Injustices and Insecurities: Victimhood in Rodrigo Duterte's Populist Script of Philippine Foreign Policy

Abstract Philippine foreign policy under Rodrigo Duterte is notorious for its abrupt pivot to China and the unraveling of the country's longstanding alliance with the United States. His pronouncements have vividly reflected these to rationalize significant foreign policy recalibrations. It is from this understanding that this article seeks to explore the specific discourses that he has promoted in relation to China and the United States in pursuit of a coherent foreign policy logic for his administration. This article introduces victimhood as a framework to analyze Duterte's salient policy discourses and explores how these discourses influenced his administration's foreign policy behavior and informed his unique populist leadership. By invoking a discourse of suffering from past and present injustices, along with perceived insecurities arising from shifting power dynamics between the two major powers, Duterte constructed and internalized a victim identity for the Philippines, which has profoundly influenced the country's external relations during his tenure.