Machiavellian Duterte

Introduction

“It is better to be feared than loved” and “The end justifies the means” are just some of the ideas one
may procure from Niccolo Machiavelli's seminal book, The Prince. Since its first publication in 1532 until
today, there is still truth to the words written in Machiavelli’s story. In fact, many of the characteristics of a
good leader which are described by Machiavelli in his novel have been and still can be seen in world leaders
today, from Adolf Hitler to Barack Obama. Even though ideas from The Prince have reached cult-level
status among a wide range of pioneers and powerful people, proving its popularity and timelessness, there
is an unclear line about whether these qualities really make good leaders or not. Thus, it begs the question:
are Machiavellian tendencies what makes a good leader? Are there any Machiavellian leaders in our
immediate society today? And if so, are they doing their jobs well?

One such leader who has demonstrated Machiavellian tendencies is President Rodrigo Roa Duterte.
As he nears the first-year mark since his inauguration into office as the president of the Republic of the
Philippines, many people are asking whether or not he was able to put into action the promises that he
declared during his inauguration speech last year. Additionally, as the basis of further evaluation, it would
also be interesting to examine what characteristics he possesses which makes him out to be a
Machiavellian leader and how this has helped or hindered him in achieving the goals he had laid out.

In his inaugural speech, the president talked about his so-called "100-day plan" in all its grand ambition:
ending U.S. – Philippines military exercises, generation of more jobs, ending all drug – related crimes, and
so much more. Regarding all of these promises, the then – newly elected president assured the masses of
his determination and capability to make these happen.

However, the talk "HAS CHANGE COME AFTER 365 DAYS? Duterte at 365 " which happened last
Thursday, 29th of June, observed and analyzed the fruition of these promises, ultimately coming up with
the conclusion that no, Pres. Duterte was not able to do everything and all that he said he would. During
the talk, a member from activist group IBON, Ms. Sarah Vicenio, broke down Duterte's inaugural speech
into specific parts according to his proposed plans of action and checked the completion of those plans.

In her introductory spiel on Duterte, Ms. Vicenio explained the main mission of her organization and
why they strive so much to provide correct information and comprehensive analysis of the issues and the
news surrounding our country's presidents. From their mission statement, they emphasized the utmost
importance of critical thinking that is needed when it comes to receiving information, especially in this day
and age when blah blah is abundant to the point of being overwhelming. I wholly agree with this statement.
While it is true that it has made life so much more convenient, the epiphany of the internet has led to all
kinds of ideas being fed to us, even if the ideas are in fact dangerous and destructive. It is then our duty to
sort through these ideas and make use of a critical mind to determine which ones are worth keeping. This
is especially true when those ideas are s of a political nature, and IBON, Ms. Sandra had said, is proud to
present the real data on Duterte's actions with corresponding accurate analysis. With this said, I, as a
scholar whose education is funded by the taxes of the public, feel all the more obligated and driven to
uphold the critical mind that the IBON foundation is proud to have.

Following this introduction, Ms. Vicenio reported that research by IBON have confirmed that indeed,
Duterte was not able to uphold his list of promises, calling his administration an ineffective and incompetent
one. Furthermore, the speaker discussed the reforms that were carried out by his administration which,
instead of working in favor of Duterte’s failed promises, negated these said statements. This conclusion
may come as no surprise to many, as the president's approval rating has steadily been going down for the
past few months. Perhaps what is more interesting to note is that there are traces, or rather, a parallelism
that can be seen between Duterte's method of governance and Niccolo Machiavelli's traits of a good leader.
In fact, a comparison between the two is apparent in Ms. Sarah’s 3-point discussion in gauging the progress,
or lack thereof, of the Duterte administration in their first year.

Always win over the people, never the nobility.

The first issue pointed out by the speaker is the worsening decline of the country's socioeconomic
situation. One remarkable plan that Duterte had declared in his inaugural speech is his 8-point agenda,
which later on evolved to the 9-point economic agenda. This plan includes the resumption of peace talks,
raising of minimum wage, taxing more from rich citizens, rehabilitation of Yolanda victims, increase of
employment rate. The declaration of this plan can be considered as a populist move on Duterte’s part, as
the plan addresses mostly the concerns of the Philippine masses. In his inaugural speech, Duterte states
that no leader, however strong can succeed unless he has the support of the people, and this is why it is
necessary to listen to the murmurings of the people, feel their pulse, supply their needs and fortify their faith
and trust in the government. Coincidentally (or not?), this “anti-partisan” attitude is also one that was written
by Machiavelli as that which makes a good leader. Machiavelli emphasizes how necessary it is for a prince
to win over the people, because they are many, while the nobles are few, and a prince can never live safely
without being able to trust the people. However, contrary to his truly Machiavellian words, the president’s
actions prove to be the opposite. After a year, it was reported by IBON that perpetual poverty experienced
by man in the past administrations had carried over and had even worsened during Duterte’s presidency.
According to statistics, about twenty-two million Filipinos are in extreme poverty (living with less than
P125.00 a day), with sixty-five million of the population relying on P125.00 a day. Also, according to
statistics, the unemployment rate had reached 5.7% while the underemployment rate had reached 16.1%.
Additionally, the increasing number of discouraged workers, possibly a result of the K-12 education system
implementation, lowered labor force participation by 575,000. Moreover, from 2015-2016, 40 richest
Filipinos’ net worth rose by 13.8% while workers’ wage decreased by 0.1%. It is obvious that what had led
to these devastating numbers is Duterte’s preference to keep the loyalty of his “padrinos” in a self-
preserving move. Also mentioned in Ms. Sandra’s talk was the continuing prevalence of neocolonialism in
the Duterte administration through reforms which decreased agriculture export from forty percent to a
measly eighteen percent. This is a devastating economic blow especially for countries like ours whose
make-up relies largely on the agriculture industry. It was also reported that Duterte’s administration saw the
dwindling of the manufacturing industry caused by the participation of transnational companies in the
market, with these large corporations essentially making profit off of Filipinos but not really adding to the
country’s GDP.

Indeed, Duterte’s constant declarations of market-oriented policies have led to a truly neoliberalist
government, and he is showing no signs of stopping. Aside from agriculture products, the mining industry
is also being exploited by transnational corporations – case in point: Higher than 80% of mining product in
the Philippines is exported, even though we have more than enough raw material to establish a strong steel
industry. Instead, Ms. Vicenio says, we choose to export those raw materials just to buy the ready-made
product from other countries at a much higher cost. Furthermore, IBON had also recently discovered
business interests looking to build war-based profitable businesses, such as the rehabilitation program in
Marawi by San Miguel. Such is the truly partisan economy under Duterte’s hands, and by this virtue, he
does not seem to uphold the Machiavellian trait of winning over the people and not the nobility.

A good leader is feared rather than loved, and a good leader is both a man and a beast.

In The Prince, Machiavelli stresses on the importance of fear as a driving mechanism for a leader’s
subjects to follow orders. According to his rationale, fear imbibes action from people, while love cannot. As
of his first year in office, about nine thousand people have already been killed at the hands of the president’s
infamous “war against drugs”. This statistic may seem scary enough, but what is even more frightening is
that Duterte seems to show no signs of easing up on the killing spree anytime soon, or at least not until a
big player is punished. This ruthlessness is something that was not seen in administrations before him,
which causes alarm to some. This kind of leadership only goes to show how certain Machiavellian traits,
specifically a leader as both a man and a beast, manifest themselves in the Duterte administration. Another
proof of concept is the fact that Duterte had easily, and perhaps haphazardly, proclaimed martial law in the
whole of Mindanao following the Marawi crisis. The speaker, during the talk, lays down some perspective
on the matter: Imagine a small dot being drawn on a sheet of short bond paper – “That”, Ms. Sandra had
said, “is how small Marawi is compared to the whole Mindanao island”. Having said this, IBON suggested
that it was not necessary to put the whole southern island under martial law, as this further invites more
fear, panic, and terror from citizens of Mindanao. Also, another point stressed by Ms. Sandra is the fact that
Duterte seems to be showing no effort to stop the bombings and devastation of the Marawi people, even
though the Marawi scenes we see in the news continue to be become more and more alarming every day.
This kind of leadership only goes to show how certain Machiavellian traits, specifically the injection of
fear in the people, manifest themselves in the Duterte administration.

A good leader recognizes the importance of citizen-soldiers, rather than hired mercenaries.

During his campaign for president, Duterte was considered a populist especially when compared to his
seemingly elitist rival, Mar Roxas. This “populist” branding proved to be an effective way of winning the
masses’ vote, as Duterte won by a substantial amount. Being a known populist, one would assume that
Duterte would hold highly the opinions of the masses in his decisions on running the country, but this does
not seem to be the case at all. Instead, it is seen through his words and actions that the president is
constantly trying to win the support of the military and not the common people, insinuating that Duterte is
beholden to military. In fact, in the quest to abolish illegal drug usage in the country, Duterte gives a
monetary incentive to police who are able to kill a certain number of “drug users” every month, whether
they are verified or not. In this aspect, Duterte looks to be doing the exact opposite of the one trait which
Machiavelli discussed in his book regarding good leadership. In The Prince, he writes that a good leader,
when asked to choose between the loyalty of citizen-soldiers or hired mercenaries, would choose the
former. This is because mercenaries – in this case, the military – tend to only show loyalty to who is most
powerful at the moment. This means that the leader would always have to strive for more power to generate
loyalty, inciting greed and therefore loss of control. Aside from this, it is also very problematic that the
monetary incentive leads police to simply kill at whim, but that is another conversation altogether.

At the end of her talk, Ms. Vicenio concluded that there is still much to be done before Duterte can be
considered a good president, but her opinion is only one out of the opinions of millions of Filipinos currently
living under the Duterte administration. It is best to do a larger consensus on the matter before we can
conclude an accurate description of his progress. However, what is sure is that Duterte employs some sort
of Machiavellian attitude in his form of leadership – that is, he is both a beast and a man, he was able to
gain a leadership position by populace, and he prefers to be feared rather than loved. Whether or not this
will help turn his administration receive 100% approval rating, only time will tell.