A small helicopter lifted off from the sweltering skyline of Davao, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Even from a distance, no one had any doubts about who was inside: Rody Duterte, the man who loomed large over this city of 1.5-million – and who now appears to have leveraged his way into the Philippine presidency.
In Davao, Mr. Duterte used an iron fist to choke disorder from the city where he served as mayor, ruling with an extraordinary openness to violence that earned him a series of menacing nicknames: The Punisher. Duterte Harry. The Dirty Harry of Davao. The Philippines' own Hitler, or perhaps its Donald Trump.
Now, he promises to bring that style to Manila after winning a plurality of votes in Monday's presidential election; though counting remains incomplete, Mr. Duterte claimed victory Tuesday.
Tourism officials once boasted that "It's More Fun in the Philippines." Under Mr. Duterte, it's likely to be more bloody – a result he himself has eagerly promised.
"It's going to be bloody. And the human rights and all the bleeding hearts of this country will die crying," he said, when I met him last fall.
I had come to Davao after four people, two of them Canadian, were kidnapped from a resort just outside the Davao city boundaries. It was a distinction Mr. Duterte was keen to make: "Davao City is very safe. I can assure there will be no kidnappings here," he said.
He was right: no kidnappings happened on his watch.
But under his tenure, local human rights activists documented death squads that killed more than 1,000 people. Mr. Duterte has denied involvement, but he has offered bounties for killings, including $138,000 to anyone who could bring him the head of a suspected car ring theft leader in 2012. Among the civil rights groups that sprang up under his leadership was the Coalition Against Summary Execution, whose mandate includes documenting "extrajudicial killings of innocent civilians, including children and young people."
But he turned a crime-ridden city into an oasis of safety. Nation-wide, the story is different: In the first six months of last year, authorities reported a 46 per cent rise in crime. In half a year, the Philippines chalked up 6,607 homicides. Canada, with a third the population, reported 516 in all of 2014. There was never any doubt about what Mr. Duterte wants to accomplish: To take his Davao model national.
He has pledged to wipe out crime in six months, and suggested the Philippines needs funeral parlours, not jails, to deal with the toll of his leadership. He has publicly mooted killing 100,000 people, so many "you will see the fish in Manila Bay getting fat" from the bodies dumped there.
He intends the nation-wide implementation of rules he enforced in Davao, including a ban on late-night drinking, the closure of loud karaokes and mandatory escorts for minors after 10 p.m.
Last fall, he laid out a grand vision to ignore the rule of law in service of something greater.
"Every idiot, every drug warrior and the kidnappers will have to go. If I'm going to be president, I will make a difference. If I cannot make a difference, I'd rather not," he said.
"It would be no quarters given, no quarters asked. And at the end of my term, I am very sure I'd be facing so many charges. And I would go to jail. And that is a sacrifice. But then my redemption will come if the next president will see the light of the day and maybe will say, 'This guy did something more useful for our country, and if you do not excuse him, you just have to pardon him.' "And that would be my redemption."
It has never been hard to see the allure of the motorcycle-riding Mr. Duterte, who was elected mayor seven times. In a country plagued by violence, he fought fire with fire. And while the human rights defenders screeched at his methods, he became a hero to most in Davao, who enjoyed streets they could walk safely at night, a leader whose ear for the common person included occasionally taking the wheel of a taxi to solicit opinion, and a mayor whose bluntness made people feel he was always telling the truth.
Had intelligence failures led to the kidnapping of the Canadians? Another politician might have equivocated. Mr. Duterte said: "Yes." Then he apologized to the intelligence community for saying so. And he went on to give an astute political analysis of how the hostage-taking would affect a local peace process before enumerating the steps he had personally taken to intervene.
That included calling up local rebel leaders and even offering himself as a personal substitute for the hostages. "I would be happy to be a human sacrifice," he said. It was no empty boast: He had done the same before.
In this way, the comparisons to Donald Trump are unfair, if not plain wrong. Mr. Duterte is no buffoon. He has an appreciation for nuance, and a vision that includes more than self-aggrandizement. Under his leadership, Davao officials like to boast, one survey voted the city ninth-safest on earth. He has challenged orthodoxy in the Catholic country by supporting LGBT rights.
He has a sweeping vision for the Philippines, too, which includes installing a federal system that devolves powers to states. He has already braced the country for the constitutional battles he intends to wage.
At home in Mindanao, riven by conflict between rebel and ethnic groups, it's a popular vision.
"Federalism can neutralize the conflict," said Rolando Olamit, the second in command at the Moro National Liberation Front, the largest and best-organized armed Muslim rebel group in the region. "The problems will reduce – it may be the most effective government," he said in an interview last fall.
What's not clear, however, is whether the tactics Mr. Duterte used to imprint his will on a city will work on the much larger landscape of a country.
My own encounter with Mr. Duterte showed the degree of intimidation he is willing to employ in service of his aims – including the maintenance of his own image.
In my conversation with Mr. Olamit, a committed supporter of the mayor, I remarked that Mr. Duterte looked much younger than his age; he was then 70. "Girls, a lot of girls. It helps. It's medicine. I think it's very effective," Mr. Olamit replied.
It was a joke, but a revealing one. Mr. Duterte has not been shy about his relationships with women. He has joked about maintaining multiple girlfriends. A court, in approving the annulment of his marriage, said he had a "penchant to engage in extra-marital affairs" and "carries gross indifference to others' needs and feelings," according to documents obtained by Rappler. During the presidential campaign, his attitude toward women thrust him into the headlines, when he joked about raping a hostage because "she was so beautiful."
When I printed Mr. Olamit's "girls" crack, though, anger rippled through Davao. The mayor's office and Mr. Olamit both raged at a Filipino journalist I had worked with as a fixer in Davao.
Human rights groups have long warned about the "impunity" Mr. Duterte exercised in prosecuting his anti-crime agenda.
My encounter with the angry mayor suggested how the tactics he bred could quickly be turned on enemies. With the mayor angry, Mr. Olamit sent me a message, calling me an "ingrate."
Then came the warning. Among Mr. Duterte's angry supporters, I was told, some said, "It's you who should be kidnapped and not the tourists." And were that to happen, "they will do nothing to help rescue you."
The message was clear: Cross Mr. Duterte, and no price is too small to pay. It's a worrisome portent for the Philippines.