Richard Heydarian is an Asia-based academic, columnist and author of "The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt Against Elite Democracy" and the "The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China and the New Struggle for Global Mastery."
No stranger to crisis and natural disasters, the Philippines' response to major calamities has long been hampered by weak institutions and a notoriously corrupt bureaucracy. But President Rodrigo Duterte's disastrous management of the COVID-19 pandemic has struck a new low.
