Democratic backsliding in the Philippines: Are voters becoming illiberal?

Abstract

Democratic backsliding by incumbents is one of the most prevalent forms of backsliding in recent global trends of democratic erosion. Understanding the attitude of voters toward backsliding incumbents is crucial because popular support is the basis of legitimacy for these incumbents. This article studies voter attitudes in the Philippines, where democracy was subverted by the incumbent president, Rodrigo Duterte, who served from 2016 to 2022. Specifically, we examine the validity of the claim that Filipino voters are acquiring a “taste for illiberal rule” made by some scholars. First, we analyzed the survey data regarding the support for various types of political systems, where part of the data comes from our originally commissioned survey at the Social Weather Stations. Second, we explored Pulse Asia's longitudinal survey data on martial-rule support. Our investigation of these survey data did not find substantive support for the “taste for illiberal rule” proposition. Further, we argue that Filipino voters are contingent supporters of illiberal politics while supporting the procedural principles of democracy at the baseline.

Bowed, Bent, & Broken: Duterte's Assaults on Civil Society in the Philippines

“…Emerging findings also suggest that public fear of Duterte's use of violence in police operations compromises the truthfulness of public opinion surveys, to the extent that surveys overestimated support for the war on criminality and drugs by 30–40 percentage points, inflating the perception of public support (Iglesias and Cheng 2022). Other studies also confirm an over-reporting of Duterte's popularity due to social desirability bias and preference falsification (Kasuya and Miwa 2023). That said, fear of Duterte is not necessarily antithetical to his popularity, which is reflected in the 60% vote share his daughter, Sara Duterte, won when she ran for vice president in 2022.…”

Confronting the Philippines' war on drugs: A literature review

“…Supporters of the WOD often claim that the popularity of the WOD, attested to by opinion surveys, means the WOD simply makes sense to Filipinos; those who fail to understand it are therefore ‘out of touch’ with the Filipino people (Mogato & Baldwin, 2017). Kasuya and Miwa (2023) however found that Duterte, and conversely, the WOD, may not be as popular as the polls depict. Duterte's popularity in polls has been inflated by social desirability bias, a form of preference falsification to appear socially acceptable possibly to protect themselves from being targeted or keep access to resources (Kasuya & Miwa, 2023).…”

“…Kasuya and Miwa (2023) however found that Duterte, and conversely, the WOD, may not be as popular as the polls depict. Duterte's popularity in polls has been inflated by social desirability bias, a form of preference falsification to appear socially acceptable possibly to protect themselves from being targeted or keep access to resources (Kasuya & Miwa, 2023). Still, most scholars puzzled over the popularity of killings in the WOD among Filipinos.…”