President Rodrigo Duterte FILE PHOTO / AP
President Rodrigo Duterte was ranked a notch higher in this year’s Forbes magazine’s ranking of the most powerful people in the world, clinching the 69th spot from 70th in 2017.
READ: Duterte among world’s most powerful — Forbes
Forbes cited Duterte’s war on crime, which “has already resulted in the killing of thousands of people across the archipelago country.”
“Duterte’s raw and vulgar vocabulary keeps him in the headlines: he called Obama ‘son of a whore’ and has used homophobic slurs to describe opponents,” Forbes said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping occupied the top spot, unseating Russian President Vladimir Putin, who held the top spot for four consecutive years.
Putin was ranked second followed by United States President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
According to Forbes, “we considered hundreds of candidates from various walks of life all around the globe, and measured their power along four dimensions.” /kga