Pity if strongman politics proves the Philippines' undoing again

WHEN Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte swept into power in a decisive victory in May, he took over a country whose economic fortunes had been transformed. In the six years under his predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, the Philippines' annual GDP growth averaged 6.2 per cent, the highest in more than three decades.

Foreign direct investment surged from just US$1.07 billion in 2010 to over US$5.7 billion in 2015. The country, which had previously been dismissed as the "sick man of Asia", was dubbed the region's "rising tiger" by the World Bank in 2013. That same year, its debt garnered its first ever investment grade credit rating from Fitch. The stock market more than doubled between 2009 and June this year.

For foreign investors, the big question barely four months into Mr Duterte's term must be whether the much vaunted stability has been upended for the foreseeable future. More sobering is the question of the primacy of the rule of law. The vicious war on drugs, which effectively gives the green light for extrajudicial killings, has to date chalked up a grim body count of over 3,000, including children and allegedly innocent people, with not even a trial taking place. Attempts by the international community to rein in the bloodshed have elicited only expletive-laden invectives - against US President Barack Obama, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and more recently, the European Union parliament, which last week passed a resolution calling for an end to the killings and for an investigation.