• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.181-212
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• 2018

In 2017, the government of Duterte, in the second year of the ruling, more strongly promoted peace and order policies and expressed independent diplomacy as the chairman of ASEAN. He continued to fight against drugs and tried to increase his political legitimacy through the punishment for corrupt officials. He also declared martial law in the Mindanao region because of the dissolution of the Maute group, a Muslim terrorist organization, and strengthened counterterrorism cooperation externally. In addition, as to Communist militants, he took the initial reconciliation gesture and promoted peace negotiations, however, concluded the peace tide and started the suppression operation due to a series of bloodshed. He still has a strong drive in peace and order issues, backed up by high support rate, but it is becoming a factor of anxiety as the socioeconomically underprivileged and minority groups are increasingly alienated. As the chairman of ASEAN, Duterte has a certain distance from the United States, which is a firm ally, but has turned to increase familiarity with China and Russia, which can take substantial economic benefits. Through diversifying the external economic support and increase of tax revenue, the priority task was to establish the infrastructure. Although the Philippines, which has a high economic growth rate, has a strong expectation that it can establish a solid infrastructure, tax reforms should be successfully completed in order not to repeat the previous failures, which has traditionally increased foreign debt burden by relying on external resources. It seems that it is necessary to find the meeting point of the foreign policy of Duterte and new Korean government's New Southern Policy, and to find possible economic cooperation policies to improve Philippine infrastructure.