao city by keeping the NPA rebels somewhere else. On the national level, where do you put them?” former Davao city development consultant Tina Cuyguyan told online news site Rappler.

Duterte also supports Freedom of Information laws, gay rights and birth control in Catholic-majority Philippines, and has promised three cabinet positions to the Communist Party and its New People’s Army military wing as a path to ending the leftist insurgency in southern Mindanao.

Though the country has recorded some of the world’s fastest economic growth rates in recent years under outgoing President Benigno Aquino — the son of Corazon and slain opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino — its population still suffers from creaking infrastructure, massive income inequality and the inevitable crime that comes from that.

Aquino has repeatedly warned the nation of the risks of succumbing to another dictatorship if Mr Duterte is elected, and on Saturday night even likened the latter’s rise to that of Adolf Hitler.

“I need your help to stop the return of terror in our land. I cannot do it alone,” Mr Aquino told supporters at Mr Roxas’s final rally.

“We should remember how Hitler came to power. If you allow them to oppress your fellow man and you do not speak up, you will be the next one to be oppressed.”

Mr Duterte responded to the outgoing President’s criticism by calling him a “son of a whore”.