Spotlight: Philippines' incoming president promises to crush criminality, corruption, poverty

Rodrigo Duterte will take his oath of office on Thursday as the Philippines' 16th president.

On the campaign trail, the tough-talking former mayor from southern Philippines' Davao City has promised to "kill" drug lords and shame corrupt government officials and policemen suspected of colluding with criminals.

"We'll just make this country peaceful and we'll have the investments coming in," the 71-year-old said in a speech in Davao City Monday, warning he will not allow a Mexico-like narco-politics to reign in the country.

Fresh from last month's electoral victory, Duterte said he is ready to make sweeping policy changes during his six-year term. "Change is coming," he said.

Duterte's real work of delivering promises begins on Thursday.

Aside from cracking down on rampant crime and eradicating corruption, Duterte will also have to grapple with a slew of problems including rapid population growth, poor infrastructure, inefficient bureaucracy and widespread poverty.

COMBATING POVERTY

A quarter of the country's 100 million people are poor, according to the Asian Development Outlook 2015, the annual economic publication of the Asian Development Bank released in March.

In the first half of 2014, poverty incidence was reported at 25.8 percent, compared with 24.6 percent in the same period in 2013, rising due to higher food prices and damage to livelihoods caused by typhoons, the report said.

Many of the people of Mindanao, where Duterte hails, continue to grapple with abject poverty.

While the Philippines has posted solid growth in recent years, the report said unemployment and underemployment "remain high."

"Even when the unemployment rate fell to 6.6 percent in January 2015, the lowest in 10 years, 2.6 million people remained jobless, nearly half of them aged 15-24 years, and a further 6.5 million were underemployed," the report said.

"Challenges are to accelerate infrastructure development and further improve the investment climate to regenerate more and better jobs for poverty reduction," the report said, adding that "higher rates of investment are needed to build on recent gains and raise employment to reduce poverty."

The report said investment has improved in the Philippines but still lags behind its Southeast Asian neighbors Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. The country's net foreign direct investment inflows "are modest," despite a 66 percent increase to 6.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2014, it said.

"A key constraint on growth stems from inadequate past investment in infrastructure," the report said. The Philippines ranked 95th out of 144 countries for the quality of its infrastructure in the Global Competitiveness Report 2014-2015 of the World Economic Forum.

Duterte's Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said infrastructure investment is priority, stressing the need to build railways, ports, airports, bridges and even cable cars to ease the monstrous traffic in Metro Manila. "There will be connectivity of islands," he said.

Investors have indeed shun the Philippines, discouraged by poor roads, unreliable power supply and bad communication facilities, analysts said, adding that rampant corruption, unsolved violent crimes and decades-old insurgencies also mar the country's investment climate.

The ADB has predicted that the Philippines will see strong growth to continue this year and next, 6 percent in 2016 and 6.1 percent in 2017 respectively.

Richard Bolt, ADB country director for the Philippines, has earlier said that to sustain this growth "will require the continuation of policies that support infrastructure and human capital development, improvements to the investment climate, and better governance."

Duterte has vowed to promote contraceptives to prevent population explosion. "I will reinstall the program of family planning. One. Two. Three. That's enough."

Duterte has said he intends to amend some provisions in the 1987 constitution in a bid to transform the country into a federal state and lift the economic provisions that hamper foreign investors from investing in the country. "Nothing short of a federal structure would give Mindanao peace," he said.

BOOSTING RECONCILIATION

Days before taking his oath this Thursday, Duterte sent his aides to Oslo, Norway to initiate peace talks with exiled leaders of the Left that has been fighting the government for decades. He has also met with Muslim rebels. "I will call for inclusive talks with everybody, the Moros (Mindanao Muslims), the (Communist) rebels," he said.

Duterte has also decided to allow the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos in the Heroes' Cemetery, saying this will bring healing to the country. "I will allow the burial of President Marcos in the Heroes Cemetery not because he is a hero but because he was a Filipino soldier."

Marcos died in Hawaii in 1989, his body, which was brought to the Philippines in 1993, is now on display inside a glass box in an air-conditioned crypt in the Marcos family's ancestral home north of Manila.

The past administrations have refused Marcos's body to be interred at the national heroes' cemetery, causing years of on-and-off political debates on whether the disgraced leader deserved a military honor and a plot in the hallowed ground.

Another bold move that Duterte wants to make is to free former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo who is now detained at a hospital over plunder charges. Duterte, a lawyer, said Arroyo has been detained for four years without trial.

"She deserves to be released. She has been detained for so long, the trial delayed," Duterte said, adding Arroyo is a victim of slow justice.

CRACKING DOWN ON CRIMINALS

He stressed the need to reimpose the death penalty so he could hang criminals. "When you kill someone, rape, you should die. I believe in retribution. Why? You should pay," he said.

Duterte's platform promises have won him more than 16.6 million votes, a resounding victory. Filipinos are pinning their hopes on Duterte, hoping for better and safer lives.

Duterte was first elected as mayor of Davao in 1988 and since then never lost an election until he became president.

"In Davao we were able to correct the so many errors along the way. I intend to do the same for the whole country. I will be harsh to the criminals. I will be strict to the wrongdoers but you'd always find something in me... especially those who are hopeless, helpless and defenseless," he said in his farewell speech Monday in Davao City where he was mayor for 22 years.

"I like the fact that he puts law and order first," said political analyst Clarita Carlos. "No other activity can happen if there is rampant criminality. I want those drug lords to be put to jail. Business (sector) wants law and order for economic activity to prosper."

Political science Professor Edmund Tayao said Duterte's plans are doable: "All he is saying is that he doesn't mind using every means available in order to accomplish his promise of a crime-free society in as little as six month. That can be done." Endit