The applause was so loud you could feel its rhythm in your heart.

“Duterte! Duterte!” chanted a crowd of hundreds of thousands packed into Manila’s Luneta Park on a warm, breezy Saturday evening. They waved Filipino flags and held their fists in the air.

The Philippines’ presidential front-runner Rodrigo Duterte, 71, appeared onstage, wearing a red polo shirt and blue jeans. Then, to rapturous applause, he called a senator “stupid,” a competing candidate “a son of a bitch,” and the military “s–t-heads” if they attempt to challenge him.

“We want change!” said Esmat Bayadsid, a 48 year-old tailor from Cotabato City in the country’s deep south. “We want to put an end to all the chaos and disorder.”

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