THERE is an apparent contradiction in seeing university academics, people trained to examine evidence, question assumptions and resist simplistic explanations, remain diehard supporters of Rodrigo Duterte and his brand. The contradiction appears even sharper in Mindanao, where many professors continue to defend not only Duterte’s political legacy but also his family, despite controversies involving the drug war, confidential funds, human rights, governance and accountability.
It would be easy to dismiss these academics as ignorant or intellectually dishonest. That response, however satisfying, explains very little. The more important question is why education, professional expertise and proximity to research do not necessarily loosen partisan loyalty.
The answer lies in the interaction of regional identity, political grievance, institutional dependence, social belonging and motivated reasoning.
For many Mindanaoans, Duterte was never simply another politician. He became the embodiment of a long-awaited regional breakthrough: the first president from Mindanao, speaking in a familiar cadence, ridiculing Manila’s elites and presenting himself as the champion of a region historically treated as peripheral. His ascent was experienced as Mindanao’s arrival at the center of national power.
This matters because criticism of Duterte can consequently be received not as criticism of one leader but as an insult to Mindanao. When political identity becomes regional identity, evidence is filtered through collective pride. Accusations against Duterte are interpreted as attempts by “Imperial Manila,” foreign institutions or liberal elites to humiliate the South and reclaim political dominance.
Admitting Duterte’s abuses or failures then carries a heavy psychological price. It may feel like conceding that Mindanao’s historic victory was fraudulent, or that its chosen champion betrayed the hopes invested in him. It is easier to describe unfavorable evidence as propaganda, persecution or partisan fabrication than to surrender a political story that has become part of one’s identity.
Academic credentials provide no immunity from this process. Expertise is usually narrow. A capable engineer, physician, agriculturist, economist or administrator is not automatically equipped to assess constitutional questions, human rights documentation, forensic evidence, disinformation or authoritarian populism. Even specialists can suspend their usual standards when a controversy implicates their political loyalties.
Indeed, intelligence can sometimes strengthen motivated reasoning. Educated partisans possess the vocabulary and confidence to construct elaborate defenses of conclusions reached emotionally. They can selectively cite facts, identify minor inconsistencies, question every hostile source and demand impossible standards of proof, while accepting favorable claims with scarcely any scrutiny. Their reasoning may appear sophisticated, but the conclusion was protected from the beginning.
Universities in Mindanao also do not exist outside local structures of power. Faculty members and administrators may be connected through family, friendship, consultancy, research partnerships, government appointments, scholarships, accreditation or institutional funding to local officials and Duterte-aligned networks. Not every loyalist is rewarded, and not every silence is purchased. Nevertheless, dependence shapes what becomes professionally comfortable, socially acceptable or institutionally risky to say.
There is also the enduring mythology of Davao. Duterte successfully marketed the city as proof that discipline, political will and forceful leadership could overcome crime and bureaucratic paralysis. Many residents remember order, visibility or improved services. These lived impressions often carry more emotional authority than national statistics, testimonies of victims or investigations conducted by institutions they distrust.
Thus, the defense frequently offered is personal: “We experienced his governance.” But experience is real without necessarily being complete. One resident’s feeling of safety does not disprove another family’s experience of violence. Visible order does not reveal its costs, beneficiaries, exclusions or hidden mechanisms. Anecdote becomes dangerous when it is elevated into a comprehensive verdict on governance.
University culture can aggravate the problem. Senior academics acquire authority that younger colleagues hesitate to challenge, especially where collegial relations determine teaching assignments, promotions, recommendations and administrative opportunities. Political opinions voiced by influential professors can therefore become institutional orthodoxies. What appears publicly as an independent academic consensus may partly reflect hierarchy, caution and the quiet suppression of disagreement.
The social environment further reinforces loyalty. When colleagues, relatives, alumni, local officials and online communities share the same allegiance, support becomes normal and dissent becomes costly. People do not merely hold political beliefs. They hold them within relationships. Changing one’s position may mean losing status, friendships, professional access or a cherished sense of belonging.
The conflict between the Marcos and Duterte camps, along with legal proceedings against Rodrigo Duterte and political attacks on Sara Duterte, has intensified this siege mentality. Accountability is recast as persecution. Every accusation becomes supposed proof that powerful enemies fear the Dutertes. Paradoxically, the seriousness of the charges may deepen loyalty because supporters believe that abandoning the family would mean siding with Mindanao’s enemies.
Some academics also confuse contrarianism with critical thinking. They imagine that rejecting mainstream journalism, human rights organizations, courts or international institutions makes them independent thinkers. But critical thinking does not mean automatically distrusting established sources. It means applying consistent evidentiary standards, including to the claims of leaders one admires.
None of this means all Mindanao academics are Duterte loyalists, or that every supporter is unintelligent, corrupt or coerced. Mindanao contains vigorous traditions of dissent, scholarship, journalism, activism and resistance. Nor should regional grievances be dismissed. The concentration of political, economic and cultural power in Manila is real, and the historical neglect of Mindanao has created legitimate resentment.
But legitimate grievance does not make a leader infallible. Regional pride should not require indifference to victims, contempt for institutions or automatic defense of a political dynasty. Mindanao’s dignity cannot depend on protecting any family from evidence and accountability.
The real paradox, therefore, is not that academics can support Duterte. Academics are human beings before they are scholars. They seek belonging, protect identities, form loyalties and rationalize commitments. The danger begins when they use the prestige of the university to present those loyalties as the products of dispassionate analysis.
An academic may be rigorous inside the laboratory, classroom or discipline yet profoundly uncritical in politics. Education supplies analytical tools. It does not guarantee the courage or willingness to use them against one’s own side. When political allegiance becomes part of the self, intelligence often serves not to discover the truth but to defend the identity that truth threatens.
The author is a professor at UP Los Baños and vice chairman of the board of PTVNI.