One thing I proved during the presidential campaign of then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is that authenticity really is the best strategy.

It was his brash talk, macho humor, and kitschy fashion that incited feelings of discomfort in some – but ended up endearing him to the majority of voters. It was very easy to frame this as his strength. He didn’t mince words, and he was unabashedly himself at all times. In short, he was always his authentic self.

This brand of authenticity was what the Duterte Communications Team capitalized on, and which helped led to the first Mindanaoan President in our history. He was far from the cookie-cutter politico that everyone was used to, and instead of hiding all his flaws, we needed to emphasize his strengths and lean into Digong as a “brand”.

The Duterte Brand started with carving a niche that no other candidate was focusing on. All the other candidates promised to deliver on jobs, food security, and education. Mayor Digong, however, was most comfortable talking about criminality and drugs as this was his undeniable achievement in Davao. 

Pre-election baseline surveys indicated that drugs and criminality are the issues that people believed Digong can deliver on. The problem was that it ranked low in the list of voter concerns at that time – it was at number 8, meaning less than 10% of the voters were concerned about this issue. 

However, we saw that the issue of criminality is something that is not as far-reaching as the issues of jobs and food security – and we had reason to believe that if these are controlled, we would all be the better for it. 

Look at Davao – because of Duterte, it was clean and had a low crime rate – a far cry from what it was before his anti-crime and anti-drug programs. The root of everything? He cared about people. The tough-talking, big-bike riding mayor actually cared about his constituents. He was the quintessential tatay, a little rough around the edges but will fight tooth and nail to ensure the safety of his children.

It was the perfect, authentic brand that we knew would click, which could be summed up with two words: Tapang at Malasakit. 

And thus, we took to social media, and challenged all Duterte supporters to amplify the Tapang at Malasakit campaign values by creating their own narratives. Despite all our naysayers who were claiming that we were spreading fake news to promote Digong, it couldn’t be farther from the truth. Real people were spontaneously sharing the message of our candidate and owning it. 

There was nothing inauthentic about it, because that was the point – authenticity is the strategy.