Abstract

After supplanting one of the most liberally oriented governments in recent Philippine history, the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte navigated a tumultuous six-year term subject to sustained criticism of wanton disregard for human rights and controversial foreign policy. He was succeeded by Ferdinand Marcos II, heir to the authoritarian figure whose downfall marked the restoration of liberal democracy in 1986. Selected literature from contemporary Filipino scholars explores this phenomenon in three themes: (1) a population’s susceptibility to manipulative disinformation, (2) discursive interactions between populists and the public, and (3) historical patterns between leaders and their associated regimes. This paper complements this body of research by utilizing critical realism to introduce the ideas of structured entities as targets of agential action, positioned agents that give materiality to meaning constructed in discourse, emergent structures irreducible to the leaders who are instrumental in their creation, and the necessity or contingency of relations between regimes.