There’s every reason – much of it clinical, to be sure – to ascribe Rodrigo Duterte’s abnormal or extreme actions to his narcissistic personality and despotic disposition. The danger there lies in missing the method to his madness by taking his actions discretely.

Duterte is definitely no simple case. Not only does his condition transcend the psychological, it affects an entire nation. He happens to be President, and one backed by coopted institutions and enabled by a circle of sycophants similarly afflicted as he or looking to profit for themselves from his gangland-style leadership.

Duterte is not an individual case; he is one whole sick regime. And, if dire surprises are to be avoided, everything he does ought to be taken in that context.

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