State and Society in the Philippines in the Duterte Era

A conversation with Patricio N. Abinales

 Context behind the book:

o “Cornell Mafias”
 Government/History departments
 The Southeast Asia Program
 Wife was doing Malaysian history, minor in German history
o Southeast Asia via Kyoto
 Engagements
 “Atsi” – Caroline Hau
o Periodizations and State
o How do you write a book with Chinese, muslims, and women?
 Discernment
o Colonial era
 Spanish reformism
o American colonial state
 Tammary hall in manila
 Progressivesism in Moro Mindanao and the Cordilleras
o Quezon
 Fascinating guy – has an idea of how the country would be
o What we did was look at the colonial bulding in the Philippines along with the united
states
o Cacique rule and Marcos
 Techno cracies and “national development”
o Generational tentions
 “hey joe” vs. “joe ma”
o Pinas and Asia
 Vietnam, china, indonesia
o “Peripheries”
 Mindanao, Muslim Mindanao
 Features
o Wars and nation-state building
 World War II
 MNLF war
o 15 years of dictatorship
 Reshaping the state
 “nationalism”
 “supreme cacique”
o Post authorirarianism: 1986-2004
 Marcos, military, etc
 Democratization – cory’s legacy
 Mongrel: Ramos
 o If you want to understand Duterte, you have to understand, Marcos and Cory
 Populism
o Populism preceeded Duterte
o Outsiders
 Magsaysay -> promdi -> governor -> president -> killed in crash
 Cory -> cojuancos -> “house wife” -> widow -> presidential candidate ->
president -> willingly passed on power to successor
 Estrada -> mayor -> senator (opposition) -> VP -> President -> forced to resign
 Duterte -> promdi -> mayor -> president
 What do they have in common? No one came from ateneo/UP
o Popular perversion towards “elites”
o “My guy Magsaysay”, “tita cory”, “erap”, and “tatay digong”
o What else?
 Davao
o What makes davao different from cebu etc?
 1980 – Davao was connected to the world
 Sushi consumption
o Global connection but strong community ties
 Settlement + plantations
o Davao and the state: Almendras and Duterte, Luis Santos
o Marcos
o “Gikan sa Masa, para sa Masa”
 Davao Sunday TV show: he was already cussing publicly
o Local Media -> political culture (Resil Mojares on the radio)
o The reason why we cannot understand him because, we should first understand local
politics.
o Very few people study outside metro manila
o Duterte was a oroduct of Marcos,
