Mediating Coalitions and the Politics of Civil Rights in the Philippines under Duterte

Abstract

The Duterte administration in the Philippines displayed broad hostility towards civil rights. Yet its approach to specific civil rights issues varied significantly. This paper analyses this variation by focusing on two cases: the lowering of the minimum age of criminal responsibility and extra-judicial killings in the war on drugs. In both cases, Duterte and his allies sought to enact and implement policies that infringed civil rights, yet they only succeeded in the latter. The nature and role of mediating coalitions — configurations of actors that opposed, supported, or disengaged from efforts by Duterte and his allies to undermine civil rights — were the key determinants of this variation. The government backed down on lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility because unified rights groups were supported by sections of the oligarchic elite. But it conducted, incited, and persisted with extra-judicial killings in the war on drugs due to fragmentation among rights groups and an absence of significant support for these groups from oligarchic elites. This variation has significant implications for how scholars understand the politics of civil rights in the Philippines, particularly during the Duterte presidency, as well as strategies to better protect civil rights in the country.