President Duterte rules the Philippines for six months, and during this short time, he became the subject of the harsh criticism from the international community. However, the people trusts its leader, for the six-month period Rodrigo Duterte’s popularity increased significantly: his powerful attack on the criminal structures added to the Duterte the political weight.
Rodrigo Duterte has chosen his own political way to rule the Philippines, President capes first six months with solid growth. According to the statistics, Duterte ends this fragile period on a positive note. The Philippines demonstrates the fastest growth rates in Asia in 2016 despite the concerning prognoses of the opponents.
However, the most powerful impression Duterte made because of his burnishing a law-and-order image in a brutal extrajudicial crackdown on drug use. President announced a war to the criminal world and the drugs cartel on the very first day of his presidency. And he delivered his promise, the war and hundreds of killed people caused a storm of criticism from the US and other democratic countries.
Duterte and Philippines: facts and figures
On Thursday the Philippine Statistics Authority has released its annual report, which reflected the economy growth by 6.8 percent for the year. The 4th quarter was a really good period for the economy, its gross domestic product grew by 6.6 percent.
Facts and figures indicate, however, that the last quarter of 2016 characterises with the slowest pace of growth. The analysts attributed it to weak agricultural production resulting from a series of natural disasters and presidential campaigns in the begining of the year.
Despite all the economic and political factors, the trade and manufacturing as well as the real estate and renting are the key rivers of the economic groeth. The Philippines industrial sector demonstrated the fastest growth at 7.6 percent on-year. As Joey Cuyegkeng, senior economist at ING wrote on his email to CNBC:
“The current government has sustained the economic policies that have been responsible for a trend growth of 6.2 percent in the last six years. The economic team is also a solid team and has significant influence on the President’s economic decisions.”
Another critical moment was the relations of Duterte and Barack Obama, and the new American president probably has a similar intention to fight with the crime in the USA. At least, press have compared already Duterte and Trump, both them are tough-talking politicians, especially in the issue of the combating crime. Additionally, the Philippines was not a part of the TPP, that could be a very poitive moment in the relations between US and Philippines in future.
