Why Does Rodrigo Duterte Still Have Followers? A Personal Reflection

I just saw a video of a couple throwing an intimate birthday bash for Rodrigo Duterte.

They had a life-sized cardboard cutout of him standing there—arms crossed, the familiar stern face frozen in printed confidence. Then they did something almost tender. They covered his eyes to surprise him with a cake. They lit the candle. They sang. They even blew it out for him.

I get the sentiment.

But also—what the hell?

It was cringey, to say the least. And maybe a little sad. Not because people shouldn’t celebrate birthdays, but because that cardboard figure was being treated with more affection than most public servants ever deserve.

As someone who believes in standing up for the country—not a politician—it felt incredibly stupid to watch.

But stupidity, I’ve learned, is rarely the full picture. What looks ridiculous on the surface is often layered with something deeper: belief, frustration, loss, identity.

So instead of rolling my eyes, I sat with it.

Because it’s not the first time I’ve seen something like this. It won’t be the last. The man has stepped down, and yet the devotion remains. Fierce. Personal. Untouchable.

And I found myself asking the same question I’ve asked for years now:

Why do so many Filipinos still defend Rodrigo Duterte—despite the violence, the corruption, the erosion of our institutions?

I let people be. I don’t knock on doors or snatch candles out of cakes. But I also don’t stop asking questions. I look for answers—not to change anyone’s mind, but to understand how we got here in the first place.

And maybe, how I can stop myself from forgetting again.

More Than Politics: The Emotional Foundation of Devotion

It was never just about policy.

It was never about platforms, economic roadmaps, or legislative reform. Most of the people who clung to Duterte didn’t read his promises—they felt them. And that feeling stayed, long after the facts said it shouldn’t have.

For many, he was “Tatay Digong.” Not President Duterte. Tatay. The tough, cursing, gun-pointing father figure they never had—or wished the country had all along. He wasn’t clean or refined or presidential. But that was exactly the point.

He made people feel heard. Especially those who spent years being talked down to by well-dressed politicians who smiled for the cameras but did nothing for the barangay.

He brought something more powerful than reform—he brought relatability. And in a country exhausted by waiting, relatability is sometimes mistaken for leadership.

That’s what made him stick.

His campaign didn’t rely on policy promises—it tapped into the politics of anxiety and hope (SAGE Journals). He told people the country was falling apart—because it felt like it was. He pointed to crime, drugs, corruption, and disorder. He made people anxious.

Then he gave them hope. He told them he could fix it. Quickly. Decisively. Personally.

He didn’t sound like he was asking for votes. He sounded like he was ready to fight for you.

And that mattered. Because most people didn’t just support Duterte.

They saw themselves in him.

This is what sociologists call affective polarization—when political support becomes emotional, even tribal. The moment someone criticized Duterte, it wasn’t just an opinion. It was an insult. A betrayal. An attack on the very people who believed in him.

I’ve seen people defend him with a kind of fever I don’t see even in religious debates.

Speaking of which, even some religious groups who usually hold politicians to moral standards gave him a pass. Some evangelicals and conservative Catholics admired his stance on drugs and lawlessness, ignoring the vulgarity, the women jokes, the death threats (ResetDOC). For them, he was discipline incarnate—someone finally cleaning the streets.

They didn’t want someone polite. They wanted someone who could kill the chaos.

And Duterte played that role well.

So no, it was never just about politics. It was about pain. And the desperate hope that someone, anyone, would finally do something about it.

The Psychology of Unwavering Loyalty

I used to think it was ignorance. That people just didn’t know what Duterte had done, or hadn’t bothered to read up on the thousands killed, the corruption scandals, the lies.

Turns out, they knew.

Some of them knew everything. They just couldn’t let go.

One former supporter put it best: “We weren’t blind—we just wanted to believe.”
That hit me harder than I expected. Because it’s one thing to be lied to. It’s another to lie to yourself so you don’t have to face what’s already in front of you.

That’s cognitive dissonance—when the truth and your belief about someone start pulling in opposite directions, and instead of choosing the truth, you close your eyes a little harder.

The Duterte support base was never just political. It became personal. For many, especially online, defending Duterte became a form of self-preservation. Criticizing him would be like admitting they made a mistake. Not just a small one—but a national one. And when your loyalty is part of who you are, the pain of being wrong doesn’t feel intellectual—it feels like humiliation.

So they held on.

And as the violence escalated and the scandals piled up, they turned down the noise. Selective exposure—that’s what researchers call it. You unfollow the critics, you mute the headlines, you stick to pro-Duterte pages that tell you what you want to hear. It becomes easier to believe when you only consume what agrees with you.

And if something dark slips through, there’s always moral justification. I’ve heard people say the drug war killings were necessary. That the country needed cleansing. That the criminals had it coming anyway. They say it like it makes sense. Like justice is meant to be that bloody.

Some people do regret it.

There are former DDS who stopped believing, who changed their minds—but even then, they speak in whispers. I don’t blame them. Once you’ve spent years defending a man like Duterte, admitting regret comes with shame. And in the Philippines, where politics is treated like religion, switching sides is enough to make you a traitor to your family, your barkada, your entire Facebook feed.

So most of them stay quiet.

Or worse, they double down.

Those who dare to speak up are often met with online harassment. Troll accounts come for them. Personal messages flood in. Some are threatened, others doxxed. Even now, post-presidency, that troll ecosystem is alive and well—targeting critics, silencing conversations, drowning out dissent. It’s emotional policing. If you question the idol, you become the enemy.

No one wants to be the enemy.

So they stay loyal. Not because it makes sense. But because walking away would mean unlearning years of belief, and exposing themselves to a truth they’re not ready to face.

And sometimes, belief is easier than grief.

Social Media Echo Chambers and the Troll Ecosystem

Most Duterte Diehard Supporters don’t read the news.

They scroll through it.

Facebook isn’t just where they post food photos or tag friends in memes. It’s their primary source of information. The timeline is the newsfeed. The meme is the message. And the comment section decides who’s the enemy.

Their loyalty isn’t always rooted in deep political study. It’s reinforced post by post, meme by meme, day after day.

Facebook’s algorithm doesn’t reward balance—it rewards engagement. When a DDS user likes a video of Duterte threatening drug lords, the platform offers more of the same. When they share a post about “discipline,” they’re fed another one glorifying “cleanups.” That’s confirmation bias in action—quiet, persistent, effective.

This isn’t just opinion. According to Behavioral Biases and Identity in Social Media, users in political spaces online gravitate toward emotional content that affirms their identity. Duterte’s digital presence thrives in that environment—tough, angry, unforgiving. It gives followers a sense of clarity in a world that feels out of control.

Critics might publish long explanations. DDS pages just post a meme that says, “Solusyon, hindi reksyon.”
And the meme wins.

These communities are tightly guarded. Facebook groups and pages act like gated compounds. Say something critical of Duterte, and you're branded “dilawan,” “elitista,” or “anti-Filipino.” Blocked. Mocked. Kicked out.

And if that doesn’t work, the trolls step in.

They aren’t random. They’re coordinated. The Diplomat documented how troll networks were built to protect Duterte’s image, harass critics, and manipulate perception. These operations didn’t dissolve after his term. They’ve simply shifted their targets—now going after the ICC, journalists, activists, and anyone who questions the mythology.

This isn’t just political noise—it’s emotional warfare.

And it works.

Journalists still receive death threats. Private citizens get doxxed for speaking up. Activists are told to stay silent or face consequences. The goal isn’t just to argue—it’s to exhaust.

Eventually, people stop talking.

And when people stop talking, the silence starts to look like agreement.

That’s the danger. The illusion of support isn’t always real—it’s just louder, more organized, and better funded. The loyalists stay visible. The critics disappear. And slowly, it begins to feel like the truth is whatever survives the algorithm.

Even now, long after Duterte left Malacañang, the illusion of mass devotion stays alive online.

Not because it’s growing.

But because it never stopped being fed.

Cultural, Class, and Regional Roots of Devotion

It’s easy to say they were fooled.

That they didn’t know better. That they were swept up by the drama. That they got carried away.

But the truth is more uncomfortable than that.

Many Duterte Diehard Supporters knew exactly who they were supporting—and they supported him because of it. Not in spite of the tough talk, the death threats, or the casual cruelty. But because it made sense to them. It aligned with something deeper. Something cultural. Something personal.

In the Philippines, masculinity is power. And Duterte embodied the kind of power many admired. Not the clean, corporate, English-speaking kind that promised reforms. But the raw, loud, unapologetic kind. The kind that bangs the table. Curses on camera. Threatens to kill. That wasn’t a flaw to his followers—it was proof that he wasn’t like the others.

His vulgarity made him relatable. His threats made him strong. His chaos made him authentic.

That’s what scholars call macho populism—where the leader’s aggression is seen as decisiveness, and compromise is mistaken for weakness. In one study, Duterte’s masculinity was described as “a form of protective patriarchy” (Taylor & Francis). For many, especially men, his image wasn’t toxic—it was aspirational.

Then there’s the matter of class.

Duterte’s loudest critics were often people with power—academics, journalists, celebrities. His supporters came from the opposite end. They were workers, laborers, OFWs. People who felt ignored for decades. People who watched politicians speak polished promises on stage, then disappear once the cameras were off.

So when Duterte cursed at the media, called the Church corrupt, and mocked the opposition, they clapped. Not because they hated democracy, but because he said what they couldn’t say out loud.

And that’s where anti-elitism comes in.

Duterte didn’t need to win debates. He just had to insult the people everyone else was afraid to insult. And that made him a hero to those who felt invisible. His war wasn’t just on drugs—it was on the elite. And in a country where class lines are carved deep, many didn’t care if the man was dangerous. He made the people on top uncomfortable. That was enough.

It was especially true in Davao.

To his hometown supporters, Duterte was the man who cleaned up the city. Even when the rest of the country raised alarms about death squads, Davao locals remembered a time when the streets felt safer. And when someone from Davao makes it to Malacañang, it’s not just a win for the man—it’s a win for the region.

Criticize Duterte, and you’re not just attacking a politician. You’re insulting them. Their city. Their pride.

That kind of loyalty doesn’t die with a bad policy. It survives because it’s rooted in identity.

And for a moment there, I worried.

I worried that this was us. That the DDS character and attitude—the preference for violence, masked as reformist action—was the default setting of the Filipino. That deep down, this wasn’t just about Duterte. It was who we were all along.

It’s also easy to call them stupid.

That’s the fastest way to explain it. That’s where “basta DDS, automatic na bobo yan” came from. It became a coping mechanism, a joke, a shorthand to explain what didn’t make sense.

But does it, really?

Because if the only answer is that they’re stupid, then there’s nothing else to ask. No room left to understand, to dissect, or to change anything. And that doesn’t sit right with me.

Because the problem is bigger than intelligence. It’s history. It’s pain. It’s poverty. It’s pride.

Violence is normal in poor communities. Not accepted, but expected. In places where the police only show up to pick up bodies, where justice takes years (if it comes at all), and where fear is a daily companion—Duterte’s drug war wasn’t always seen as an atrocity. It was seen as a form of control.

Some said it was too much. But many believed it was necessary.

In low-income areas, state violence didn’t feel like an invasion. It felt like the only time the state actually showed up.

The normalization of this brutality is well-documented. Brookings described it as trauma that fractured social trust. PMC pointed out that fear kept families from speaking out, even when their children were killed. Amnesty noted how silence became a survival strategy.

And finally, religion didn’t always offer a counterbalance.

Some evangelical churches and conservative Catholics aligned with Duterte’s “moral order.” They ignored the crudeness because they saw the bigger goal: obedience, discipline, a clean nation. ResetDOC noted that in communities where traditional family roles and moral strictness are prized, Duterte’s harshness felt like a return to structure.

So no—it wasn’t just Facebook. And it wasn’t just emotion.

His support was built on something older than memes. Something more dangerous than propaganda.

It was built on identity. And once loyalty becomes identity, it’s no longer about who’s right.

It’s about who you are.

The High Cost of Blind Loyalty

It’s easy to call it a phase. A moment of collective anger. A lapse in judgment.

But for many of Duterte’s former supporters, it wasn’t a moment. It was years of defending something they once believed would save the country. And when it all started falling apart, the weight of that belief didn’t just go away.

Some of them did speak up—eventually.

They talked about how they used to stay up arguing online, building defenses for Duterte even when deep down, something didn’t sit right. They admitted they forgot why they supported him in the first place and focused only on defending him. That’s how one of them put it in a descriptive phenomenological study: “I got lost in protecting the candidate I had supported and forgot why I supported him at all.”

It happens slowly.

You believe in someone. You defend them once, twice, a hundred times. Then one day, defending them becomes the only thing you know how to do—even when everything says you shouldn’t.

And when it’s time to let go, you realize letting go isn’t just about him.

It’s about you.

Because admitting you were wrong doesn’t just hurt. It humiliates. Especially when you’ve been loud about it. Especially online. Especially here in the Philippines, where pride and politics often mix like gas and flame.

There’s fear in changing your mind. Fear of ridicule. Fear of backlash. The Diplomat documented how former DDS who began to question what was happening were met with harassment, even threats. It’s not just politicians who get trolled. It’s regular people who just wanted to believe—and then tried to walk it back.

That’s the emotional cost of blind loyalty.

But there’s more.

I say this not as someone who watched from the outside, but as someone who stood on the edge of that loyalty, even if just briefly.

I remember the time when Duterte was vacillating about running for president. But as he spoke, I realized he wasn’t uncertain at all. The hesitation was part of the show. A strategy. Testing the waters. Gauging the temperature.

Before his decision became official, I’ll admit—I was curious.

Don’t get me wrong. I voted for Noynoy. But I grew tired of what I perceived back then as diffidence—a kind of quiet leadership that felt too polite for the problems we were facing. Duterte was loud. Certain. Angry. And if you dig back into my Facebook posts in 2016, you’ll see it: for a few days, I was a DDS. Not the harassing, meme-posting kind. Just someone who thought maybe the bravado meant something. That maybe it was what we needed.

The difference between myself and the rest?

I kept asking questions. I kept watching. And that’s when I saw it for what it was—a performance. A strongman persona, packaged and sold. The longer I listened, the more hollow it sounded. Duterte wasn’t a strongman. He was a coward who hid behind strong words and stronger goons. Like I mentioned in another blog, he clung to his guns and his power, but never to truth or responsibility.

One friend, fed up, once said: “Kulang kasi sa sapak ‘yan.”
People like that, he said, only understand when consequences hit them directly.

Fortunately for us—but unfortunately for him—that reckoning seems to have come in the form of a former ally who surrendered him to face justice. Alongside a daughter on the verge of being impeached.

That brief curiosity taught me more than all the memes combined. Because it showed me how easy it is to want strength—and how dangerous it is to settle for the appearance of it.

While people were clapping for Duterte’s every insult, while memes replaced thinking, and slogans replaced scrutiny—the country was bleeding. Human rights violations surged. Journalists were silenced. Institutions meant to protect us were gutted or ignored. And people cheered.

They cheered.

Voice of the South said it plainly—millions of Filipinos lost their conscience in those years. The brutality of the drug war, the arrests without cause, the thousands of lives lost under the guise of order... all enabled by a base that refused to ask questions.

That’s the real cost. Not just personal shame. Collective decay.

We lost the habit of demanding answers. Of asking better questions. Of checking power, not worshipping it.

We lost trust.

We lost time.

We lost people.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty both laid out the scale of the damage: extrajudicial killings, intimidation of the press, weaponized justice. While many still held Duterte’s cardboard cutouts close, the country was being hollowed out.

Even now, many who once supported him can’t bring themselves to talk about it.

They know.

But they stay silent. Because it feels too late. Because they fear it’s pointless. Because they’re afraid the apology won’t be enough.

And so the damage remains—unacknowledged, unhealed, and unfinished.

Conclusion: The Case for Critical Engagement Over Idolization

Some still call him Tatay.

They post tributes. Turn his old speeches into inspirational videos. Say things like, “At least he did something,” or “I’d rather have him than the corrupt trapos.”

Some are too deep in it now. Others are just afraid to admit they were wrong. And a few still believe he was the answer.

For many, it’s no longer about Duterte being right. It’s about not wanting to admit they were wrong. That’s the trap of the sunk cost fallacy—when you’ve spent years defending someone, doubling down becomes easier than walking away.

"Sayang naman."

And so they stay, not because they’re blind, but because turning back would feel like losing everything they’ve invested—time, energy, pride, friendships.

Because hope is hard to let go of.

Even when it’s fake. Even when it’s painful. Even when it comes wrapped in violence.

The truth is, idolizing Duterte gave people comfort. It gave them a name to follow, a face to believe in. A shortcut to change, even if it was an illusion. It felt like being in control. Like finally having a leader who didn’t care what the elites thought. Someone who spoke their language. Someone who promised to clean up the mess.

But idolization doesn’t build nations. It breaks them.

Because once you believe a leader is beyond criticism, you stop doing your job as a citizen.

A friend and former colleague from my ADP Philippines days once said, “Once you become a fan of a politician, you lose a critical skill—the ability to think, to question, and to think again.”
He said it quietly, almost offhand. And he was right.

That’s the thing about idolization—it doesn’t just take away your voice. It removes your reason to use it.

Because even if you stop to reflect on what you’re still defending—to what end?

What is the goal of continuing to support him? He’s no longer president. He’s facing the ICC. He will never lead this country again.

So what’s the point?

And that’s when you start to spiral—justifying what shouldn’t be justified. Saying it wasn’t that bad. Defending it, not because you still believe, but because letting go feels like betrayal.

I’m reminded of that old line—the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

The real strength of a country doesn’t come from the man on the podium.

It comes from the people listening to him—and what they do afterward.

Supporting a leader is not a problem. That’s politics. That’s part of the game.

The problem is when support turns into worship. When pointing out mistakes gets labeled as betrayal. When the conversation becomes one-sided. When facts are replaced with feelings, and governance becomes personality-based performance.

There’s a better way.

We can support leaders and still criticize them. We can celebrate progress but still call out injustice. We can appreciate what a politician has done right without forgetting what they’ve done wrong.

We owe it to ourselves to get better at that.

Because this isn’t just about Duterte anymore.

This is about the kind of political culture we’re passing down to the next generation. If we don’t teach them how to ask questions—real questions—we’re setting them up to repeat the same cycle. Charisma over competence. Loyalty over accountability. Blind hope over real solutions.

And if that happens, we won’t just be victims of the past.

We’ll be enablers of the future.

I look back now and realize the most important thing I ever did in 2016 wasn’t who I voted for.

It was the questions I kept asking after the elections ended.

In the end, what do you really get from idolizing someone like Duterte?

The answer, I think, is close to nothing.

Except maybe a painful reminder of how dangerous it is to stop thinking when someone says, “Ako ang bahala sa inyo.”