Curato, Nicole. A Duterte Reader: Critical Essays on Rodrigo Duterte's Early Presidency (Quezon City: Bughaw, 2017).
1. Julio Teehankee's "Was Duterte's Rise Inevitable" argued that as unusual as it seems to be, the victory of Duterte is not surprising at all. Using Skowronek's theory of political time, Teehankee was able to show that Duterte came exactly at a time when the EDSA regime was already ripe for repudiation. The EDSA regime's basic concepts of liberal democracy, human rights, equality, and progress were therefore easily stripped by Duterte of its significance by showing its hypocrisy and failure to bring real institutional changes into the Philippine elite democracy. The coming of Duterte meant the beginning of a post-EDSA regime.
2. In the essay "Who Supports Rodrigo Duterte," Ronald Holmes (President of Pulse Asia Inc.) analyzed the statistical results of surveys by Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations on Duterte's trust and performance rating. He demonstrated that the support base of Duterte cuts accross all geographical regions, genders, ages, and classes. After comparing it to the trust and performance ratings of previous post-EDSA presidents, Holmes predicted that a significant change on Duterte's ratings will likely to occur based on the administration's response to different problems that will befall the regime in the future.
3. Walden Bello's "Rodrigo Duterte: A Fascist Original" insisted that Duterte, who has an authoritarian tendency, is indeed a fascist like Hitler, Mussolini and Marcos. Yet unlike the three, Duterte's archenemy is not communism but liberal democracy of the EDSA regime. Bello argued that this authoritarian attempt to destroy liberal democracy is not a rare phenomenon in the Philippines, but is a global trend.
4. Patricio Abinales and Lisandro Claudio's "Dutertismo, Maoismo, Nasyonalismo" attempted to explain the complex relationship of the Left to the Duterte Regime. The proximity of the Left to Duterte is understandable as the latter's speech and actions are relatable to the Left: Duterte's pronouncement of his socialist stance, his past connections to Joma and the Kabataang Makabayan, his anti-American language, his invitation to CPP-NDF's nominees to seat in his Cabinet, his efforts for the peace talks, among others. The Left's usual critical voice has been moderated due to this alliance and it was put into a difficult place in its relationship to Duterte. But this compromised relationship will likely to be more complicated in the unfolding of events.
5. In "The Mindanaoan President," Jesse Altez and Kloyed Caday make sense of Duterte's almost 100% support rating in Mindanao. Being the first Mindanaoan President, the writers show how Duterte was able to give a language i which the Mindanaoans (tripeople of Moros, Lumads, and Christian Immigrants) was able to express their numerous decades of disillusionment with the Manila elites. By his speeches and by showcasing his successful Davao as a model city for Mindanao, Duterte triumphs in his plan to present himself as the embodiment of Mindanao's century-long struggle for peace and progress.
6. Adele Webb in "Hide the Looking Glass: Duterte and the Legacy if American Imperialism" studied the complex dealing of Duterte with Americans. Webb suggests that by exposing the American abuses in Philippine history, showing the injustice in unfair economic treaties, threatening to aline the Philippines to other countries, and cursing its very president, Duterte gave power to the wounded ego of a people that was presented by the Americans as an inferior nation.
7. Nathan Gilbert Quimpo's "'Duterte's War on Drugs:' The Securitization of Illegal Drugs and the Return of National Boss" used the securitization theory of the Copenhagen School to show how Duterte succeeded in constructing a national enemy: drugs. Despite the fact that the official statistics both from the government and international institutions show otherwise, Duterte succeeded in creating a national crisis, putting the public in panic that the Philippines is in the brink of being a narco-state. By doing so, he was able to harness the support of the public and the might of both PNP and AFP to go into rampage against alleged drug addicts. Quimpo insisted that the real intention of Duterte is not to merely eradicate drugs, but to use this war as a justification of his transformation as a national boss for the triumph of his authoritarian plan.
8. In the essay "Murder as Enterprise: Police Profiteering in Duterte's War on Drugs," Sheila Coronel depicted the police not as a mere instrument that blindly follows a patron, but an autonomous being that participates in the war on drugs as an entrepreneur that seeks profit. Utilizing court testimonies, journalistic reports, and case studies by human rights groups as sources, Coronel crafted a narrative that demonstrates how the police kills for profit: from extortions from drug suspects, demanding ransom rewards from the family of the suspect, to bonuses from civil officials, commission from funeral parlors, and under-the-table rewards for every person killed.
9. In "A Mandate for Mass Killings? Public Support for Duterte's War on Drugs," human rights scholar Jayson Lamcheck traces Duterte's role in the killings of Davao Death Squad in Davao, his speeches against criminals and human rights, the denials and deflection of the government in the issue of EJK, the outworking of the Project Double Barrel with Oplan Tokhang, and the barangay-based surveillance and the creation of dreaded "drug watch-list." Lamcheck gave a proposal in the end to resist the call to participate in this systematic surveillance to prevent the genocide in making.
10. Ann Cristina Pertierra's "Celebrity Politics and Televisual Melodrama in the Age of Duterte" tried to locate Duterte in an age where celebrity politics is dominant. She argued how Duterte benefited from this scenario: how the people perceived him and responded to him based on a worldview shaped by televisual melodrama.
11. Jason Cabañes and Jayeel Cornelio's "The Rise of Troll in the Philippines (And What We Can Do About It)" discourses the complex issue of trolling in the social media. They defined professional trolls as those who are being payed for their deceiving and sowing seeds of enmities in the social media. The authors give caution on giving labels on people that has different view with us as trolls. The essay showed how giving labels such as "Dutertard" and "Yellowtard" is detrimental to meaningful engagement. They gave recommendations on how to fight trolling since it can undermine the democratic spaces in the social media: for individual users to be vigilant and for the mainstream media to change its traditional ways in doing journalism.
12. John Andrew Evangelista's "Queering Duterte," through the use of Butler's version of queer theory, tried to locate Duterte's misogynistic language and sexism in a political culture that is alredy sexist before the coming of Duterte. He discussed how the Philippine politics' hetero-patriarchal system produced a normative view of women as inferior and men as superior players in politics. He differentiated between two kinds of macho politics: statesmen politicians and populist politicians.
13. Cleve Arguelles' "Duterte's Other War: The Battle for EDSA People Power's Memory" argued that Duterte is engaged not only in war against drugs but war on memory. Duterte is trying to alter the meaning of EDSA that is indicated by some of his previous actions such as toning down the celebration of EDSA, supporting the return of the Marcos family in national politics, and burying Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. The writer said that Duterte is doing so to create a national amnesia that will pave the way for the creation of a counter-narrative that will legitimize his own administration as an alternative to the EDSA regime.
14. In "Who will Burn Duterte's Effigy," Emerson Sanchez insisted that despite some criticism of scholars to the Left as being tame due to its proximity with Duterte, it has never been silent. By quoting some official statements from the CPP, Bayan, IBON, Karapatan and other Left entities, Sanchez proved that the Left maintained its critical stance over the issues of human rights, war on drugs, contractualization, and Marcos' burial. At the latter part of the Duterte's first year in the presidency, it was shown how the Left resumed its protests, and return to its practice of burning the effigy of a repressive president.
15. In "Engaging Duterte: That Space in Between Populism and Pluralism," Carmel Abao depicted Duterte as a populist leader who is againt pluralism. Abao made a call to fill in the void in th middle of populism of Duterte that breeds authoritarianism and pluralism of traditional oligarchs that produces elitism. Both must be abhorred. Since the Left cannot at this time fill in this gap, a role that they traditionally fill, due to their alliance with Duterte, the people must name other players to fill in the void that will counter both authoritarianism and elitism
No comments:
Post a Comment