The will to power towards revaluation: Nietzsche as a critique to Rodrigo Duterte and his populism

Rodrigo Duterte, the 16th president of the Philippines, is an example and part of the global rise of populism in the 21st century. It is difficult and insufficient to explain the phenomenon of populism and an individual populist’s rise to power using traditional political philosophies and theories. In place of this, Harper and Schaaf analyzed Trump, another populist and Duterte-like figure, using a Nietzschean lens with ideas of power, resentment, and self-preservation. They critique Trump as a figure that exploits the instinct for self-preservation of his popular base like that of Nietzsche’s ascetic priest. Using the same lens, I examine two populist strategies of Duterte: (1) his rejection of democratic mediatory institutions like ABS-CBN and Rappler, and (2) his narratives of exclusion toward the tri-people of Mindanao and the economic lower-middle-class. While Nietzsche’s ascetic ideal does not substantially explain Duterte’s power and populism, Nietzsche’s will to power suggests that Duterte directs his will to power in the manner of the slave type. In terms of ressentiment, it points to how Duterte provokes his base’s ressentiment in an attempt that leads to a desire for a revaluation. The differences between the Philippines’ and the US’s social and historical landscape grounds the essential difference in conclusion between Harper and Schaaf’s critique of Trump and my examination of Duterte–with the 1986 People Power Uprising acting as a landmark event for Duterte