Picture a presidential election heavy on establishment candidates, where the choices are familiar names from the past, dynastic politicians. Enter a wild outsider, a man with a straight-talking reputation, who says things no other politician would dare. Instead of policies, he issues threats. Instead of debate, he fires off insults. And the public loves it.
If that appears to describe Donald Trump’s rise in the United States, it is also the trajectory taken by Rodrigo Duterte, a populist mayor who could today be declared winner in elections.
Mr Duterte is a real firebrand – he has vowed to slaughter 100,000 criminals and feed their bodies to the fish. Nor, according to his critics, are these idle threats: rights groups have claimed that as mayor he allowed death squads to murder suspected criminals.
As in the US, his rise has taken the establishment by surprise. In their determination to stop Mr Duterte, establishment politicians have displayed a tin ear for what the public thinks of the political elite. The outgoing president Benigno Aquino (the son of a previous president) tried to get other candidates to drop out in favour of Manuel “Mar” Roxas (the grandson of a previous president). And of course this election is witnessing the rehabilitation of the Marcos dynasty, with Ferdinand Marcos’s son, known as Bongbong, the frontrunner for the vice-presidency.
All in all, Filipinos sick of the corruption and nepotism of their political leaders could be forgiven for turning to Mr Duterte. If he wins – and exit polls yesterday gave him a sizeable lead – it would be a no-confidence vote in the government as much as a vote for Mr Duterte.
Because, 30 years after Marcos fled the country with his wife, the government has not yet recovered much of the money the former dictator stole. Nor has economic growth translated into a better standard of living outside the main cities (and indeed sometimes within them). Filipinos are craving a change – and they clearly feel they won’t get it without a startling, radical departure.