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Rodrigo Roa Duterte born March 28, 1945, also known as Digong and Rody,is a Filipino politician who is the 16th and current President of the Philippines and the first from Mindanao to hold the office.He is the chair of the ruling PDP–Laban party. Taking office at 71 years old in June 2016, Duterte is the oldest person to assume the Philippine presidency; the record was previously held by Sergio Osmeña at the age of 65.

Duterte studied political science at the Lyceum of the Philippines University, graduating in 1968, before obtaining a law degree from San Beda College of Law in 1972. He then worked as a lawyer and was a prosecutor for Davao City, before becoming vice mayor and, subsequently, mayor of the city in the wake of the Philippine Revolution of 1986. Duterte was among the longest-serving mayors in the Philippines, serving seven terms for a span of more than 22 years in office.

Frequently described as a populist and a nationalist,Duterte's political success has been aided by his vocal support for the extrajudicial killing of drug users and other criminals.Human rights groups have documented over 1,400 killings allegedly by death squads operating in Davao between 1998 and May 2016; the victims were mainly drug users, petty criminals and street children.A 2009 report by the Philippine Commission on Human Rights confirmed the "systematic practice of extrajudicial killings" by the Davao Death Squad.Duterte has alternately confirmed and denied his involvement.The Office of the Ombudsman closed an investigation in January 2016 stating that they found no evidence that the Davao Death Squad exists, and no evidence to connect the police or Duterte with the killings.The case has since been reopened.Duterte has repeatedly confirmed that he personally killed criminal suspects as mayor of Davao.

On May 9, 2016, Duterte won the Philippine presidential election with 39.01% of the votes, defeating four other candidates, namely Mar Roxas of the Liberal Party (23.4%), Senator Grace Poe (21.6%), former vice president Jejomar Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance (12.9%), and the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago of the People's Reform Party (3%).During his campaign, he promised to kill tens of thousands of criminals and end crime within six months.His domestic policy has focused on combating the illegal drug trade by initiating the Philippine Drug War. According to the Philippine National Police the death total passed 7,000 in January 2017, after which the police stopped publishing data. Following criticism from United Nations human rights experts that extrajudicial killings had increased since his election, Duterte threatened to withdraw the Philippines from the UN and form a new organization with China and African nations.He has declared his intention to pursue an "independent foreign policy",and sought to distance the Philippines from the United States and European nations and pursue closer ties with China and Russia.

Duterte’s father served as governor of the province of Davao, and his mother was a community activist who had a prominent role in the “people power” movement that deposed the authoritarian president Ferdinand Marcos and restored democratic rule to the Philippines. Duterte earned a political science degree (1968) from Lyceum of the Philippines University in Manila and a law degree (1972) from San Beda College. In 1977 he joined the Davao City prosecutor’s office, where he remained until he was appointed (1986) vice mayor of that city.

Duterte was elected mayor in 1988, and he was reelected to that post twice over the subsequent decade. Because of term-limit restrictions, he was barred from seeking reelection in 1998, but he successfully ran for a seat representing Davao in the Philippines House of Representatives. Upon the completion of that term in 2001, he returned to Davao City and was once more elected mayor. Because the term-limit restriction again came into force in 2010, he was elected vice mayor, and his daughter Sara served as mayor. In 2013 Duterte returned to the mayor’s office, this time with his son Paolo (“Pulong”) serving as vice mayor.

On June 30, 2016, Duterte was inaugurated as president of the Philippines. In his first six months in office, more than 6,000 people were killed in Duterte’s “war on drugs.” A fraction of those deaths occurred during police operations. The overwhelming majority were extrajudicial killings by death squads. Metro Manila’s funeral parlours were strained beyond capacity, and hundreds of unidentified or unclaimed bodies were interred in mass burials. Human rights organizations and Roman Catholic officials spoke out against the bloodshed, but Duterte responded by accusing the church of corruption and the sexual abuse of children. Duterte was married to former flight attendant Elizabeth Zimmerman from 1973 until an annulment was granted in 2000. Two of their three children, Paolo and Sara, followed their father into politics. Additionally, Duterte has a daughter with his common-law wife, Honeylet Avanceña.