Duterte: If you say dictator, well, I am really a dictator

Slamming critics of his administration, President Rodrigo Duterte has said that if it were not for his “dictatorial” style of governance, the country would not make progress.

“If you say dictator, well, I am really a dictator. Because if I don’t [act like a] dictator, nothing will happen to our nation. That’s true,” Duterte said in Cebuano in a speech before former communist rebels in Malacañang on Wednesday night.

“I had to. Besides you have chosen me as your president,” he added.

Duterte also took exception to claims by activists that he is a puppet of the United States, whose previous administration had been critical of his war on drugs, saying it was an insult.

“When did I become a puppet of the Americans?” he said.

Duterte repeatedly said he had no intentions of becoming dictator. He even dared the military to arrest or shoot him should he perpetuate himself in power.

The President also said he would step down from office ahead of the end of his term in June 2022 once a new Constitution, which provides for a federal system of government, is in place.

In September 2016, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said Duterte's iron-fist approach toward crime should not be equated to authoritarianism, which is a government characterized by strong central power and limited civil freedoms. 

He allayed concerns then that Duterte would be a dictator just to restore order in the country amid pressing problems such as terrorism and illegal drugs.

In May 2017, Senator Leila de Lima, however, called Duterte a "haughty and prideful dictator" for rejecting developmental aid from the European Union, at the expense of people in Mindanao. —KG, GMA News