8/8/2017 ‘Dutertismo’ | Inquirer Opinion

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‘Dutertimo’
By: Randy David - @inquirerdotnet Philippine Dail Inquirer / 12 06 AM Ma 01, 2016

At the end of his rambling speeches before mesmerized crowds, INQUIRER.net

presidential candidate and preelection poll frontrunner Rodrigo Duterte Like Page 3.4M likes

touches the Philippine flag that is brought to him on cue. He brings it to his
lips, and solemnly proclaims: “Together let’s fix this country.” As he raises 519 friends like this

his clenched fist, the audience breaks into ecstatic applause.

No other presidential candidate in Philippine political history has used the

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nation’s highest symbol so deliberately and to such effect. This
melodramatic patriotic gesture seems to work. Instead of explaining his
political program, Duterte regales his listeners with stories of his frustrating TRNDING
encounters with a dysfunctional national government and how he deals
The transformations of Rodrigo
with these to produce tangible results in Davao City. He himself admits he Duterte
JULY 25, 2017
has no program of his own to offer, and that he intends to copy some of the
good plans of his rivals.
Grab and Uber render LTFRB
irrelevant
What is urgent, he says, is that we restore order and respect for authority. JULY 24, 2017
He laments the fact that criminals, drug peddlers, and corrupt public
officials have been able to act with impunity by exploiting the weaknesses Economic legacy
JULY 24, 2017
of the judicial system. In this manner, he articulates the exasperation and
desperation that the people experience in their daily lives.
Martial law as panacea
But more than this, he unleashes a JULY 25, 2017
ADVRTIMNT
torrent of aggressive and resentful
impulses not previously seen in our The Left’s patience with Duterte
society, except perhaps in social media. For now, the explicit targets are the JULY 24, 2017

drug syndicates, criminals,

  and government functionaries who spend more  
time making money for themselves than in serving the public. In the future, FROM AROUND THE WEB
they can be any group that is perceived to stand in the way of genuine
LOOK: Arci Muñoz
change. shows off marvelous
figure in Amanpulo
Never going into specifics, Duterte promises just one thing: the will and
leadership to do what needs to be done—to the point of killing and putting
Itching This Part of
one’s own life on the line. “If you are not prepared to kill and be killed, you Your Body Is a Sign
Of Alzheimer's
http://opinion.inquirer.net/94530/dutertismo) 1/6
8/8/2017 ‘Dutertismo’ | Inquirer Opinion
Of Alzheimer's
have no business being president of this country,” he has said on more than
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one occasion.
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memoryrepairprotocol.com

Are ‘Micro-Mansions’
This is pure theater—a sensual experience rather than the rational the Next Big Thing?

application of ideas to society’s problems. Observing the same phenomenon Mansion Global

in Europe in the 1920s, the Marxist critic Walter Benjamin interpreted the
The Frankenstein of
events that saw the rise of Hitler and Mussolini as the transformation of Metro Manila traffic
politics into aesthetics. In Germany, this phenomenon came to be known as
Nazism; in Italy, it was called Fascism.

Recommended by
It would probably be appropriate to call its Philippine incarnation
“Dutertismo.” Calling Duterte a fascist would probably not mean anything
to the average Filipino. If at all, it might focus inordinate attention on the
man himself and the dark charisma he projects, when what is needed is to
understand the movement he has given life to and the collective anger and
3:55 4:13
despair it represents. News News
Duterte cusses at Inquirer receives
It would be instructive for all of us, in this election season, to take a moment Inquirer, ABS-CBN for… citations, awards fro…
‘slanted’ reports CMMA
to step back from the political personalities that today occupy center stage,
and view the broader picture that seems to be upon us in the light of the
history of other countries. A book titled “The anatomy of fascism” written
by former Columbia University professor Robert O. Paxton and published in
2:15 6:18
2004 has proved to be an eye-opener for me. News News
PH, China to have joint Special Report: PH-
Fascism is neither a distinct ideology nor a coherent philosophy of venture in West… China relations
Philippine Sea —
government. Therefore, it would be hard to locate it in the political
spectrum between Right and Left. Its agenda changes as it moves, rejecting
what it regards as the flabbiness of existing moral and political institutions.

It draws its base from all social classes, from the cities as well as the 3:13 2:30
News News
countryside, attracting support from businessmen as well as former Duterte no longer Former President
soldiers, workers and peasants, intellectuals and artists, statesmen and planting ag in… Aquino careful to…
Spratlys make his criticisms
shopkeepers. Paxton quotes an entry from the diary of the novelist Thomas Powered by

Mann in March 1933, shortly after Hitler became Germany’s chancellor.

What Mann saw was a revolution “without underlying ideas, against ideas,
against everything nobler, better, decent, against freedom, truth and
justice.”

As puzzling as it might appear, this complex phenomenon can be explained,

Paxton writes.  “Fascism rested not upon the truth of its doctrine but upon
the leader’s mystical union with the historic destiny of his people…. Fascist
leaders made no secret of having no program.  Mussolini exulted in that
absence.”  Hitler had  a 25-point program but he also declared it to be  
changeable, staunchly refusing to make “cheap” promises. Indeed, what this
really signified, says Paxton, is that “the debate had ceased.”

Fascists dismissed modern liberal ADVRTIMNT

politicians as “culpably incompetent
guardians” against the enemies of
the state. They had nothing but
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8/8/2017 ‘Dutertismo’ | Inquirer Opinion

contempt for humanist

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enlightenment values. The supreme
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irony is that the typical bearers of
these values—the educated middle
classes—found themselves
cooperating with, if not actively
supporting, the movement. Unable
to appreciate the complexity of the
problems facing modern society, and seeing only the unpalatable choices
before them, they primed themselves for a “brutal anti-intellectualism” that
reduced everything to the “will and leadership” of the strongman.

Reading Paxton’s book while watching Digong Duterte speak before the
Makati Business Club gave me goose pimples. These captains of industry
came to listen to his economic program. The man started by reading the
scanty notes before him with undisguised indifference. He then put these
notes aside and used up the time telling them about how he dealt with
criminals, and how he was more honest about his libido than any of them in

the room. As it turned out, he was the program they came to hear.

***

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You VS MODE
0 pts

Which team averaged 102.7 points

per game and made 104 3 pointers
in the 2013 NBA Playoffs?

Houston Rockets

Chicago Bulls

Golden State Warriors

Milwaukee Bucks

   

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