Duterte, Rodrigo Roa

Duterte, Rodrigo Roa

(rōdrē`gō rō`ä do͞otâr`tā), 1945–, Philippine lawyer and political leader. He joined the prosecutor's office in Davao, Mindanao, in 1977, served as mayor of the city (1988–98), was elected to the Philippine House of Representatives (1998–2001), and served again as mayor (2001–16). A populist who is often crudely outspoken, he was noted as mayor for taking a tough stance on law and order, but he also encouraged or acquiesced in the extrajudicial murder of hundreds of alleged criminals by police and vigilante groups, and has at times claimed (and also denied) that he took part in killings himself. In 2016 Duterte was elected president of the Philippines, having run on an anticorruption and anticrime platform, and he subsequently publicly supported police and vigilante attacks on alleged criminals, sparking a wave of thousands of killings in the Philippines.