Assassinations in the Philippines: Pre and Post Election of Rodrigo Duterte
Ariel Goldstein & Julia Iacoviello
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)
BACKGROUND GLOBAL TERRORISM DATABASE (GTD) QUANTITATIVE RESULTS
Filipino President, Rodrigo Duterte first served at mayor of Davao, a ? The Global Terrorism Database  (GTD) is an open-source database We found that before Duterte took office, 41.67% of all recorded incidents 
city in the southern part of the country. He had a legacy of creating a comprised of terrorist events from around the world since 1970 (2) for the given time period were assassinations. After Duterte took office, 
clean and efficient city where he ?crushed street crime and humiliated ? Attack Type Variable 47.93% of all recorded incidents were assassinations. This is a 15.02% 
corrupt officials.? In Davao, it was also rumored that Duterte operated increase in assassinations after Duterte took office as compared to before. ? Assassination: ?primary objective is to kill one or more specific, 
a death squad that killed approximately 1,000 people, but he denies Another point of note is that May of 2016 shows a spike in assassinations, prominent individuals. Usually? military officers, government 
this allegation. After his election as president, Duterte?s claim to with 10 total assassinations. May 2016 was the election month of President officials, celebrities? (3)
political ?fame? was declaring war on shabu (a cheap variant of Rodrigo Duterte. 
crystal meth).. Four months after his election, on October 26th, 2016, 
Duterte made a television appearance in which he waved a stack of Total Assasinations
papers, a so-called ?hit list?, and proclaimed ?this list of names ? is 12
the drug industry in the Philippines.? He also claimed that about 3 
million Filipinos were drug addicts, and that he would be happy to 10
kill them. This ?hit list? would contain names of people from all walks 
of life in the Philippines, including police officers and village officials 8
whom Duterte called corrupt. (1)
6
4
METRICS
All terrorist attacks in the 2
Philippines, filtered by attack type, 
? How are we determining changes in violence types and levels? since 1970 as recorded in the GTD. 
(2) 0
? Number of attacks (assassinations) before versus after 
election 
? We used data from 2014-2018 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
? Duterte took office May 30th, 2016 RESEARCH QUESTION
? BEFORE ELECTION: January 1st, 2014 May 29th, All assassinations in the Philippines from 2014 to 2018, filtered by month. Includes a trend line depicting increase in ? assassinations. 
2016
? AFTER ELECTION: May 30th, 2016 ? December 31st, QUALITATIVE RESULTS
2018
? BEFORE ELECTION: 144 total incidents, 60 assassinations In addition to our quantitative findings, we also researched each assassination incident committed by an ?unknown? perpetrator extensively. 
? AFTER ELECTION: 169 total incidents, 81 assassinations Through our review of relevant news articles in the GTD both before and 
after Duterte?s election, we found notable trends. In pre-Duterte content, 
there was no mention of Duterte in any incident news articles or GTD 
Province Population (in thousands) descriptions. There was also no mention of politically motivated 
assassinations by the state itself. In post-Duterte content, there were 5 
incidents and GTD descriptions that explicitly mention Duterte. Some of 
3,678 these assassination victims were connected to the drug trade. Other victims 
3,292
3,035 have allegations against them by Duterte, and one victim was mentioned on 2,957 2,939 2,884
2,694 Duterte?s ?hit list.?
2,497
2,198 2,151
President Duterte in 2020. (4) REFERENCES 
1 Symmes, P. (2017, January 10). President Duterte's List. New York Times.
2 Miller, E., LaFree, G., & Dugan, L. (n.d.). Global Terrorism Database (GTD). 
? Did the  election of Rodrigo Duterte as president of the Philippines cause an 3 Miller, E., LaFree, G., & Dugan, L. (2019, October). Global Terrorism Database- Codebook: Inclusion Criteria and 
it e an na a n bu l
? Variables. 
v c u n e iza ga
s ros ga i ja increase in the number of assassinations within the country?a a g si C R n eg a n c 4 Ng, K. (2020, April 17). Philippine president Duterte threatens to impose martial law after 120,000 arrested for C l a EBu L nga at
a
B N
p a 
a m vPa ue ? We hypothesize that if the election of Duterte caused him the ability to 
violating coronavirus lockdown. Independent.
P N assassinate adversaries based on his ?hit list? , then we should see an ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
increase in the number of assassinations on political figures in the 
Philippines after Duterte?s election in relation to before. We would like to thank Bryan Arva (GTD Targets Team Supervisor) and Benjamin Evans 
We chose to focus our research on the 10 most populous provinces in the Philippines, represented above. (GTD Weapons & Tactics Team Supervisor) for all their advice and guidance on this project. 
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