Donald Trump’s ‘Dutertefication’ of the White House has global consequences

When Rodrigo Duterte ran for the Philippine presidency in 2016, the international media couldn’t help but label the firebrand the Donald Trump of Southeast Asia. Little did we know it might turn out to be the other way around.

The Marcos parallels began with candidate Trump hiring Paul Manafort as campaign chairman, 31 years after the Philippine dictator secured Manafort’s services. Trump followed the Marcos Inc. kleptocracy model, turning the White House into a family-business zone. The Duterte analogies, though, are building with each passing month. Here are four.

Neutering the media – Trump is steadily weaponising his “fake news” mantra. He’s called the free press, a cornerstone of democracy, the “enemy of the American people”. It’s a delegitimisation tactic employed by Joseph Stalin, Marcos and now Duterte. On January 15, Manila moved to shut down the Rappler news portal, one critical of Duterte’s bloody drug war, scandals involving his family (his son stands accused of ties to drug traffickers), his personal wealth and his policy volatility.

Trump is itching to weaken First Amendment protections. At a rally last week, he had nicer things to say about North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-un than journalists. Trump and Duterte also are feeding off each other. At a bilateral meeting in Manila in November, Trump chuckled along as Duterte derided reporters in the room as “spies”. The global community isn’t laughing.

Executing drug dealers – Trump went full Duterte at the end of February, raising the spectre of capital punishment: “The drug dealers, the drug pushers, they’re really doing damage. Some countries have a very, very tough penalty – the ultimate penalty. And by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do.” While White House spin doctors talk of Singapore and China as inspirations, Trump gushed early and often about Duterte’s assassins (“unbelievable job on the drug problem”).