With all due respect to the good folks at Time magazine, their latest list of the 100 most influential people is woefully incomplete without Rodrigo Duterte.
There are several deserving Asians on the list. Chinese President Xi Jinping is there. So is Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's first female leader, along with Myanmar icon Aung San Suu Kyi, Indian central bank head Raghuram Rajan, North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un and Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. But none of the Asians who Time honored is likely to change the geopolitical calculus on the most dynamic region more than a President Duterte in the Philippines.
This is still an "if," of course. But this strongman who pledges public hangings for criminals, irks human rights watchdogs, unapologetically tells rape jokes and appears to have little use for democratic checks and balances is the clear front-runner as the nation of 100 million heads to the polls on May 9. His likely foreign policy? Think Donald Trump speaking Tagalog, and you get the picture. Duterte's rising numbers, it's worth noting, have made the peso Asia's worst performing currency.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.