Rodrigo Duterte became the 16th president of the Philippines on Monday when a joint session of Congress declared him winner of a May 9 election, succeeding Benigno Aquino who steps down next month after six years in office.
The tough-talking Duterte, mayor of Davao City in the south, campaigned on the single issue of crushing crime and now faces a daunting task of fixing infrastructure, creating jobs and lifting more than a quarter of the 100 million population out of poverty, Reuters reported.
"I hereby proclaim Rodrigo Roa Duterte and Maria Leonor Gerona Robredo as the duly elected president and vice president of the Republic of the Philippines," Senator Franklin Drilon and Congressman Feliciano Belmonte said in a joint session of Congress.
Robredo is an ally of Aquino's. She beat the son and namesake of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos to become vice president.
Duterte, 71, who was in Davao on Monday, was declared winner in absentia.
