'Foul-mouthed' Duterte most popular politician in Philippines [View all]

[yuiyoshida]

Manila - Despite foul-mouthed tirades, international outrage and a public spat with Barack Obama, Rodrigo Duterte is the most popular politician in the Philippines.

As the politically incorrect president enters the third month of his six-year term, the Asian nation's slums are drenched in blood from a brutal anti-drug campaign that has seen police and shadowy assassins kill nearly 3,000 people.

But 71-year-old Duterte is riding high on record approval ratings, with the acid-tongued and irascible grandfather shrugging off repeated controversies including unprovoked and obscene attacks on the United Nations and the US president, whom he this week called a "son of a whore".

Critics said he was a dictator in the making, but 16 million people voted the former state prosecutor into office earlier this year, a landslide win fuelled by widespread disgust at conventional politicians in a raucous, corruption-ridden democracy.

"He is probably saying things ordinary people would not say because they are fearful or ashamed," political scientist Antonio Contreras told AFP.

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