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Political tsunami may be cliché, but it is difficult to find a more suitable metaphor to describe the stunning election victory of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines presidential election on 9 May 2016. An unconventional politician from the country's southernmost island of Mindanao, whose crude comments and antics throughout the campaign courted considerable controversy, was the consummate outsider. Yet, on a platform largely devoted to improving law and order by employing draconian measures, weeding out corrupt officials and improving the lives of impoverished Filipinos who make up the bulk of the country's 100 million people, Duterte secured 39 per cent of the vote and demolished the other, rather lacklustre...