At a press conference last April, Rodrigo Duterte, then Filipino presidential candidate, spoke to journalists, wearing a white graphic T-shirt advertising “Industrial Carbon Technology Corp.” It was the kind of T-shirt you would get at a company picnic, but here it was on the future leader of the Philippines, answering the press for remarks he made days earlier at a campaign event, in which he joked about the 1989 rape and murder of an Australian missionary. The incident occurred at a prison in Davao City, where Duterte had been mayor for more than 22 years.

He was under fire for saying, according to the translated transcript: “I was angry she was raped, that was one thing. But she was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first. What a waste." He received condemnation from the Australian ambassador, and the remarks grabbed international headlines. Still, while sitting backward on a plastic lawn chair, candidate Duterte “stuck to his guns,” left an ambiguous apology, and swore at the media for allegedly twisting his words.

He was elected as president of the Philippines in a landslide victory later that May.

Despite a growing laundry list of incidents like these—such as calling the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines a “gay son of a whore,” sanctioning summary executions for alleged drug dealers and users, and saying journalists deemed corrupt are not exempt from assassination—Duterte remains massively popular since coming to office in June. In a recent poll, 91 percent of Filipinos expressed trust in the new president. For the tens of millions of Filipinos living in poverty or struggling to make a decent living, his casual clothes, modest Davao home, and lack of formality make him much more relatable to the average Filipino than to the Manila elite. They needed a change from the status quo, and in the last election Duterte appeared to be their only hope to challenge it. And it’s become difficult for anyone to criticize the president without attracting angry rebuttals from his aggressive partisans.

They’re quick to defend the president as being “misunderstood” or having his remarks “taken out of context” by Western media. You’ll get responses like “He’s doing the right thing” and “They probably deserve it” if you condemn his open calls for murder. His fiercest supporters will yell “bias” and “media corruption” at even the slightest criticism, while at the same time sharing stories in support for the president from bogus news sources. In the most extreme cases, Duterte critics were faced with threats of violence and murder from his most fervent supporters, despite his own calls to chill out. Though 86 percent of the Filipino population is Catholic, Duterte has publicly cussed out the Pope—all without his own popularity suffering one bit.

For many, Duterte is an authentic leader who stays true to his word. The president really couldn’t care less if he’s seen as offensive, and would rather lose an election than change his character. The superficial comparisons to Donald Trump are probably inevitable, but Duterte isn’t lying when he threatens people with death; he’s just being honest. In his first four days as president, some 30 alleged drug dealers were reportedly assassinated by police as well as by vigilantes encouraged by Duterte.

Duterte’s presidency has felt like a breath of fresh air for Filipinos who feel they have been voting for liars and cheaters, manufactured out of political dynasties, for far too long. Still, unlike with Trump, there is no backtracking, deflection, or distant reality from his proposed policies. While coercing Mexico to pay for a wall sounds like a half-baked plan, executing alleged criminals without due process in the Philippines is a lot easier to carry out. Duterte means what he says with no apologies and acts on it, no matter how terrifying that is.