Rodrigo Duterte

Duterte, or his successor, will likely continue the Philippines' democratic regression.

Yesterday (U.S. time), editor Maria Ressa, one of the most prominent journalists in the Philippines, and indeed in the world—she was selected as one of Time’s people of the year in 2018 and featured on its cover—was found guilty by a Philippine court on charges of cyber libel. The charges related to a story about the former chief justice of the Philippines’ top court. Reynaldo Santos Jr., who wrote the story, also was found guilty of cyber libel. Though the two were released on bail, they face up to six years in jail on the charges. The charges are extremely controversial. The story Santos Jr. wrote actually was published before the Philippines even had a cyber-libel law, and Santos Jr. and editor Ressa were charged after Rappler, their publication, updated the article online to fix a typo after the law came in effect. The cyber-libel law is also easily used to try to silence independent journalists. And Ressa faces a load of other charges too, which seem designed to silence her and Rappler. The Guardian notes: Ressa also faces another libel prosecution, two criminal cases alleging illegal foreign ownership in her companies, and investigations into her old tax returns. The various allegations made against Ressa could lead to about 100 years in prison. After a career at CNN, Ressa, a dual citizen of the Philippines and the United States, now runs Rappler, one of the toughest, most groundbreaking, and independent reporting outlets in the Philippines, a country with a tradition of a vibrant press—and also of brutal crackdowns on journalists. Reporters Without Borders regularly ranks the Philippines as one of the most dangerous places in Asia to work as a journalist, and in 2009 the country witnessed what the Committee to Project Journalists has called the worst single massacre of journalists in history, when 34 journalists (and 58 people total) were slain in Maguindanao province. Journalists throughout the country are regularly threatened by local politicians and businesspeople, and often attacked. Even given this history, since Rodrigo Duterte’s election as president in 2016, the situation for the press has worsened. Under Duterte, the Philippine government has worked to suffocate the free press more than under any Philippine president since dictator Ferdinand Marcos. For years Duterte has been targeting Rappler, which has aggressively reported on the massive number of extrajudicial killings and other abuses in Duterte’s drug “war.” And for years he has singled out journalists for verbal abuse, and suggested that journalists could be assassinated.  But overall, this effort against the press seems to have been ramped up in recent months, as the coronavirus pandemic has allowed Duterte—like many other illiberal leaders—to amass greater powers and crack down on all sorts of opposition. The legislature, controlled by Duterte allies, has passed an anti-terror law so broad it could be used to potentially detain a vast array of people without charges, including journalists. Last month, the Duterte administration effectively shut down ABS-CBN, one of the most important broadcast networks in the country, and one that also had reported independently about the president. Now, a guilty verdict against Maria Ressa, probably the most famous journalist in the Philippines and someone with a high-profile international legal team and extensive networks of allies around the world, must surely suggest to lower-profile journalists, and anyone in civil society in the Philippines, that no one in the country is safe. Ressa’s case also illustrates the rapidly deteriorating climate for press freedom across Southeast Asia, where governments are backsliding from democracy, and cracking down on reporters in numerous ways—trends that have increased since the outbreak of COVID-19. In Myanmar, the National League for Democracy-led government has aggressively tried to curtail independent journalism, while autocratic governments like Vietnam have aggressively pursued writers and bloggers, and Cambodia’s government has destroyed most of the country’s independent press. Overall, in the past two years, Reporters Without Borders has reported declines in press freedom in many Asian states, including the Philippines, Myanmar, and Singapore. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, as The Economist reports, Indonesia and Malaysia, two of the freer countries in Southeast Asia, have been arresting people for supposedly spreading false stories about COVID-19, and the Malaysian government is investigating a reporter for the South China Morning Post for reporting on COVID-19.    Now, an emboldened Duterte, empowered by the COVID-19 emergency, is likely to take further steps to crush press freedom in the Philippines.

In the months before Brazil’s elections in October 2018, many experts both within and outside the country dismissed the possibility that Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain and previously obscure far-right congressman, could win the presidency. Bolsonaro did not belong to one of the major political parties, and had a history of pro-dictatorship, racist, and misogynist rhetoric that seemed beyond the pale for the fourth-largest democracy in the world. Yet in late October, Bolsonaro notched a resounding victory, winning the Brazilian presidency with 55 percent of the vote. The rise of extreme, anti-establishment heads of state is not confined to places where immigration or opposition to free trade are driving populists’ rise. In fact, as I have written, the rise of leaders like Bolsonaro and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte reveals that autocratic populism is highly flexible, thriving in many different scenarios, and driven by different core grievances. It is thus actually even more dangerous to international stability than it would be if it only could grow in the soil of Europe and North America. Duterte’s brand of brutal leadership can thrive in a wide range of environments, posing a global threat to democratic government. For more on how Duterte is, in many ways, a model for autocratic-leaning populists in other parts of the world, see my new review of Jonathan Miller’s biography of Duterte in the Washington Monthly.

Part Two Read Part One here.  So, the bilateral meeting between U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appears to have gone well, at least on the surface. Earlier in the visit, Duterte actually crooned a Philippine love song at a leaders’ dinner, reportedly at the request of Trump. But while the bilateral meeting appears to have been warm, and the two men have developed a kind of mutual admiration society over months—partly, it seems, because the U.S. president admires other strongmen including Duterte, Xi Jinping, and many others—there is only so much that the United States can do to sway Duterte from many of his policy positions. Indeed, in addition to the fact that Trump’s meeting with Duterte probably hurt the cause of human rights in the Philippines, it is unclear whether the meeting achieved anything substantial on key issues including the South China Sea. In fact, according to some news reports, Trump did not even bring up the South China Sea in his meeting with Duterte. Instead, the two leaders talked about the self-proclaimed Islamic State and counterterrorism, among other topics. Duterte definitely is increasingly realizing that he needs U.S. assistance in counterterrorism, piracy, and other issues related to the Islamic State than he had imagined a year ago. Since the battle in Mindanao this past year, the Philippine armed forces are exhausted, and unprepared for another breakout of major conflict in the south. Duterte has lined up new counterterrorism assistance commitments from Singapore and Australia, but these countries’ counterterrorism assistance cannot match the levels of potential aid from Washington. But on the South China Sea, Duterte seems resolute—though it makes little sense that Trump did not even bring up the issue in their bilateral meeting. After all, much of the Philippine military and security establishment still hopes to take an assertive approach to the South China Sea, one in line with the position of the previous Benigno Aquino administration. Trump should have at least raised U.S. concerns about Duterte’s South China Sea policy. To be sure, Duterte appears determined to let Beijing dictate terms on the South China Sea, even as the Philippine military establishment tries to convince him otherwise—and to circumscribe his ability to completely overhaul Manila’s South China Sea policy. It is not wrong that the White House is eager to prioritize counterterrorism in its relationship with the Philippines—this is an issue where real, win-win cooperation is possible. In addition, Trump and Duterte both share goals of reducing piracy in the Sulu-Celebes Sea, a highly lawless area that is rife with pirates, human traffickers and Islamist militant groups—including organizations that combine all three activities. But in the White House’s vision of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” in which the United States and its partners would defend freedom of navigation, among other interests, it is hard to see how Duterte and his South China Sea approach would fit in. For the past year, nearly every time China has applied pressure on Duterte to take a relatively accommodating position regarding the South China Sea, Duterte has complied. Most recently, earlier this month the Philippines’ defense chief announced that Manila would end any work on a sandbar at Sandy Cay, near Thitu Island—after pressure from Beijing. Earlier in the year, Duterte also canceled a planned visit to Thitu, probably after pressure from Beijing, telling China he’d done so because he valued Beijing’s friendship. The Philippine leader, who this year serves as the chair of ASEAN, also has done little to rally ASEAN nations to come up with a coherent position on the South China Sea. He has, in some ways, seemingly been an obstacle on any ASEAN unity on the South China Sea. And, despite Duterte’s desire for greater U.S. assistance on counterterrorism and other domestic security challenges, there is little evidence that Duterte plans to move Manila back, even modestly, toward the Aquino administration’s tougher approach to the South China Sea.

Part One The meeting between U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was highly anticipated, and—for theater—the two leaders did not disappoint. The two leaders have been engaged in a long-distance kind of bromance going back months. On a phone call in the spring whose transcript was later leaked to the press, Trump and Duterte chatted warmly, and Trump has praised Duterte’s brutal approach to the Philippine drug war. The Philippine president seems to appreciate a U.S. leader who has made human rights a low priority in Southeast Asia, and who thus has mostly ignored any criticism of Duterte’s undermining of the rule of law. Indeed, the Trump administration has downplayed human rights in all aspects of U.S. foreign policy, including bilateral meeting with foreign leaders and funding for rights and democracy programs within the U.S. government, among other areas. This approach has, without a doubt, helped restore ties with some top Southeast Asian leaders, although it risks alienating large portions of Southeast Asian politicians. Besides Duterte, other autocratic-minded Southeast Asia leaders also see an opening in the Trump administration’s “America First” policies. Leaders from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib tun Razak to Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha are operating, this year, with the gloves off against civil society and all other kinds of opposition. Prayuth and Najib already have visited the White House and met with Trump. In the run-up to Trump’s Asia visit, the U.S. president notably highlighted that he enjoyed warmer relations with Duterte than President Barack Obama had. Trump told reporters in early November that he was proud of his ties to Duterte, even though Duterte is widely criticized for his massive rights abuses. “You remember the Philippines—the last trip made by a president that turned out to be not so good,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post. “Never quite got to land.” [This statement is not exactly true—Obama was going to meet Duterte at a regional summit in Laos, not by landing in Manila, and Obama called off the visit, not Duterte, as the Post noted.] During Trump’s meeting with Duterte, the two indeed spent little time speaking about human rights, Then, Trump praised his “great relationship” with the Philippine president. Some administration officials seemed to suggest, before the meeting, that Trump would bring up human rights with Duterte, but it remains unclear whether he actually did. (This disinterest in discussing rights in Manila follows a visit by Trump to Vietnam where he also said virtually nothing about human rights.) White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that human rights had briefly come up in the meeting between the U.S. and Philippine presidents, but Duterte denied the issue was broached at all. What’s more, in a press availability with the two leaders, Trump also just ignored reporters’ questions about human rights in the Philippines, according to the Los Angeles Times. The U.S. president further said nothing as Duterte called reporters “spies” during a press availability. This was a chilling comment given that Duterte has in recent years warned that journalists could be targeted for assassinations, and that the Philippines in recent years has had some of the highest annual rates of journalists being murdered of any nation in the world. It may help keep the Trump-Duterte bromance going, but as I explore in the next post, the value of that bromance remains limited. Read Part Two here.

As Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte moves into 2018, the third calendar year of his time in office, the tough-guy leader’s policies on many critical issues remain unclear. Sure, Duterte is known for his straight-talking rhetoric, which has helped keep his popularity high—a September poll by Pulse Asia showed that about 80 percent of Filipinos have trust in Duterte, an impressive figure. Yet on three important issues, his talk and actions have been muddled and contradictory. What does 2018 hold for these three important areas? For more on Duterte’s approach to the economy, the relationship with the United States, and militancy in the southern Philippines, see my new column in World Politics Review.

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, who blasted the United States repeatedly in 2016, and has reportedly had a lifetime of grievances against Washington, may be recognizing he needs to take a different approach to U.S.-Philippines ties. Duterte repeatedly slammed former president Barack Obama in 2016, and bristled at U.S. criticism of his brutal war on drugs. As the Wall Street Journal reported, this anger seemingly ran deep. Duterte grew up in the Philippine south, a hotbed of anti-American sentiment. According to the article, he had been infuriated by U.S. actions in Mindanao during his time as governor of Davao—and also by the United States’ reported refusal to grant Duterte a visa to visit. After Donald Trump was elected president, Duterte’s rhetoric toward the United States warmed somewhat. In part, Duterte simply seemed to like Trump’s style. The Philippine leader also surely realized that the Trump administration would not push him hard on rights abuses in his war on drugs—a realization that came true this week, when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson avoided mentioning Duterte’s rights abuses in his public appearance. As CBS reported: “Tillerson did not use the moment [of meeting Duterte] to take a stand for human rights. As Duterte and Tillerson stood and shook hands in the presidential palace, each donning a wide grin, Tillerson ignored a CBS News reporter's questions about the agenda of the meeting. Another reporter blurted out a question about human rights—which was hard to hear above the loud, incessant camera clicks in the room—but Tillerson didn't say anything … Tillerson never publicly addressed the brutal anti-drug tactics while he was in the country. When Tillerson met one on one with Duterte, two Filipino government officials say that Tillerson didn't mention the U.S. government's human rights concerns with regard to the anti-narcotics tactics.” But despite his warm words for Trump, noticeable in a call he held with the U.S. president earlier this year, Duterte still seemed determined to pursue a foreign policy that shifted the Philippines away from the United States and toward warmer ties with China, Russia, and other powers. He also appeared wary of seeming too conciliatory with Washington, even with Trump as president. After being invited to Washington by Trump, Duterte publicly declared that he did not know if he had the time to visit. But in the past three months, the major deficiencies of the Philippine armed forces, already known to defense experts in the Philippines, the region, and the United States, have become even more obvious to all. As regional powers like China and Vietnam spar over the South China Sea, backed by their military modernization efforts, the Philippines is left behind. As Islamic State–linked groups continue to battle the Philippine military in Mindanao, predictions of a rapid victory by Philippine government forces have proven hollow. The military has lost troops to friendly fire incidents, used conventional bombs that killed civilians, and still has not taken all of Marawi city back from the militants. As the military struggles in Mindanao, Duterte reportedly has asked Philippine congresspeople to increase funding to expand the armed forces. Duterte’s administration seems to increasingly realize it needs help. During the Tillerson visit, the Philippine president told the Secretary of State that he was a “humble friend” of the United States. According to NBC, the Philippines now may allow U.S. forces—probably drones—to launch airstrikes against militants in the southern Philippines. This would be a dramatic shift from Duterte’s former claims, earlier in his presidency, that he wanted to actually evict all U.S. forces out of the southern Philippines. Yet as the struggle for Marawi drags on, Duterte already had shifted, even before the NBC report. He had been allowing U.S. advisors and U.S. surveillance flights over Mindanao, as well as new shipments of U.S. small arms. As the battle against Islamic State–linked groups in Southeast Asia expands, the Philippine armed forces likely will need much more help—from the United States and other regional powers.    

As the battle for Marawi, a major city of some 200,000 in the southern Philippines, has dragged on for weeks, it has begun to raise global concern. The conflict pits fighters who have pledged allegiance to the self-declared Islamic State against the Philippine armed forces; leading politicians from the United States and countries in Southeast Asia now fear that the southern Philippines battle, increasingly prominent in Islamic State propaganda, will lure militants from around the world. “They [Islamic State] are certainly trying to get fighters into that region" in the southern Philippines Republican Sen. Joni Ernst told the Associated Press earlier this month. "We need to address the situation. It should not get out of control." Yet although Duterte has already taken an extremely harsh and brutal approach to narcotics, and although he was the mayor of the biggest city on the major southern island of Mindanao, as president he actually paid relatively little attention to the conflict in the southern Philippines—until recently. Meanwhile, his declaration of martial law will not help the Philippine authorities destroy Islamic State-linked groups in the south. For more on Duterte’s misguided approach to militants in the Philippine south, see my new Expert Brief.  

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s hard-line, but chaotic, strategy against radical, Islamic State-linked groups in the southern Philippines risks undermining a real chance for peace while failing to defeat the most extreme militants.

Richard Javad Heydarian is a Manila-based academic and author of Asia's New Battlefield: U.S., China, and the Struggle for the Western Pacific. His forthcoming book is Duterte's Rise. Shortly after Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte embarked on a high-profile visit to Russia earlier this month, a self-proclaimed Islamic State affiliate group launched a surprise attack on Marawi City on the southern island of Mindanao. As the situation deteriorated, Duterte cut short his five-day trip to Moscow, where he managed to hold an earlier-than-scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Duterte has described as his “favorite hero.” The visit to Russia came only a week after Duterte’s second trip to China in less than a year. During this visit to Beijing, Duterte secured a $500 million long term soft loan to purchase Chinese defense equipment for the Philippine military, which has traditionally relied on U.S.-made and donated hardware. Duterte’s back-to-back visits to China and Russia was part of his broader strategy of diversifying Manila’s strategic relations, as the Philippines pursues what Duterte calls an “independent” foreign policy that would make it less reliant upon the United States. In the past, despite Russia’s desire to boost its ties to Southeast Asian nations and sell arms to countries in the region, governments in Manila usually shunned closer relations with Russia either in deference to the United States or simply out of fear of displeasing Washington. In contrast, Duterte apparently believes East Asia is entering a post-United States international order, where smaller powers such as the Philippines should reach out to alternative poles of influence in the region, such as China and Russia. Duterte also may prefer boosting ties with Beijing and Moscow since they have few concerns about his record on rights and democracy issues, such as the war on drugs and the recent declaration of martial law in Mindanao.  In the past year, rights issues became a major stumbling block between Duterte and the United States, although it remains unclear whether the new U.S. administration will continue to push Duterte on rights. Disturbed by Duterte’s drug war, the Obama administration deferred deployment of firearms to the Philippine National Police (PNP), while postponing renewal of the $434 million Millennium Challenge Corporation aid package. For Duterte, Russia, a leading arms exporter in the world, could be an alternative source of weapons, from light firearms to tanks, drones, helicopters, submarines and other major military hardware. Duterte also sees Russia and China, which have permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council, as potential sources of diplomatic support at international organizations, in light of growing international pressure and scrutiny of Duterte’s administration, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Despite Duterte’s premature departure from Russia, he left key cabinet secretaries in Moscow to oversee the signing of ten major agreements between Russia and the Philippines. Of particular importance was an Agreement on Defense Cooperation (ADC), which paves the way for institutionalized military-to-military exchanges, including training, intelligence-sharing, and, down the road, even joint exercises between the two countries. Specifically, the Philippines is looking at joint naval drills with Russia in the South China Sea or possibly even in the Sulu and Celebes Sea, where Islamic State-affiliate groups like Abu Sayyaf have been conducting piracy operations. The two countries also signed an agreement to promote bilateral intelligence sharing, with a particular focus on counterterrorism cooperation. During his meeting with Putin, Duterte expressly sought greater Russian assistance in dealing with extremist groups. Moscow, which is closely monitoring Islamic State members hailing from Caucasus and Central Asia and returning to Russia, could provide valuable intelligence to the Philippines on how to deal with foreign fighters coming to Mindanao. The Philippine government has reported the possible presence of fighters from Chechnya among the group of militants fighting in Marawi. Russia could potentially provide information on Chechens and others of Russian citizenry who are traveling to Mindanao.  Buoyed by his budding strategic partnership with Putin, Duterte declared martial law across Mindanao, which has faced conflicts for nearly half a century. “It [the martial law] will not be any different from what [former president Ferdinand] Marcos did,” Duterte warned shortly before departing Moscow.  The militants who attacked in Marawi may have been emboldened to strike by the fact that Duterte and the bulk of his key cabinet members, including Duterte’s national security adviser, were thousands of miles away in Russia. Whatever the spark for the fighting, as the 2013 siege on Zamboanga shows, it will likely take weeks before the Philippine government will return things to a semblance of normality in Marawi, with tens of thousands of citizens fleeing for safety. If the militants continue to strike hard in Mindanao, Duterte may be forced to rebuild his ties with the United States. Whether Duterte wants to admit it or not, only Washington has a long history of interoperability with the Philippine military, which has relied heavily on U.S. assistance to develop counterterrorism skills and launch counterterror operations. Neither Russia nor China, which have had limited success in dealing with Islamist insurgencies in their own backyards, can provide as effective assistance as the U.S. military.  In addition, if Duterte wants to purchase weapons from alternative suppliers like Russia, Manila will have to also take into consideration factors that come along with the arms, including the necessity for long-term training on them, quality and maintenance concerns, and compatibility of Russian technology with the Philippines’ mostly U.S.-supplied weapon systems. As the crisis in Mindanao festers, Duterte will have to contemplate patching up differences with Washington. So far, Duterte appears highly encouraged by the Trump administration’s seemingly sympathetic position on the Philippines’ war on drugs and limited interest in human rights issues in the Philippines. And there are plans for a Duterte-Trump summit in the coming months, whether in the White House or during the East Asia Summit in Manila in November. Perhaps, a diplomatic reset between the two allies is in the offing, as counterterrorism begins to dominate Duterte’s policy agenda. 

This past week, Southeast Asia observers have been buzzing over a leaked transcript of a phone call, made in April, between U.S. President Donald Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. In the call, the two men spoke of each other warmly, with Trump praising Duterte’s brutal drug war in the Philippines. Trump told Duterte he was “doing an unbelievable job on the drug problem,” and invited him to the White House. Trump also seemed to ask Duterte, hardly a specialist on Northeast Asia, for advice on how to deal with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and his nuclear and missile arsenal. Trump even let slip that the United States had moved two nuclear submarines toward the Korean Peninsula. But the budding relationship could quickly go south, for a variety of reasons. For more on the Trump-Duterte relationship, and what it will mean for the U.S.-Philippine relationship, see my new article for World Politics Review.

Richard Javad Heydarian is a specialist in Asian geopolitical/economic affairs based in Manila.   After upending Asian geopolitics over the past year, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte now is set to make his mark on the most important regional organization, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Manila has taken over the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this year---chairmanship rotates annually---amid much fanfare about ASEAN. The regional body is marking its 50th anniversary in 2017 , and declaring that ASEAN is “Partnering for Change, Engaging the World.” There is hope that global leaders from dialogue partners, namely U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo will visit the Philippines during the ASEAN summit in November. The regional body can congratulate itself on several victories during its five decades of existence. It can justifiably look at decades of robust economic integration, which ASEAN has promoted---all leading up to the current ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), which is essentially a regional free trade agreement that cuts tariff rates on some sectors to as low as zero. (Critics charge that in certain economic sectors the AEC is not really a true free trade agreement, and allows for continued high barriers in many sectors.) In addition, since ASEAN was created fifty years ago, at the height of the Vietnam War, there have been few outbreaks of armed conflict between members of the organization. ASEAN was launched by the five proximately positioned states of Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, which were largely aligned with the West and against the Communist bloc during the Cold War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, which marked the end of ideological battles in Asia, Indochinese states, some still formally communist, of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. (Brunei had joined in 1984, after gaining its independence.) During the Cold War, Southeast Asia was of course a major battleground for foreign powers as well as a site for battles between Southeast Asian nations.The tempestuous years of Konfrontasi (1963–1966), saw Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia flirting with all-out military confrontation. Although there have been internal conflicts since then, like the violence in Papua, Aceh, and East Timor, the organization has worked to avoid a major regional conflict. Now, with the AEC in place ASEAN has also set its eyes on establishing a common market. If ever truly implemented, a Southeast Asia-wide common market would facilitate labor and capital mobility enormously. It also would reduce or remove the remaining non-tariff barriers that still impede regional growth. Yet even as it celebrates decades of successful efforts, ASEAN also is trying to solve several major diplomatic challenges in 2017. In particular, the organization is scrambling to negotiate a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea, where China and a number of Southeast Asian countries are at loggerheads over disputed land features (i.e., Spratlys, Paracels, and Scarborough Shoal), large-scale fisheries stock, and potentially vast seabed hydrocarbon and mineral resources. The festering disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea are beginning to tear the fabric of the regional organization asunder. Operating on a notoriously slow decision-making process, where unanimity is the prerequisite for every joint statement and agreement, ASEAN has been fractured over the South China Sea. Back in 2012, during Cambodia’s chairmanship, the ASEAN leaders even failed to agree on discussing the South China Sea disputes. For the first time in its history, the regional body even failed to issue a joint communiqué during the meeting of its foreign ministers in mid-2012. Although the Philippines historically has been one of the leaders of ASEAN, with highly competent diplomats and successful chairmanships of the organization in its past, with Duterte at the helm in Manila, the Philippine president could add to the organization’s instability. Under Duterte, the Philippines, is also in the middle of an uncertain and perilous foreign policy recalibration. Since Duterte’s ascent to presidency last year, he has called for a downgrade in military cooperation with the United States, closer Philippine ties with China, and relegation of maritime disputes to bilateral talks, rather than multilateral discussions via ASEAN. So far, he has scaled back joint military exercises and cancelled plans for joint patrols with America in the South China Sea. Though he has given the green light for the implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), Duterte disallowed Americans from building facilities in the Bautista Airbase in Palawan, which faces the hotly disputed Spratlys chain of islands. Duterte has also refused to raise the Philippines’ landmark arbitration victory over China at ASEAN meetings. While not opposed to the discussion of the South China Sea disputes in generic terms, Duterte prefers to instead focus on areas of presumed consensus within ASEAN such as counterterrorism and transnational crime, particularly the proliferation of illegal drugs. Duterte is particularly interested in using the ASEAN platform to promote and defend his controversial war on drugs at home, especially when he will deliver the annual chairman’s statement in November. Many in the Philippine security establishment, however, want the South China Sea issue front and center in the ASEAN agenda this year. In contrast to Duterte, they want to use the Philippines’ victory in the arbitration case last year in The Hague, a victory based upon the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, as a basis for the formulation of a legally-binding COC in the South China Sea. The Philippines’ recently-dismissed foreign secretary, Perfecto Yasay, who failed to garner confirmation from Philippine Congress due to his failure to disclose his American citizenship, suggested that he wanted to pursue this approach to the South China Sea during the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting in Boracay, Philippines. Other members of the Philippines’ foreign policy establishment, such as Secretary of Defense Delfino Lorenzana, have consistently raised concerns about China’s creeping challenge to the Philippines’ territorial claims and sovereign rights in eastern (Benham Rise) as well as western (Scarborough Shoal) waters of the South China Sea. The larger problem, however, is whether the ASEAN can achieve unanimity on sensitive issues, when certain members, particularly Cambodia, have stridently toed Chinese line on the South China Sea issue. In his annual press conference, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a surprising announcement that a first draft of a COC has already been finalized. Yet, neither he nor any ASEAN official has clarified its key elements or who will ensure compliance if a Code of Conduct is actually completed. And if ASEAN can make no headway on the most important regional security issue, the organization will look extremely weak, even while celebrating its fiftieth anniversary.

Over the past year, new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has signaled that he wants to dramatically shift Manila’s relationships with the United States, Russia, and China. Duterte also has taken a wrecking ball to many norms of Philippine democracy, overseeing a war on drugs that has led to a spike in extrajudicial killings, pushing his vice president out of Cabinet meetings, and reportedly threatening reporters and civil society activists who criticize him. He also vows to upend and radically reform Philippine politics and the Philippine economy, taking measures to reduce high economic inequality and, possibly, to shift the country to a more federalized system. Duterte’s administration has set back U.S.-Philippine relations, putting them on a rocky course; for the most part of 2016, U.S. officials in Washington and Manila seemed unsure of how to respond to the fiery populist, who has retained high approval ratings among Filipinos. (However, Duterte’s decision to allow former dictator Ferdinand Marcos a burial in a heroes’ ceremony may have dented Duterte’s popularity, although it is too soon to really tell.) In the wake of the U.S. presidential election, some U.S. officials believe relations between Manila and Washington will warm up again, in part because the next U.S. administration may be less critical of Duterte’s drug war and other alleged abuses. (Duterte’s administration has claimed that the U.S. president-elected endorsed Duterte’s drug war, but the evidence of this claim remains sketchy.) However, thus far there has been no clear, on the ground evidence of a positive shift in U.S.-Philippines ties. In a new podcast discussion with War on the Rocks, I analyze the future of the U.S.-Philippines relationship under Duterte. In addition, I discuss my forthcoming book, A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA, about the secret war in Laos in the 1960s, and how it helped transform the Central Intelligence Agency into a paramilitary organization.

Richard Javad Heydarian is an assistant professor in political science at De La Salle University in Manila, and, most recently, the author of Asia’s New Battlefield: The U.S., China, and the Struggle for Western Pacific. In the past few months, the Philippine-U.S. alliance has suffered an unprecedented setback. Diplomatic exchanges have been rife with tensions, while military cooperation has been downgraded, although it is unclear whether it has been formally downgraded. This deterioration in relations is mainly due to bilateral disagreements over human rights issues and policy responses to Chinese maritime assertiveness in the South China Sea. But the surprising election of Donald J. Trump, a populist and businessman, could reset bilateral ties towards a more positive direction---though it risks further undermining the rule of law in the Philippines. Under the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines has witnessed a significant reconfiguration in both its domestic political landscape and its foreign policy outlook. Domestically, the tough-talking leader, true to his campaign promise, has launched a scorched-earth campaign against the proliferation of illegal drugs. While a majority of the population has remained supportive of the president, the Duterte administration has nonetheless grappled with heavy criticism from the international community and some Philippine opposition lawmakers and rights groups, because of the violent nature of the drug war. The outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama has been firm in his criticism of Duterte’s drug war and its impact on the rule of law. The Obama administration has called upon the Duterte government to uphold “the rule of law and a commitment to upholding basic, universal human rights,” warning that a violent crackdown on drug users and sellers is “not going to solve the problem.” The European Parliament, the United Nations, and Australia have also expressed similar concerns, as have many international and Philippine rights organizations. In response, Duterte has lashed out at leaders of Western nations, accusing them of preventing him from fulfilling his law-and-order campaign promise. Meanwhile, he has maintained broadly cordial relations with key U.S. allies such as Japan and South Korea, which have mostly refrained from directly criticizing the Duterte administration. As Duterte inches closer to the end of his first six months in office, he is under increasing domestic and international pressure to show success in suppressing the drug menace in the country as well as shift to a more rehabilitation-centered and public health-focused approach. Duterte’s foreign policy has been equally earthshaking. He has threatened to end Manila’s military alliance with Washington, opted for a bilateral (rather than multilateral) strategy in the South China Sea, and engaged in unprecedented strategic flirtations with Beijing. In the past month, the Duterte administration has warned that he might end some of existing joint military exercises with U.S. forces as well as restricting their access to Philippine bases, although he did not take formal moves to follow through on these threats. Since Trump’s election, however, Duterte has been singing a somewhat different tune. Just months earlier, Duterte dismissed Trump as a ‘bigot’ and buffoon.  Upon Trump’s election victory, however, which seemingly took even Duterte by surprise, the tough-talking Philippine leader immediately switched to a more cordial tone, offering congratulations and best wishes to Trump, declaring: “I don’t want to fight [with Washington anymore] because Trump is there.” Duterte, previously dubbed as the “Trump of the East,” proved more than eager to also emphasize his temperamental similarity with the newly-elected American leader. There are legitimate reasons for Manila to be more optimistic about the direction of relations with the United States. First of all, there is growing expectation that Trump won’t be tough on the Philippines vis-à-vis human rights and democracy issues. In fact, Duterte controversially claimed, after his phone call with Trump, that the incoming U.S. leader supports his war on drugs, though the Trump transition team is yet to confirm that anyone actually said this. Duterte also has welcomed Trump’s seemingly tough approach to China, even though Duterte himself has pursued accommodation with Beijing. It is possible that Duterte could embrace a tougher U.S. policy toward China since this might mean Washington will more directly take on China rather than pushing regional allies like the Philippines to do so. For Dutetre, the best outcome is for the Philippines to maintain good relationship with both superpowers, and let Washington shoulder the costs of constraining Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea. Moreover, Duterte also allegedly hopes to leverage business linkages with Trump to bolster U.S.-Philippine relations. Duterte’s personal envoy to Washington owns the Trump Tower in Manila. If the Philippines and China fail to arrive at a mutually-satisfactory agreement in the disputed waters, then Duterte has even more reasons to repair frayed ties with Washington. It goes without saying that it is perhaps too early, if not foolhardy, to speculate about the likely rapport of two of the most mercurial leaders in recent history, Duterte and Trump. For now, however, the government in Manila seems more eager to build ties with Obama’s successor than it was with the Obama administration.