Duterte supposedly leans socialist himself, not sure.
Do know that if he decides to get rid of the communists, he will go about it in the only fashion that works, by shooting thousands of them.
That’s what Indonesia did in the 1960s.
He certainly does lean left.
He has cred as having been a student of Jose Sison, founder of the Maoist New Peoples Army, the principal communist guerilla movement there over the last 45 years.
He is well known as a go-between and interlocutor with the NPA.
And he also has anti-American cred., numerous controversial cases over decades.
So the Anakbayan are on semi-solid ground with him.
The funny thing is that the leftists demands sound precisely the same as they did 40-50 years ago, in spite of the US having left both militarily and economically and the economy changing completely. Its a different country now, the foreign players are Japan and China, and the country is playing against export-growth competitors with manufacturing and services, and doing quite well. The rhetoric sounds like the recitation of ancient prayers to dead gods for defense against extinct devils.