Center and Periphery in the Time of Duterte: Deepening Democracy or Restoring Strongman Rule at the Center?

• In Event: 325. The Center Cannot Hold? Trends in Southeast Asian Politics. Sponsored by the Critical Asian Studies Journal

Abstract

There are two competing narratives about what the 2016 change in government means in terms of the relationship between centre and periphery in Philippine politics. The dominant narrative comes from the majority who voted for and applauded the victory of Rodrigo Duterte and saw it as an equivalent victory by the periphery over the centre. This narrative emphasizes the positive economic and social impact that can be brought about by the loosening of the centre’s control over the country’s human and economic resources—a possibility made real by the President Duterte’s relentless drive to institutionalize a shift to some form of federalism. However, there is a second narrative that mainly highlights the change in the way power will be wielded by the centre. This framework does not accept the bold predictions of a future diffusion of power to the periphery, but rather emphasizes the further strengthening of the centre through the employment of deadly “least common denominator” campaigns such as the war on drugs that inspires a momentum for strong-fisted, but nevertheless, central, rule. In this second perspective, the political and institutional onslaught brought about by the war on drugs and other crimes and forms of instability would strengthen rather than weaken the centre, turning the cause of federalism into a race to the bottom, and amounting to no more than the embellishment of the decentralization process that began in 1992 and simply an enhanced autonomy for regional states seeking deeper democracy and self-determination. The promise of federalism will not be addressed, and will likely induce the emergence and strengthening of warlord economies in Mindanao.

Author

• Francisco Jota Lara, University of the Philippines