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Obeying in advance: Duterte’s election and the onset of the Philippine drug war

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Carlo B. Punongbayan

    (School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman)

Abstract

I use event-level data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) to estimate the impact of Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs†on political violence in the Philippines. Constructing a balanced panel of 80 provinces observed weekly from January 2016 through June 2017, I estimate event-study and difference-in-differences models that compare drug-war-tagged fatalities against a within-country placebo—non-drug-war political violence (battles, explosions, and non-drug violence against civilians). The headline finding is that the placebo series exhibits no discontinuity around either the election or the inauguration, while drug-war fatalities show a sharp, immediate spike. The violence increase is there-fore specific to the drug war, rather than reflecting general conflict trends, ACLED source-coverage changes, or other simultaneous shocks. As a precondition for this comparison, I show that the relevant event date is the May 9 presidential election, not the June 30 inauguration. I discuss identification challenges including anticipation effects, the endogeneity of ACLED’s tagging, and the absence of cross-regional treatment variation.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Carlo B. Punongbayan, 2026. "Obeying in advance: Duterte’s election and the onset of the Philippine drug war," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 202604, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:phs:dpaper:202604
    as

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    File URL: https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/upsedp/index.php/dp/article/view/1571
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kurt Schmidheiny & Sebastian Siegloch, 2023. "On event studies and distributed‐lags in two‐way fixed effects models: Identification, equivalence, and generalization," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 695-713, August.
    2. Jetter, Michael & Molina, Teresa, 2022. "Persuasive agenda-setting: Rodrigo Duterte’s inauguration speech and drugs in the Philippines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    3. Sun, Liyang & Abraham, Sarah, 2021. "Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 175-199.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

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