Unpopular opinion: The Sally Chua case helped Duterte's presidential stock a lot
https://www.sunstar.com.ph/more-articles/3-kidnappers-killed-in-davao-businesswoman-rescued
Back in 2013, there was a businesswoman (Sally Chua) who was kidnapped and held for a P50m ransom that eventually whittled down to 15. She convinced her captors that they withdraw the money in Davao where Bato Dela Rosa and co. killed some of them.
I remember it being huge news back then - not only for confirming that criminals could get killed easily in Davao (and indirectly the existence of a DDS) but also for mythologizing Duterte as a mayor who doesn't give a fuck about clean.
Which is exactly the cred he needed to launch a soft campaign in 2014 by going out in public and uttering his "kill everyone now" style interviews. And that resonated with a lot of people. Yet he surprisingly never used that particular event to sell his brand. He instead focused on the asterisk killings of drug pushers who are a grey area because no one knew if they really were guilty or not.
Yeah, some ethnic Chinese -- many of them being his long-time cronies in Davao City -- consider him the solution to their security problems, believing his warped concept of law and order be scaled up nationwide.
That's why early on Beijing saw an ally in him, the perfect agent of influence.