Rodrigo "Rody" Roa Duterte (born March 28, 1945), also known by the nickname Digong, is a Filipino lawyer
and politician of Visayan descent serving as the 16th President
of the Philippines since 2016. He
is the first Mindanaoan president of the country.
Duterte was among the
longest-serving mayors in the Philippines and was Mayor of Davao City, a highly urbanized city on Mindanao
island, for seven terms, totaling more than 22 years. He has also served as
vice-mayor and as congressman for the city.
Duterte was urged to run for
the Philippine presidency numerous times, but
he refused these offers until well into 2015 on the grounds of a "flawed
government system", old age and opposition from his family. Nevertheless,
on November 21, 2015, he declared
his candidacy in the2016 election
contest for the office of the President of the Philippines, and won
with a landslide victory, garnering 16,601,997 votes (39.01% of total votes
cast, and 6.6 million votes ahead of closest rival Mar Roxas). Duterte took office on
June 30, 2016, for a term of six years
Early life
Duterte was born on March 28,
1945, in Maasin (now the capital of Southern Leyte but was then part of the insular
province of Leyte in the Philippine Commonwealth).His father was Cebuano lawyer Vicente G. Duterte and his mother was Soledad Roa, a native of Cabadbaran,Agusan, who was a school
teacher and a civic leader of Maranao descent. Duterte's father Vicente,
prior to being provincial governor of (the then-undivided) Davao province, was once an acting
mayor of Danao, Cebu. Rodrigo's
cousin Ronald, on the other hand, served as Cebu
Citymayor from 1983 to 1986. Ronald’s father, Ramon Duterte, also held the
position from 1957 to 1959. The Dutertes consider the Cebu-based political
families of the Durano and the
Almendras clan as relatives. Duterte
also has relatives from the Roa clan in Leyte through his mother's side. Before they resettled to Davao,
Duterte's family briefly lived in his birthplace in Maasin, Leyte, and in his
father's hometown in Danao, Cebu, until he was four years old.
The Dutertes initially moved to Mindanao in 1948 but still go back and forth to
the Visayas until 1949. They
finally settled in the Davao
Region in 1950. Vicente as a lawyer engaged in private practice, while Soledad
taught in public schools as a teacher. Mrs Duterte, however, retired as a
supervisor in 1952 when her lawyer-husband entered politics there.
Education
Duterte went to Laboon
Elementary School in Maasin, for a year. He
spent his remaining elementary days at the Santa Ana Elementary School in Davao City, where he graduated in
1956. He finished his secondary education in the High School Department of the
then Holy Cross College of Digos (now Cor
Jesus College) in today's city of Digos in the now defunct Davao province, after being expelled
twice from previous schools, including one in Ateneo
de Davao University High School due
to misconduct. At the tertiary level, he graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of
Arts degree in political science at the Lyceum of the Philippines in Manila. He also obtained a law
degree from San Beda College of Law, still in Manila, in
1972. In the same year, he passed the bar exam. Duterte eventually became
Special Counsel at the City Prosecution Office in Davao City from 1977–79;
Fourth Assistant City Prosecutor from 1979–81; Third Assistant City Prosecutor
from 1981–83; and Second Assistant City Prosecutor from 1983–86.
Duterte claimed publicly to
have shot a fellow student while in law school for allegedly bullying him because of his Visayan origins. His victim, however,
survived, and although Duterte was prohibited from participating in the
commencement march, he did graduate.
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