Mayor, womaniser, crime-buster: Rodrigo Duterte soars into lead of Philippine presidential race

Rodrigo Duterte, a crime-busting mayor and self-confessed womaniser, has rocketed ahead of established rivals in the latest opinion poll on the Philippines’ presidential race.

The 70-year-old, who only filed his candidacy last month, took a 38 per cent share in the poll by Social Weather Stations. Senator Grace Poe and Vice President Jejomar Binay, the front- runners in previous surveys, each got 21 per cent, according to the survey conducted from November 26 to 28.

The mayor of Davao City on the southern island of Mindanao has become a national figure through his hard line on crime. He’s said drug addicts should be executed - despite capital punishment being outlawed in the Philippines. He’s trying to enter the race for the May 2016 election by replacing a registered contender from the Philippine Democratic Party - People’s Power, better known as the PDP-Laban party.

Duterte will face a real test once official campaigning begins in February, when the public will demand to know who he really is, said Prospero de Vera, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines. “On his statements about executing criminals, how will he do this without a law on capital punishment?”

Duterte has served more than two decades as mayor of Davao, which was known as the nation’s murder capital during the rule of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Under Duterte, Davao has become one of the country’s safest and more prosperous cities. That peace and order came at a cost, according to Human Rights Watch, which has accused him of giving tacit support to extra judicial killings of more than 1,000 suspected criminals since the late 1990s. Duterte calls the allegations “a myth.”

“I will not allow our children to be devoured by drugs,” Duterte told supporters in Manila last month. “I will order the military and police to kill all drug addicts in the Philippines.”