Picture this: a former president whose reputation is marked by discriminatory and inflammatory remarks, yet he has dangerously swayed public perception. His administration, marred with controversy from 2016 until the end of his term, has become a household name in global politics.
If you’re thinking of United States (US) President Donald Trump, you’re right. But if you also thought of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, you wouldn’t be wrong. The global response to “Impeached 45” returning to the White House is a familiar account for the Filipino people. The 2024 US Presidential Elections unearthed a wave of pro-Trump sentiments from many Filipinos locally and within the Western country.
While it’s easy to pin the blame on the bahala na and herd mentalities, these do not unpack the intricate patterns that feed our submission to these leaders. In today’s rigidly bureaucratic society, people are conditioned to see political preferences as the result of individual choices and opinions, ignoring the systemic forces that shape them. However, the enduring appeal of strongman politics reveals deeper truths about how it speaks to the Filipino psyche.
Close-to-home tactics
As Trump waves his “Make America Great Again” slogan around, those who have found a home in the supposed Land of the Free are further alienated. Yet his dog-whistle motto has found surprising and staunch support among some Filipino-Americans (Fil-Ams), even those in precarious positions as undocumented migrants in hiding, often referred to as Tago Nang Tago (TNT).
Eyebrows are raised, but do not stop at the ticking time bomb TNTs are confronted with. The Republican’s immigrant crackdown agenda is ruthless, intervening in the most innocent places, such as schools and workplaces.
On the topic of brutality, Trump’s shifting stances on queer and reproductive rights as well as his iron-clad promise to allow gun use in all 50 states seem to resonate with Filipinos, especially the conservatives.
This allegiance can be best rationalized by our history of subjugation to colonial control and patriarchal power. In times of uncertainty, many gravitate toward leaders who project strength, even when that strength manifests as violence. Through populist rhetoric, these leaders sway the frustrations of their citizens, deluding them with promises of security while disproportionately harming marginalized groups.
It is this very template that propelled Duterte into the Malacañang in 2016. Voters turn to the candidates that pique their best aspirations. His campaign was simple enough: a drug-free country. The brutal, blasphemous intricacies of how he’d actually shape it became secondary. Like Trump’s aspiration for American greatness, winning the popular vote of the people buried the dirty laundry that came with his promise.
Disillusionment to power
Elections are won by numbers, but voters’ social conditions are far more telling of what goes into each ballot. The brand of leadership peddled by Trump, Duterte, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. did not emerge by chance. Rather, it was through a long and strategic accumulation of twisted rhetorics and lies.
The 2022 National Elections in the Philippines and the 2024 US Presidential Elections share a near-identical narrative. Marcos Jr. campaigned on a platform of historical distortion and eventually won against then-Vice President Leni Robredo, who ran as an independent candidate but was previously affiliated with the Liberal Party. She sought to lift the lives of Filipino people under her Gobyernong Tapat, Angat Buhay Lahat platform, countering Duterte’s corrupt administration.
The same was true for former US Vice President Kamala Harris, who entered the presidential race as Trump’s opponent from the Democratic Party. She echoed a similar call for progress and accountability, declaring with ferocity in one of her speeches: “We are not going back.”
The overwhelming defeat of these two women is reflective of the gender politics taunting women as incapable leaders, and that strongman leaders make up a robust nation—no pun intended. As online misinformation was emboldened by misogynistic attacks on the two presidentiables, the message is clear: for many of Harris’ and Robredo’s critics, there are no seats for collected women on a table full of corrupt and incompetent men.
Apart from this, the support for Duterte and Trump is also rooted in disillusionment. Their supporters completely reject the liberal order, criticizing how the so-called democracy that liberalism engendered excluded and dismissed many people.
Even the Democrats felt lost during Joe Biden’s leadership in America. With Trump’s roster of appointed justices in the US Supreme Court, Biden’s plans to ease housing costs and forgive student loans were repeatedly struck down. This drove his voters to turn to Trump. Similarly, the policies of Benigno Aquino III’s administration hurt the Filipino people with its austerity measures. Despite the government borrowing billions for anti-poverty programs, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program did not pay off. To no one’s surprise, the country’s top conglomerates tripled their profit.
Power of resistance
The rising support for strongman politics in the Philippines and the US is not an isolated trend; it is a response to deeply woven patterns of systemic oppression and twisted propaganda.
The irony is that these strongman leaders rarely improved the lives of their supporters. When Duterte promised a drug-free Philippines, he did not mention that his targets would be the poor. In the same vein, Trump’s administration relies on the social conditioning of discrimination against minorities, manifested through mass deportation and erasing hard-fought reproductive and civil rights. Here, security to one means death to another.
In the face of totalitarianism and authoritarianism, the need for marginalized communities to unite to reflect on the past and plan a better future is more crucial. This fight is not solely a Fil-Am struggle; this expands to a phenomenon intersectional groups across the globe face. Once communities find the strength to come together to share resources and amplify each other’s voices, collective calls quickly become a resounding push for change.
What Filipinos seem to forget is that community care must serve as the baseline foundation of all efforts. In selecting leaders who will reflect our country and identity, we ought to acknowledge the deeply rooted values that stem from—and poison—our own blood. While strength can pull our nation out of uncertainty, this does not necessarily call for barbarity.
Fostering the ideals of bayanihan, compassion, and respect, the leaders we choose greatly shape these ideals and how they play into nation-building. This is a reminder for us that the fight for justice is not merely a political struggle defined by persons above, but a deeply human one manifested at the ground level.
This article was published in The LaSallian‘s March 2025 issue. To read more, visit bit.ly/TLSMarch2025.
