No country mirrors the US constitutional and political design more than ours,” wrote Segundo Eclar Romero in theInquirer, a Filipinonewspaper. “Our 20th-century descent into dictatorship was not only a tragedy—it was a case study.” Ferdinand Marcos senior, the democratically elected president, “staged a constitutional coup, imposed martial law, and cloaked it in the language of revolution”. Mr Trump is now following “a similarly sinister logic”.