Beyond Strategic Maneuvering: Embodied Storytelling as Duterte’s Form of Argumentation

Asian ESP Journal, 2020

Language conveys powerful meaning, especially when they are used in political discourses. This study explored the first State of the Nation Addresses (SONAs) of the three recent presidents of the Republic of the Philippines. Focusing on the ethos, pathos, and logos, this study specifically analyzed the rhetorical appeals and devices used in their speeches using discourse analysis. It also analyzed the most commonly used rhetorical devices by the speakers in making successful rhetorical appeals. Dominating the rhetorical appeal employed by Presidents Duterte, Aquino, and Arroyo to encourage the audience to support their policies and mandates is “ethos.” As regards the rhetorical devices, the use of ‘parallelism' dominates in President Duterte's SONA. On the other hand, ‘anaphora,' and ‘epiplexis’ dominate in the speech of President Aquino while ‘anaphora' is the most common rhetorical device utilized by President Arroyo. It implies that in their SONAs, the use of rhetorical appeals and devices depends much on the manipulation of discursive resources to construct their credibility and expertise as leaders. Secondarily, appeals to emotion are used in order to establish a connection with the audience. In the context of this study, it finds that there was a tendency for speakers to adapt their rhetorical appeals to the context of their tenures.

2019

This paper used the transitivity system to critically analyze how President Rodrigo Duterte explored language utterances in his 2016, 2017 and 2018 State of the Nation Addresses to convey his political promise of change to the Filipinos. The paper employed quantitative and qualitative approaches. Content analysis closely examined the communicative meanings of the linguistic choices used in the addresses. Results reveal that Duterte predominantly used material process in the three addresses to account and concretize his tangible actions and developmental plans for the country. Moreover, verbal process stressed his convictions and directives and to emphasize his charismatic and humorous style of talking. Duterte’s use of relational process is an effort to recognize himself as the prime mover who leads a new foundation to construct a better Philippines. Thus, linguistic choices and structures facilitated the creation of meanings and ideologies which may be hidden to the audience.

Psychology and Education: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 2025

This study aimed to explore and unveil the linguistic features, persuasive strategies and political ideologies used in Vice President Sara Duterte's Speeches. The categories of linguistic features were referred to Finegan's Linguistic Features of Structure and Use (2008). Using a discourse analysis approach, the researcher focused on two dimensions: morphology and syntax. Twenty public speeches were gathered from YouTube. Within the domain of morphology, the study revealed that out of the twenty videos that were analyzed three (3) of them used compounding, five (5) used reduplication and four (4) used initialism. In the realm of syntax, the analysis uncovered three types of sentences: simple, compound and complex sentence. It was revealed that three of the public speeches used simple sentences, four used compound and three used complex sentences. On the other hand, persuasive strategies were referred to as Aristotle Persuasive Strategies (1983). The results of the persuasive strategies revealed that three of the videos used ethical appeal, three used logical and three used emotional appeal. Lastly, political ideologies were referred to Van Dijk Ideological Interaction Theory. It was revealed that two of the public speeches used acquired, two used expressed and two used propagated as political ideology.

Journal of East Asian Studies, 2022

This paper examines speechmaking on a contentious policy by arguably one of the most controversial figures to have assumed the Philippine presidency. Drawing on quantitative textual approaches on a corpus of 845 presidential speeches delivered between June 2016 and July 2020, we provide evidence that Rodrigo Duterte's evocative utterances against drug lords and criminals are not just deliberate illocutionary acts intended to court public support, but also priming tactics aimed towards a politically and economically significant audience whose acquiescence gives symbolic legitimacy to a controversial anti-crime policy. Using quantitative textual approaches and econometric analysis, we find that violent-crime rhetoric is more likely to accompany public pronouncements made before a political audience consisting of law enforcement authorities and government officials, as well as an economic audience made up of business chambers, overseas Filipino workers, and labor groups. Overall, t...

To be followed. The study is still ongoing.

Politics never fails to impress its contentiousness on people, especially during elections where aspirants 'court' the electorate to win. Besides monetary resources, political candidates also consider rhetoric a top machinery. Rhetoric, or the effective use of language to persuade, has been a common research interest, particularly how politicians utilize it. Unique in this study is the probe on the rhetoric of a neophyte political candidate, Senator Grace Poe, who vied for presidency during the Philippine elections in 2016. Using the framework of discourse analysis, the researcher looked into the three appeals of rhetoric—the ethos, pathos, and logos—and the different rhetorical strategies that Senator Poe used in one of her campaign speeches. Results revealed that Poe attempted to build her credibility through her father, the late actor Fernando Poe, Jr., who also ran for president but lost. As an emotional strategy, she reminisced her father's past experiences and reminded the audience about the desirable attributes of Filipinos, which clearly attempted to incite emotions to win the audience's support. Moreover, logical reasoning was also present in her rhetoric by proving claims through non-negotiable ideas and cause-effect relationship. She as well did not miss to utilize rhetorical devices such as repetition, rhetorical questions, meaningful use of we and I, and modality. Overall, Poe's skill to demonstrate rhetoric has not realized strong persuasiveness to influence popular votes.

Asian Politics & Policy, 2025

The article compares the rhetorical strategies of two of the most popular post-martial law presidents in the Philippines, Joseph Estrada (1998-2001) and Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022). Adopting Laclau's definition of populism and localizing De Cleen and Stavrakakis's analysis of socio-spatial dichotomies, I examine the political logic that guided the consolidation of the people and the formation of antagonistic frontiers during the Estrada and Duterte presidencies. I identify the nodal points in their articulation of sympathy, compassion, elite opposition, political will, and belongingness, and plot them on a down/up and in/out axes. In uncovering the operation of populist logic in their political speeches, the article finds that leveraging people's frustrations and unsatisfied demands reinforced Estrada's and Duterte's ability to mobilize support and project themselves as the people's protector and champion. Through an in-depth interrogation of their populist articulation, the article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of populism's durability and enduring appeal.

2020

Purpose: Language is essential in creating ideologies and power as a means of delivering a politician’s agenda. Building such power, this study explored the transitivity processes and how they constructed ideological frame used in the first seven speeches of the Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte on the precautionary measures of the government during the COVID-19 crisis. Approach/Methodology/Design: Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were applied in this study. The corpus of the study was downloaded from the website of the Presidential Communications Operations Office of the Philippine government. These consist of his first seven (7) public speeches and addresses with the 15,749 total number of words. Findings: Guided by Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004; 2014) transitivity system, it was revealed that Duterte has a total 1,371 processes with a preponderance use of material, relational, and mental processes showing that the president’s concrete action, clarity of d...

American Journal of Arts and Human Science

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte's discourse is somehow different from the past presidents that governed the country. Consequently, this made him the most controversial and misunderstood politician for his language. Since metaphors form a significant part of the discourses, this study aims at examining the metaphors used by President Duterte and their possible ideological repercussions to people from different walks of life. The corpora of this study were ten transcripts of his political speeches from the period of his presidential campaign and the early period of his presidency. The identification of metaphorical expressions in ten texts was conducted using a method based on the conceptual metaphor themes listed by Lesz (2011) and were analyzed in the framework of Cognitive Metaphor Theory by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The analysis showed that there were diverse conceptual metaphors identified in the speeches of the president and the employment in his speeches allows him to create...

JEELS (Journal of English Education and Linguistics Studies), 2019

Different types of social or cultural background, combined with a region or social status, go into the making of spoken or written discourse. One of the interesting spoken discourses to discuss is political interview. It often reveals the intention of political leaders' way of speaking. While there are those who are subtle in their way of talking, there are also a few who do not, one of whom is the Philippines' president, Rodrigo Roa Duterte. Known for his outspoken personality, he often states controversial things that influence his country and derive critics from various places. Using van Dijk's (2004) framework, this study analyzes the macro and micro discursive strategies used by Duterte in delivering his views on other countries' relations with the Philippines based on his most-watched English interview with Russia Today. The findings revealed that the macro strategies used by Duterte are positive self-presentation, negative other-presentation, and outside polarization. Meanwhile, the mostly micro discursive strategies used are implication, lexicalization, and example/illustration.

It started with a “no”. On September 7, 2015, despite calls to action from supporters, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte apologised and claimed that he will not be running for President in the 2016 Philippine elections. The tides have now turned. As of this writing, Rodrigo Duterte is now enjoying a landslide lead in the partial election results for the Philippine Presidency. With limited campaign funds, lack of political machinery, business connections and experience in the national arena, how did this underdog change the game? Perhaps, the more important question to ask will be how vital the role of communication media was in Duterte’s campaign strategy, specifically how social media participation has transformed the Mayor into a political phenomenon and how traditional and online media have increased Duterte’s visibility throughout his campaign. According to John Thompson (1995), “Communication media do not merely transmit information from one individual to another, but create new forms of action and interaction that never existed before.” This statement will serve as a backbone for the study and the implications of which will be analysed thoroughly through the case study chosen. To achieve this, the paper will first establish the current political and cultural climate in the Philippines. Then, and drawing on Fenton’s (2007) definitions of political economy and cultural studies, a background on Rodrigo Duterte’s political experience and leadership style as the Mayor of Davao City for the past 22 years will be discussed. Going further, the Duterte campaign strategy will be deconstructed, giving emphasis on how the messages like, “I am a Filipino and my President is Duterte” has contributed to the banal nationalism that Billig (1995) has put forth and how Duterte’s representation of himself as ordinary and one of the masses has created imagined communities (Anderson, 1991) referring to themselves as “Dutertards” (Duterte fantards). How Duterte’s phenomenal rise to popularity can be explained through mass self-communication (Castells, 2009) and how this set-up has transcended traditional notions of the public sphere (Habermas, 1974) will also be taken into account. Furthermore, it will be discussed how emotion and cognition (Castells, 2009) were effectively utilized throughout the campaign. The manner in which television, print and online media exercised their power (Freedman, 2014) and efforts to frame the minds of voters through the Agenda Setting Model (McCombs and Shaw, 1972) will be closely examined. The combination of all these elements have sparked voter discourse, a call to action and a social media revolution to propel Duterte into victory. This paper will ultimately prove how and why.

2020

This paper examines the “war on drugs” rhetoric of populist Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and argues that such a rhetoric is a reiteration of a kind of belligerent rhetoric invoked by his predecessors. Cognitive linguists like Semino (2008) have noted that the use of war as a metaphor serves as a means by which political rhetors frame their solutions to long-standing and intractable problems. The paper investigates more specifically how the use of war metaphor had been deployed in Philippine presidential speeches especially those of Duterte. Invoking the war metaphor involves not just the government’s strong resolve to address intractable national problems like poverty, the insurgency or drug abuse. The metaphor is also particularly useful when silencing opposing views or critical perspectives while boosting the position of the government as the infallible leader of the nation. The war metaphor then has not only constituted the government’s argument against what it deems as ...

When Politicians Talk, 2021

This chapter interrogates the unsettling language of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, particularly his decidedly misogynist or anti-women rhetoric. It specifically examines a series of speeches containing what the president and his spokespersons regard as “rape jokes” against the backdrop of a macho rhetoric that has developed and evolved throughout the rhetorical history of the Philippine presidency. Using a schema theoretic framework informed by critical discourse studies, metaphor studies, and rhetorical theory, the paper argues that Duterte’s sexist rhetoric is not unique. It is merely a reaffirmation of long-standing misogynistic rhetoric that has been sustained and reinforced by presidents and a complicitous public before Duterte took power. Duterte’s rape jokes should then be seen not as a unique feature of the president’s individual rhetoric, but as an extension and recontextualization of rhetoric that had already been established over time. The chapter concludes by recommending that while the president needs to be called out for his unpresidential use of language, critical discourse analysts should also work towards unsettling the broader discourse within which the president’s utterances are instantiated.

Social Science Research Network, 2023

Former-President Rodrigo Duterte's penchant for expressing highly emotionally-charged statements, comments, reactions, and assertions to various issues related to political affairs can be better understood when subjected to a more substantive analysis. The reasons for this are the following: (a) emotions, universally and particularly understood, are vital mechanisms in understanding one's character, behavior, and dispositions in different aspects of human affairs. In this matter, it helps us build an image of Duterte based on his rendering of his emotions in various formations and situations; (b) though emotions shape and affect one's identity, it also is effective in insulating various forms of ulterior motives needed to be fulfilled; (c) emotions or passions, articulated or unarticulated, controlled or uncontrolled, carry with it positive or negative effects to its target objects. In this sense, we can contextualize and categorize Duterte's emotional outbursts based on its use and goal. Martha Nussbaum's notion of emotion most especially her articulation of political emotions opens a space for a new interpretation. This paper then exhorts that a more objective assessment of his "linguistic misconduct" is possible only if our gaze is centered not on what we hear but on that which is truly meant.