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    Balleras, CS PHLO 176

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    The document analyzes President Duterte's declaration of martial law in Mindanao using Niccolo Machiavelli's political philosophy. It argues that the martial law diminishes Duterte's power rather than expanding it, as Machiavelli intended for leaders to do. While Duterte justified the martial law using Machiavellian concepts of military virtue and reason of state, it failed to achieve order and security. The human rights violations and lack of progress in resolving the situation have reduced Duterte's credibility rather than empowering him. Therefore, Duterte cannot truly be considered a Machiavellian leader through this flawed political move of imposing martial law.

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    Balleras, CS PHLO 176

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    Care Balleras
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    The document analyzes President Duterte's declaration of martial law in Mindanao using Niccolo Machiavelli's political philosophy. It argues that the martial law diminishes Duterte's power rather than expanding it, as Machiavelli intended for leaders to do. While Duterte justified the martial law using Machiavellian concepts of military virtue and reason of state, it failed to achieve order and security. The human rights violations and lack of progress in resolving the situation have reduced Duterte's credibility rather than empowering him. Therefore, Duterte cannot truly be considered a Machiavellian leader through this flawed political move of imposing martial law.

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    The document analyzes President Duterte's declaration of martial law in Mindanao using Niccolo Machiavelli's political philosophy. It argues that the martial law diminishes Duterte's power rather than expanding it, as Machiavelli intended for leaders to do. While Duterte justified the martial law using Machiavellian concepts of military virtue and reason of state, it failed to achieve order and security. The human rights violations and lack of progress in resolving the situation have reduced Duterte's credibility rather than empowering him. Therefore, Duterte cannot truly be considered a Machiavellian leader through this flawed political move of imposing martial law.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    56 views3 pages

    Balleras, CS PHLO 176

    Uploaded by

    Care Balleras
    The document analyzes President Duterte's declaration of martial law in Mindanao using Niccolo Machiavelli's political philosophy. It argues that the martial law diminishes Duterte's power rather than expanding it, as Machiavelli intended for leaders to do. While Duterte justified the martial law using Machiavellian concepts of military virtue and reason of state, it failed to achieve order and security. The human rights violations and lack of progress in resolving the situation have reduced Duterte's credibility rather than empowering him. Therefore, Duterte cannot truly be considered a Machiavellian leader through this flawed political move of imposing martial law.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 3

    The Machiavellian Paradox in Duterte’s Martial Law

    This paper shall argue that President Rodrigo Duterte is not a Machiavellian leader
    because of his flawed political move in declaring Proclamation No. 216 or the 2017 Martial
    Law in Mindanao as this move diminishes his power more than acquiring it. This will be further
    strengthened by an attempt to see the justifiable and refutable sides of the mentioned martial
    law using Nicolo Machiavelli’s political philosophy.

    Martial Law in Mindanao

    On May 23, 2017, Duterte declared Proclamation No. 216 known as the 2017 Martial
    Law in Mindanao including the islands of Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, and Sulu. This is an abrupt
    decision of the government after attacks of the Islamist group called Dawlah Islamiya in
    Marawi which caused bloodbath in the city. The execution of the law was guided by the 1987
    constitution as opposed to the Martial Law by Ferdinand Marcos Jr. whereas it can only run in
    60 days and the president must submit an official report containing legitimate points on why
    martial law must be applied in Marawi to the congress within 48 hours after the declaration.
    Further, the president cannot also extend the maximum 60-day duration without the approval
    of the congress and cannot make the constitution invalid during martial law.

    Notwithstanding the emphasized changes from the Marcos-like martial law, Duterte
    still pushes that it will be done the Marcos’ way. Military troops were sent to parts of Mindanao
    to conduct in-depth search operations. And despite reports of progress from the Armed Forces
    of the Philippines (AFP) itself, Duterte along with the congress pushed through with extensions
    and right now, the martial law still pervades in the entire island.

    As the rationale of this martial law stands as the protection of the Mindanao citizens
    from terrorist groups such as aforementioned, it is rightful to scrutinize if it is really functional
    in maintaining stability and if it really provides security to the citizens.

    Justifications Using Machiavellian Philosophy

    In the term itself “martial” law, military is the topmost institution currently governing
    Mindanao. The law mandates the security of the people from the looming terrorist attacks and
    this can be easily reflected as a Machiavellian conception of “virtue” as military valor i. For
    him, the quality of military action is significant in resolving political conflicts. Ideally, the
    military is used as an institution to propagate resolutions between the state and non-state actors.
    This kind of readiness may it be on violent war or confrontations, is the element of prudence
    that Machiavelli upholds in his concept of virtue.

    Human rights violations against Lumads, farmers, and activists are prevalent. As of
    October 2018, 1,009 have been killed in the war, including 160 government forces, 802 alleged
    fighters of the local armed groups, and at least 47 civilians ii However, this does not concern
    Duterte much because he believes that the martial law was the reason behind the capture of
    the Islamist group’s leaders iii. Moreover, despite of the historical trauma of the Filipinos
    brought by Marcos’ martial law, Duterte still uses the possible extension of the Mindanao
    martial law to threaten the Filipinos.

    This is a clear manifestation of Machiavellian perspective that politics particular


    acquisition of power must be independent of morality. He advocated for the reason of state
    which is a concept that justifies even the violent means a stateman decided to conduct just to
    expand his power. And in this case, Machiavelli’s philosophy is useful to justify that the
    dangerous statements and human rights violations caused by the martial law is just a means to
    attain power over not only the Dawlah Islamiyah, but over the entire Philippines as well.

    Objections Using Machiavellian Philosophy

    Now, these justifications can also be invalidated by Machiavelli’s political philosophy.


    As mentioned in the central claim of this paper, the martial law execution in Mindanao is a
    flawed political move of Duterte in the same perspective used in justifying it because of the
    following reasons: First, the cruelty that was done in Mindanao was not to achieve the rationale
    of the law which is to secure the people. There are reports telling that Marawi is now
    progressiveiv, yet the president still pushes to extend martial law for the same reasons from
    yesteryear on its initial declaration. Currently, Marawi has been proved to look like a ghost
    town with population almost diminished and properties turned into ashes v. This is totally
    different from the Machiavelli’s idea of mercifulness and cruelty because it was mentioned that
    the latter can only be justifiable if it creates order vi. Clearly, there was no order produced from
    the Martial Law.

    Second, the means mentioned do not fully attend to an expansion of power and even
    diminishes the power of Duterte. It is because the acquisition of power that is assumed to be
    his end in doing the violent means lessened his credibility as a leader more than empowering
    him. His leadership ability was reduced into merely doing vicious actions and not strategically
    gaining power. According to Machiavelli, the prince or the leader must not be hated by the
    populace for when the people became hostile to the leader, he must fear everything and
    everybodyvii. Moreover, it was emphasized that when the time comes that the people have their
    arms against the leader, stable security of the state will less likely to happen viii. Currently,
    Duterte is being lambasted even by his initial supporters from Mindanao because he failed to
    use his iron fist to flatten the wrinkled situation of the citizens ix.

    If Filipinos hate Duterte and can possibly overthrow him because of this hatred, what power
    does he have now?

    Duterte as the Machiavellian Filipino Leader

    The defeat of the justifications of martial law in Mindanao as a power-acquiring move of


    Duterte proves that there is a misconception when he was described as a Machiavellian leader.
    While it is understandable that he is being considered as one because of his flagship campaign
    of maintaining an iron fist to resolve the problems of the state x, the full implementation of
    Machiavelli’s power expansion and state orderliness were obviously not fulfilled.

    Conclusion

    Nevertheless, the call to Duterte is not to focus on how will he manage to attain the
    Machiavellian image, but to genuinely solve the problem in Mindanao. Despite of this being a
    contemporary Philippine issue, classical philosophies of Aristotle maintaining that the state
    should be an avenue for a people to flourish shall be respectfully upheld xi. And if the state was
    not able to provide this, us Filipinos have to right to criticize the government. Similarly, modern
    era’s Mill in the concept of absolute liberty by the allowance of people to speak up in spite of
    deviating from the opinion of the manyxii shall also be ingrained to Filipino especially the
    youth. In times of crises, it is nothing but important for everyone to be more vigilant on every
    step of the head of state and be proactive in crafting a better nation for all.

    i
    Ebenstein, William, and Ebenstein, Alan. 1990. Great Political Thinkers: Plato to Present. Fifth. Holt,
    Rinehart and Winston, inc.
    ii
    Karapatan.Org. 2018. “Martial Law in Mindanao: Year One,” May 28, 2018.
    http://www.karapatan.org/MARTIAL+LAW+IN+MINDANAO%3A+YEAR+ONE.
    iii
    Quintos, Patrick. 2017. “Fall of Omar: Sniper Headshot Killed Maute Group Founder.” ABS-CBN News,
    October 16, 2017. https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/16/17/fall-of-omar-sniper-headshot-killed-maute-group-
    founder.
    iv
    Macas, Trisha, and Raffy Tima. 2017. “Duterte Declares Marawi City Is Free.” GMA News Online, October
    17, 2017, sec. News. https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/629820/duterte-declares-marawi-city-is-
    free/story/.
    v
    Fonbuena, Carmela. 2018. “Marawi One Year after the Battle: A Ghost Town Still Haunted by the Threat of
    ISIS.” The Guardian, May 22, 2018, sec. Global. https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/may/22/marawi-
    one-year-siege-philippines-ghost-town-still-haunted-threat-isis.
    vi
    Ebenstein, W and Ebenstein, A. op. cit., p. 328
    vii
    Ebenstein, W and Ebenstein, A. op. cit., p. 331
    viii
    Ebenstein, W and Ebenstein, A. op. cit., p. 334
    ix
    Karapatan.org, op. cit.
    x
    Heydarian, Richard. 2017. “Duterte’s Art of the Deal.” Nationalinterest.Org, October 22, 2017.
    https://nationalinterest.org/feature/dutertes-art-the-deal-22840.
    xi
    Ebenstein, W and Ebenstein, A. op. cit., p. 83
    xii
    Ebenstein, W and Ebenstein, A. op. cit., p. 654-659

    2015 - 02237

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