Hope and fear as combative president takes over Philippines

The frugal noontime ceremony at Malacanang, the Spanish colonial-era presidential palace by Manila’s murky Pasig River, was a break from tradition sought by Duterte to press the need for austerity amid the country’s grinding poverty.

Vice President Leni Robredo, a human rights lawyer who comes from a rival political party, was sworn in earlier in a separate ceremony in her office compound.

Duterte, who began a six-year term, captured attention with promises to cleanse his poor Southeast Asian nation of criminals and government crooks within six months — an audacious pledge that was welcomed by many crime-weary Filipinos but alarmed human rights watchdogs and the dominant Roman Catholic Church.

There were no menacing death threats against criminals, but he pressed the urgency of battling crime and graft, promised to stay within the bounds of the law and appealed to Congress and the Commission on Human Rights “to mind your work and I will mind mine.”