The Machiavellian Paradox in Duterte’s Martial Law

This paper shall argue that President Rodrigo Duterte is not a Machiavellian leader
because of his flawed political move in declaring Proclamation No. 216 or the 2017 Martial
Law in Mindanao as this move diminishes his power more than acquiring it. This will be further
strengthened by an attempt to see the justifiable and refutable sides of the mentioned martial
law using Nicolo Machiavelli’s political philosophy.

Martial Law in Mindanao

On May 23, 2017, Duterte declared Proclamation No. 216 known as the 2017 Martial
Law in Mindanao including the islands of Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, and Sulu. This is an abrupt
decision of the government after attacks of the Islamist group called Dawlah Islamiya in
Marawi which caused bloodbath in the city. The execution of the law was guided by the 1987
constitution as opposed to the Martial Law by Ferdinand Marcos Jr. whereas it can only run in
60 days and the president must submit an official report containing legitimate points on why
martial law must be applied in Marawi to the congress within 48 hours after the declaration.
Further, the president cannot also extend the maximum 60-day duration without the approval
of the congress and cannot make the constitution invalid during martial law.

Notwithstanding the emphasized changes from the Marcos-like martial law, Duterte
still pushes that it will be done the Marcos’ way. Military troops were sent to parts of Mindanao
to conduct in-depth search operations. And despite reports of progress from the Armed Forces
of the Philippines (AFP) itself, Duterte along with the congress pushed through with extensions
and right now, the martial law still pervades in the entire island.

As the rationale of this martial law stands as the protection of the Mindanao citizens
from terrorist groups such as aforementioned, it is rightful to scrutinize if it is really functional
in maintaining stability and if it really provides security to the citizens.

Justifications Using Machiavellian Philosophy

In the term itself “martial” law, military is the topmost institution currently governing
Mindanao. The law mandates the security of the people from the looming terrorist attacks and
this can be easily reflected as a Machiavellian conception of “virtue” as military valor i. For
him, the quality of military action is significant in resolving political conflicts. Ideally, the
military is used as an institution to propagate resolutions between the state and non-state actors.
This kind of readiness may it be on violent war or confrontations, is the element of prudence
that Machiavelli upholds in his concept of virtue.

Human rights violations against Lumads, farmers, and activists are prevalent. As of
October 2018, 1,009 have been killed in the war, including 160 government forces, 802 alleged
fighters of the local armed groups, and at least 47 civilians ii However, this does not concern
Duterte much because he believes that the martial law was the reason behind the capture of
the Islamist group’s leaders iii. Moreover, despite of the historical trauma of the Filipinos
brought by Marcos’ martial law, Duterte still uses the possible extension of the Mindanao
martial law to threaten the Filipinos.

This is a clear manifestation of Machiavellian perspective that politics particular

acquisition of power must be independent of morality. He advocated for the reason of state
which is a concept that justifies even the violent means a stateman decided to conduct just to
expand his power. And in this case, Machiavelli’s philosophy is useful to justify that the
dangerous statements and human rights violations caused by the martial law is just a means to
attain power over not only the Dawlah Islamiyah, but over the entire Philippines as well.

Objections Using Machiavellian Philosophy

Now, these justifications can also be invalidated by Machiavelli’s political philosophy.

As mentioned in the central claim of this paper, the martial law execution in Mindanao is a
flawed political move of Duterte in the same perspective used in justifying it because of the
following reasons: First, the cruelty that was done in Mindanao was not to achieve the rationale
of the law which is to secure the people. There are reports telling that Marawi is now
progressiveiv, yet the president still pushes to extend martial law for the same reasons from
yesteryear on its initial declaration. Currently, Marawi has been proved to look like a ghost
town with population almost diminished and properties turned into ashes v. This is totally
different from the Machiavelli’s idea of mercifulness and cruelty because it was mentioned that
the latter can only be justifiable if it creates order vi. Clearly, there was no order produced from
the Martial Law.

Second, the means mentioned do not fully attend to an expansion of power and even
diminishes the power of Duterte. It is because the acquisition of power that is assumed to be
his end in doing the violent means lessened his credibility as a leader more than empowering
him. His leadership ability was reduced into merely doing vicious actions and not strategically
gaining power. According to Machiavelli, the prince or the leader must not be hated by the
populace for when the people became hostile to the leader, he must fear everything and
everybodyvii. Moreover, it was emphasized that when the time comes that the people have their
arms against the leader, stable security of the state will less likely to happen viii. Currently,
Duterte is being lambasted even by his initial supporters from Mindanao because he failed to
use his iron fist to flatten the wrinkled situation of the citizens ix.

If Filipinos hate Duterte and can possibly overthrow him because of this hatred, what power
does he have now?

Duterte as the Machiavellian Filipino Leader

The defeat of the justifications of martial law in Mindanao as a power-acquiring move of

Duterte proves that there is a misconception when he was described as a Machiavellian leader.
While it is understandable that he is being considered as one because of his flagship campaign
of maintaining an iron fist to resolve the problems of the state x, the full implementation of
Machiavelli’s power expansion and state orderliness were obviously not fulfilled.

Conclusion

Nevertheless, the call to Duterte is not to focus on how will he manage to attain the
Machiavellian image, but to genuinely solve the problem in Mindanao. Despite of this being a
contemporary Philippine issue, classical philosophies of Aristotle maintaining that the state
should be an avenue for a people to flourish shall be respectfully upheld xi. And if the state was
not able to provide this, us Filipinos have to right to criticize the government. Similarly, modern
era’s Mill in the concept of absolute liberty by the allowance of people to speak up in spite of
deviating from the opinion of the manyxii shall also be ingrained to Filipino especially the
youth. In times of crises, it is nothing but important for everyone to be more vigilant on every
step of the head of state and be proactive in crafting a better nation for all.

i
Ebenstein, William, and Ebenstein, Alan. 1990. Great Political Thinkers: Plato to Present. Fifth. Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, inc.
ii
Karapatan.Org. 2018. “Martial Law in Mindanao: Year One,” May 28, 2018.
http://www.karapatan.org/MARTIAL+LAW+IN+MINDANAO%3A+YEAR+ONE.
iii
Quintos, Patrick. 2017. “Fall of Omar: Sniper Headshot Killed Maute Group Founder.” ABS-CBN News,
October 16, 2017. https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/16/17/fall-of-omar-sniper-headshot-killed-maute-group-
founder.
iv
Macas, Trisha, and Raffy Tima. 2017. “Duterte Declares Marawi City Is Free.” GMA News Online, October
17, 2017, sec. News. https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/629820/duterte-declares-marawi-city-is-
free/story/.
v
Fonbuena, Carmela. 2018. “Marawi One Year after the Battle: A Ghost Town Still Haunted by the Threat of
ISIS.” The Guardian, May 22, 2018, sec. Global. https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/may/22/marawi-
one-year-siege-philippines-ghost-town-still-haunted-threat-isis.
vi
Ebenstein, W and Ebenstein, A. op. cit., p. 328
vii
Ebenstein, W and Ebenstein, A. op. cit., p. 331
viii
Ebenstein, W and Ebenstein, A. op. cit., p. 334
ix
Karapatan.org, op. cit.
x
Heydarian, Richard. 2017. “Duterte’s Art of the Deal.” Nationalinterest.Org, October 22, 2017.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/dutertes-art-the-deal-22840.
xi
Ebenstein, W and Ebenstein, A. op. cit., p. 83
xii
Ebenstein, W and Ebenstein, A. op. cit., p. 654-659

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