The way things are taking shape in the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte could soon be out — and back.

Barred by the constitution from standing again for the presidency, Duterte is preparing for life after next year’s elections from a position of unprecedented strength.

He will almost certainly test norms well-established even in a country where personality and name have long mattered above all else. The anti-Duterte camp will cringe at the prospect of having a coarse, pugnacious populist around for years to come. Yet it's the nation’s democracy and its coronavirus-battered economy that would suffer most.