San Francisco Frontiers - Philippines' Duterte earned global infamy, praise at home

A profane-lipped populist and self-professed killer, Duterte's anti-crime campaign resulted in the deaths of thousands of alleged dealers and addicts. Rights groups say many of those killed were poor men, often without any proof they were linked to drugs.

Yet while drawing condemnation abroad, tens of millions of Filipinos backed his swift brand of justice -- even as he joked about rape in his rambling speeches, locked up his critics and failed to root out entrenched corruption.

That trust was dented by the coronavirus pandemic, which plunged the country into its worst economic crisis in decades, leaving tens of thousands dead and millions jobless with a slow-paced vaccine rollout.

Duterte's woes deepened in 2021, when the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) sought an investigation into crimes against humanity during his crackdown between 2013 and 2018.

He served out his six-year term, leaving office in 2022.

On March 11, 2025, just weeks before his 80th birthday, Duterte was arrested and flown to the Netherlands, seat of the ICC, where he has been in detention since.

Duterte, who turns 81 next month, has repeatedly said there was no official campaign to kill addicts and dealers.

But his speeches included calls for violence, and he did tell police to use lethal force if their lives were in danger.

- 'Kill them' -

"If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself, as getting their parents to do it would be too painful," Duterte said hours after being sworn in as president in June 2016.

Months later, he would liken the deadly crackdown to the Nazis' mass murder of Jews, while vastly underestimating the number of people killed in the Holocaust.

"Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I'd be happy to slaughter them."

His unfiltered comments are part of his self-styled image as a maverick, which found traction in a nation where corruption, red tape and institutional dysfunction impact people's lives at every level.

While unable to run for president again and despite his detention, Duterte remains a major figure in politics.

He was elected to his old job as mayor of his southern stronghold of Davao in midterm elections held in May last year, though jail stopped him serving.

A one-time ally of the Marcos family, the dynasties have grown apart. Duterte and his vice president daughter, Sara Duterte, are engaged in a feud with current President Ferdinand Marcos.

- 'I simply love Xi' -

Rodrigo Duterte, a former lawyer and prosecutor, was born into a political family. His father served as a cabinet secretary before the nation plunged into a Marcos dictatorship in 1972.

During his long tenure as Davao mayor, Duterte was accused of links to vigilante death squads that rights groups say killed more than 1,000 people -- accusations he has both accepted and denied, and which form part of the ICC charges.

His presidency was also marked by a swing away from the nation's former colonial master, the United States, in favour of China.

"I simply love Xi Jinping," Duterte said of the Chinese president in 2018.

"He understands my problem and is willing to help, so I would say 'thank you, China'."

As part of that rapprochement, he set aside rivalry with Beijing over the resource-rich South China Sea, opting to court Chinese business instead.

He claimed this friendship helped secure millions of doses of a Chinese-made Covid-19 vaccine, but supplies still fell far short.

Billions of dollars of promised trade and investment also failed to materialise.

Duterte now faces his second court date on Monday, when judges will decide whether the prosecution's allegations are strong enough to proceed to trial.

H.Davis--SFF