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For quite some time, President Duterte expressed a desire to diversify his foreign policy, extending a hand towards both Moscow and Beijing.
In January 2020, in an exclusive interview for the RT, he stated, rebelliously:
"I want to open new fronts with Russia and China as US lived off the fat of our land" America is not the Philippines and the Philippines is not America. It ain't that way anymore, and I refuse to dovetail under American foreign policy""
But then again, his statements and actions do not seem to be adequate for everybody. Like in the West, many Marxist Filipino intellectuals are "purists"; they demand utopian Western-style Marxist, or even Anarcho-syndicalist methods of "governance."
President Duterte is neither of the above. He is a spontaneous, emotional leader. He is pragmatic. He often acts on the spur of the moment; he makes good moves and he also makes blunders. Sometimes, after he makes mistakes, he corrects them; he steps back, and tries again.
He is not a simple man; he is tormented individual. Sexually molested by a priest when he was a child, he holds a grudge against Christianity. He grew up in a complex family. His mother and father came from different political spectrums: a socialist and an official, a civil servant.
To the horror of some, he has a soft spot for the former dictator Marcos. So were several members of his family.
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