During his term in office from 2016 to 2022, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was best known for his brutal “war on drugs,” which became a license for massive extrajudicial killings of drug addicts and dealers, as well as many people with no connections to drugs at all. An investigation by the International Criminal Court into the campaign and Duterte’s role in it put the number of civilian casualties at between 12,000 and 30,000.
Duterte’s other main policy initiative as president did not attract as much global attention: From his first days in office, he tried to shift the focus of Philippine foreign and economic policy away from the United States—the country’s longtime ally—and toward China. This shift was not driven by domestic politics, as the Philippine public holds generally warm views of the U.S., but rather at least in part by Duterte’s personal animus toward Washington. Unfortunately, he wound up getting little for putting his faith in Beijing, while alienating Filipinos who had been promised a Chinese windfall.
Now, Duterte’s successor and political rival, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., has shifted Philippine foreign and economic policy 180 degrees, wholeheartedly embracing the U.S. instead of balancing between Washington and Beijing, as all other Southeast Asian states are doing. But with the imminent return of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to the White House in January, Marcos could ultimately find himself as economically and strategically sidelined by the U.S. as Duterte was by China.