Media still fixated with Rodrigo Duterte, ready to provide positive coverage

TWO YEARS out of office, Rodrigo Duterte continues to retain his popularity, capturing media attention with his statements as he did when he was in office. The polling firm Pulse Asia reported in June 2022 that Duterte, unlike his predecessors,  had kept his high approval rating throughout the entire six years of his term, finishing at 73 percent.

In retirement, he has not withdrawn from the limelight completely, calling late night press conferences from his home in Davao City.  

More recently, Duterte joined the “Basta Dabawenyo” podcast aired on the Youtube channel of his son Sebastian Duterte, incumbent Davao City mayor. In the January 18 episode, Duterte claimed that the bicameral conference committee report of the 2025 budget had blanks for amounts of some line items; saying the blanks made the budget “invalid” and “unenforceable.”

Isidro Ungab, Davao City 3^rd District representative, was actually the one who had access to the document and was holding copies of the bicam report that had the blanks. But it was Duterte who made the statement and the one quoted in local and national media. Headlines carried his name, with stories that treated the former president as the primary source with hardly any reference to Ungab in the coverage.  

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., denied the accusation that he had signed a budget document with blanks — which was carried in reports on January 19. Marcos called Duterte a liar and said that the budget he, Marcos, signed into law did not have blanks. 

Media let the story unfold from this exchange, with reports seeking confirmation from representatives. Unfortunately, reports did not say whether journalists had actually checked the documents themselves to claim independently the truth about the document signed by the president. The reports also failed to explain the importance of the issue.

Duterte as newsmaker

The episode points to Duterte, who without office or authority continues to capture media attention and hold forth as a newsmaker. Would the issue have gained traction in the news if only Ungab had made the claim? 

With Duterte as source, media had no problem picking up the story regardless of whether the former president had any authority to speak on the subject. The press has not moved away from the treatment given to Duterte when he was president, keeping up with his antics even after he had stepped down from high office.

In reporting the story about blanks in the budget document, reporters should have checked with other sources directly involved with the matter. But they did not. It was enough to say that Duterte said so. 

CMFR tracked the significant coverage given to Duterte’s remarks in 2024, including his accusation that Marcos was a drug addict; his call for Mindanao’s secession; and his claim of a “fractured governance” under Marcos that only the military could “correct.” Media gave these claims prominence even as other knowledgeable sources spoke out to dismiss the claims as a non-story. 

The coverage has also been selective in treatment. Reports have ignored or marginalized stories on negative news about the former president, failing to follow up on developments to hold the former president accountable for the many deaths caused by his central policy on the “war on drugs.”

CMFR noted in a previous monitor the undue deference given to Duterte by Senators Koko Pimentel, Ronald dela Rosa and Bong Go, who allowed him to speak freely during the Senate’s hearings on drug-related killings.

Duterte was not questioned further even after he had admitted that he formed death squads to deal with the drug problem, and that he ordered police to goad drug suspects to fight back so that their execution can be justified. Only Senator Risa Hontiveros attempted to question him about his accountability. 

As for the media, their reports did little more to probe and establish with clarity Duterte’s role in the policy of killing suspects. Coverage was satisfied with quotes, hardly departing to investigate further than what “he said, she said.” 

The House quad committee has been hearing drug-related killings longer than their counterparts in the upper chamber. After hearing testimonies from former hired guns and police, both retired and in service, the panel in December 2024 recommended the filing of charges for crimes against humanity against Duterte, Dela Rosa and Go.

Media did not give this significant development the prominence and sustained discussion it deserved, in contrast to the media hype given to Duterte’s remarks on the budget. This recommendation was given space that could have slipped out of public attention entirely. 

Among the Manila-based broadsheets, only the Philippine Daily Inquirer made the Quad comm’s recommendation a banner story. As it was also announced late on December 18, primetime newscasts treated it as a developing story. But the media follow-up the next day was limited to reporting the reaction of President Marcos who said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would review the quad comm’s findings and determine whether this move was warranted. No comments from Duterte were reported. 

The news died as the government went on Christmas break. So far, the DOJ has not announced its intentions to pursue the cases against Duterte or not. And the lack of media discussion suggests the vague future of this issue.

“Sanewashing” Duterte

US media have been using the term “sanewashing” to refer to the coverage of President Donald Trump, who like Duterte remains a controversial figure even after winning a second run for the White House. The Poynter Institute defines sanewashing as “the act of packaging radical and outrageous statements in a way that makes them seem normal.”

Philippine media have not adopted the term, but the general practice certainly adheres to it. Writing for Vera Files in 2024, Mindanaoan and now Europe-based columnist Antonio Montalvan II criticized local media’s endurance for Duterte’s late-night press conferences. He said, “After more than two decades, Davao city media can still stomach Rodrigo Duterte’s long-winding empty perorations, to say nothing of the fact that his monologues do not hold much material for news.”

National media have indeed picked up the statements from these monologues, presenting these as part of normal media discourse. Furthermore, media exercises its selectivity, with less attention given to developments to hold Duterte and his family accountable for various crimes and misdemeanors.

The public should be alert to this media bias, as it tends to whitewash the record of incompetence and abuse of power exercised by arguably one of the worst leaders to be elected to high office.