Gravitating political capital on the geo-social divide: Duterte's populisms, electoral craft, and the "Imagined Spatiality".

Current research suggests a disparity in identifying which critical themes in the political rhetoric of Duterte advantageously framed him as an appealing candidate. Structuration theory was borrowed to understand Duterte populism as being able to harness influences on individual agency and structural factors. The main thesis of this article proposes that Duterte created an "imagined spatiality" situating Filipino voters (agency) within geosocial positions (structure) through his electoral craft gravitating on "geo-social divide." Using ethnographiccontent analysis, Duterte's rhetoric was studied not only focusing on his peculiar style but, at the same time, how it articulated "imagined spatiality" to cast his persona as the champion of the (marginalized) Bisayan. When put together, one can fully grasp how Duterte materializes imagined spatiality through codes that can be revealed intertextually, just as this study uncovers them with the use of structuration theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]