Duterte's first test: Dirty Harry or Dull30?

IFR 2142 16 July to 22 July 2016
5 min read
Jonathan Rogers

Less than a month after Rodrigo Duterte was sworn in as president of the Philippines, the paradoxes are beginning to emerge, as I always imagined they would. That Duterte was to be a stinging contrast to all his predecessors as Philippines president had been promised prior to his landslide anointing in May, and the early signs strongly suggest that will indeed be the case.

Mr Duterte’s “beat” is law and order, and his advocacy of extrajudicial killing as a somewhat desperate means to deal with the Philippines’ crime problem, most of which originate from the country’s rampant drug use, has already shown itself to be anything but hollow.

It is estimated that around 150 individuals linked to the drugs business have been killed since the man they call “Duterte Harry” was sworn in on June 30, many of whom were allegedly taken out by the police when attempting to resist lawful arrest. The veracity of the police accounts of the nature of these killings must be taken with a pinch of salt given the sudden dramatic spike above the norm which occurred in the days following the new president’s inauguration.

MR DUTERTE’S FIRST test of statecraft came last week when the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, a United Nations body headquartered in The Hague, ruled against China’s claims on islands in the South China Sea, in a case which was brought by the Philippines three years ago.

Numerous Philippines pundits had suggested that a ruling in the country’s favour against China would lead to mass rejoicing in the streets of the island nation. That didn’t happen.

Indeed, Mr Duterte’s silence represented the biggest foreign policy input for the country since the days of former president Marcos and his recruitment of the US in fighting the fear of communism that was taking hold in the Philippines amid the contiguous drama of the Vietnam war.

I have seldom heard such a deafening silence in international affairs. Foreign secretary Perfecto Yasay was despatched to offer platitudes about restraint and sobriety, but the voice we should surely have heard was that of Mr Duterte.

One suspects that the reason for his restraint was the critical importance of China to his strategy of Philippines economic invigoration.

The disputed islands in the South China Sea (or West Philippines sea, depending on your viewpoint) might yet prove to be of tremendous strategic significance given the mineral wealth they apparently sit on, but they are a mere bagatelle when it comes to Mr Duterte’s plans for a Philippines economic resurgence.

The country desperately needs a revamp of its creaking infrastructure: new power plants, roads, bridges, airports and ports are all on Mr Duterte’s wish-list, much as they are for Narendra Modi, India’s premier who staked his victory in 2014 on overhauling that country’s infrastructure.

There, as in the Philippines of Mr Duterte’s vision, the money to make this transformation must come in large part from foreign capital, with onshore capital also conscripted to the effort in the form of public-private partnerships.

India is making great strides in this respect and seems likely to achieve Mr Modi’s aim of ramping up infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP from the roughly 5% that has prevailed over past decades to his target of 11%, in line with the infrastructure spending seen in Asia’s “miracle” countries over the past 50-odd years.

THE PHILIPPINES LAST week declared a target of spending 7% of GDP on infrastructure, less than the regional average of many decades, but sorely needed. Indeed, the most glaring question one must ask on hearing of this target is why it has taken so long to appear.

China has been circled by Mr Duterte as an obvious source of PPP funds and hence his reticence in expounding on the ITLOS ruling may be through fear of offending a potentially rich source of infrastructure capital.

That may yet disappoint his countrymen who voted him in on the view that he would usher in a new golden period for Filipinos, including assertiveness on the international stage.

I assume he will be playing a longer game and, if he can adopt the perennially staid stance of a project finance banker, that game might well work. The Philippines has declared itself open for infrastructure business and as long as the procurement process is free from controversy, Duterte may well prove transformational.

But if he insists on sticking to his law and order agenda as originally envisaged, the risks will mount and the project will come to nought.

Duterte, often referred to on social media as Du30, should seek to rebrand himself as a dull technocrat. More Dull30 than Duterte Harry, perhaps. His silence on the South China Sea dispute suggests it might yet happen.