The arduous process of making the Philippines more federal fell to the wayside. And he has been accused of targeting dissenters – two of his fiercest critics, senators Antonio Trillanes and Leila de Lima – were jailed. Maria Ressa, a Nobel Prize-winning journalist whose news website Rappler has reported on the controversial war on drugs, was accused in several court cases, from tax evasion to foreign ownership violations.
After his term, Trillanes and de Lima were freed and all charges against Ressa were dropped, proof that they were politically harassed during the Duterte years, according to the former president’s critics.
Covid proved to be Mr Duterte’s biggest challenge, tanking the strong economy he had inherited as remittances from overseas and domestic consumption took a hit. Despite one of the world’s strictest lockdowns, the country struggled to cope with rising Covid cases, hobbled by inequality and a fractured health system. It was one of the worst affected in Asia, with more than 3.6 million cases and 60,000 deaths.
But Duterte remained hugely popular. His approval ratings, which mostly stayed above 50%, only took a hit in 2021 at the peak of Covid.
When he chose to step away from politics in 2022, he said it was because “the overwhelming sentiment… is that I am not qualified”, possibly a reference to repeated opinion polls that put his daughter Sara ahead of him.
The younger Duterte became vice-president that same year, to Rodrigo Duterte’s successor Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos.
However the alliance unravelled soon after Marcos and Sara Duterte won the elections by a landslide. The feud escalated and in early 2025, lawmakers voted to impeach Sara Duterte over alleged misuse of public funds.
She has denied the charges and alleged she is the victim of a political vendetta.