Rody Duterte is hot stuff POST ON LEADERSHIP GOES VIRAL; 1.5-MILLION READERS, 21,000 LIKES

By Manny Pinol

In a clear indication of his superstar status in the Philippine social media, the post on Mayor Rody Duterte’s thoughts on “leadership” spread like wildfire in cyberspace earning over 1.5 million hits and almost 22,000 likes in just 48 hours.

The article titled “I AM NOT A MESSIAH, I AM THE GARBAGE MAN” which talked about Duterte’s perspective of leadership in the Philippine political setting was posted early Sunday morning.

It was boosted for two days targeting Filipinos aged 18 to over 65 and living in the Philippines and selected countries with large concentration of Filipino expatriates.

As of 6 a.m. today, Dec. 23, exactly 48 hours after the article was posted a total of 1,539,072 people were “reached” with 21,809 likes, 2,916 “shares” and 1,182 “comments.”

The weekly readership of this page also reached unparalleled figures reaching 1.8 million people worldwide.

This is the first time in the 3-year history of this page http://xn--mannypiol-r6a.com/ that a single article posted generated such readership figures.

Previous articles posted only breached the 400,000 readership threshold.

The second article I posted on “The mind of Rody Duterte” series which comes out every Sunday reached only 352,128 people. This was about the corrupt prisons system in the country and what Duterte would do if he were President.

The series on “The mind of Rody Duterte” was started by this page to give his followers an opportunity to look into the thoughts of the controversial city mayor who has turned Davao from one of the most violent area in the country into the 4th Safest City in the World.

Future articles lined up for posting every Sunday will cover his thoughts on the Drugs Problem, the China Dilemma, the Bangsamoro Issue, the Communist Insurgency, Corruption in Government Service, Farming and Agriculture and the Environment.

In spite of his immense popularity in the social media, Duterte remains non-committal to the clamor of millions of Filipinos for him to run for President.

In an article which appeared in the Sun.Star newspaper, Duterte was quoted as saying that if the elections were in the social media, he would be a sure winner.

“Ako, sa social media daog na (I’m a sure winner when you base it on social media),” he said. “The problem is, election is not a matter of social media. You need more than that – the ABCDE (economic status).

“He said that the only reason he is topping polls among overseas Filipino workers is because this is a sector that have access to computers and the social media.

“But the vote of the hoi polloi, andiyan ang labanan,” he said. “Ang problema nito ang hoi polloi, madala sa pera (The real battle is in the votes of the hoi polloi, and the problem with the hoi polloi, they are the ones who can be bought).”

Whiile Duterte has not made up his mind yet on the issue of the Presidency, he has obviously softened his previous hardline position rejecting and scoffing at the idea.

Last month, after the Manny Pacquiao-Chris Algieri fight in Macau, Duterte agreed to listen to the voices of the people.