President-elect Rodrigo Duterte assumes office at high noon tomorrow (June 30) as the 16th President of the Philippines. The former mayor of Davao is the first ever from Mindanao and the second local mayor in a hundred years, after the former mayor of Cavite Viejo, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, to reach the presidency. His popular support is undiminished, but by no means is it unanimous; not a few doubt that some of the more spectacular features of his promised change merit their enthusiastic support.

These include the proposed constitutional change to fast-track federalism and the right of foreigners to own land and public utilities and exploit natural resources; restoration of the death sentence; a raise in the value-added tax; and more punitive and draconian methods of population control. The eagerness with which many people want to say goodbye to B.S. Aquino 3rd is clearly matched by their eagerness to see Du30 render irrelevant the last six years of malevolent governance. But this has failed to arrest fears that the country could be headed for uncharted waters, in many areas of its political, economic and social life.

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