When people are fed up, they’ll go for someone who’s promising drastic solutions.
“By selling himself as a ruthless leader willing to bypass the judicial system in an unprecedented war against crime, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is winning over a lot of Pinoys who are fed up with a system that doesn’t work,” observed Karl Malakunas of Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The report cited Duterte’s campaign sortie in Lingayen, Pangasinan, wherein he talked about his plans to “outlined his plans to eradicate drug traffickers.” Duterte simply stated, “When I become president, I’ll order the police and the military to find these people and kill them.”
The crowd went wild. Duterte went on to jokingly give business advice to those in the crowd to start up funeral parlors in preparation of him winning the May elections. “The funeral parlours will be packed… I’ll supply the dead bodies,” he quipped.
Duterte, of course, has made these “killer declarations” before.
Philippine Human Rights Commission chairman Chito Gascon.Gascon noted that “voters are attracted to Duterte’s promise of a quick fix to fundamental justice problems.”
Meanwhile, Carlos Conde, a Manila-based researcher with Human Rights Watch, was quoted as saying, “He is popular because he taps into this extreme disappointment in criminality and the inability of the government to deal with it.”
For now, we can just wait and see if Duterte’s “killer tactics” and “killer statements” are enough to get him elected as the nation’s next President.
