Posted May 15, 2016 3:14pm

The Philippines' incoming president Rodrigo Duterte might be a one-speed politician, but he's a man of many names.

In fact, the only people who call Mr Duterte by his full name are journalists.

To T-shirt sellers, he's The Punisher, or Duterte Harry or the Real Eagle of Davao, but most Filipinos don't refer to him by any of those names.

To them he's Rodi, or DiGong.

The nation is a headline writer's paradise: Mr Duterte didn't defeat Manuel Roxas — DiGong blitzed Mar.

In this nation of nicknames, using someone's full name sounds ludicrously formal.

The vice-presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr's full name wasn't even on the ballot paper. Voters were instead asked to tick the box for Bong Bong.

A man named Boy

My local producer and translator's real name is Ramon Siojo. But everyone calls him Boy.

It took me a while to come to terms with this. A white man calling a 57-year-old Filipino man Boy reminded me of one of the most awkward moments in Australian television history, when Bert Newton introduced the 1978 Logie Awards with Muhammad Ali.

"I like the boy!" the television star proclaimed.

Ali wasn't impressed: "Did he say Roy or boy?"

Newton: "Hang on what's wrong with saying that? I mean, I like the man."

Ali: "Who'd you call boy?"

But in the Philippines, boy has never been a racial pejorative.

My producer and translator has a simple reason for why he is called Boy.

"My father lacked creativity — you know, when you were born, when your father looked on your wrist it said Boy Harvey? Beside you was probably Girl Wilson.

"I have cousins who are Bim Bim, Bam Bam, I have a 95-year-old uncle called Baby. I have friends who are Queenie, Princess."

The best political nicknames?

"Noy Noy — that's our president, P-Noy, Noy Noy," Boy says.

"There's a senator called Joker Aroyo. There's a senator called Jingo Estrada.

"We used to have a congresswoman whose name was Ting Ting Coeranko."

Boy works for a production company alongside two women, known as Girlie and Inky.

It leads to some strange conversations: "So Boy, Inky sent me the invoice and Girlie is going to come over and collect the money."

'Who are you? Show me your ID'

Most mornings in Manila I start the day with a jog along Manila Bay, the same bay that DiGong has vowed to fill with the bodies of 100,000 criminals.

Before the corpses start washing up on the shore, it's still pleasant place to run.

My jog leads me past the front of the US Embassy, a vast compound surrounded by high walls and barriers to block car bombs.

At 6:00am on the morning after Mr Duterte's victory, there was a queue of about 50 people lined up outside.

I decided to photograph the queue, figuring I could post a witty tweet about Filipinos greeting The Punisher's election by applying to leave the country.

Picture taken, I put my headphones back in and resumed my jog.

And there, in Beyonce's excellent new album, was a piercing whistling sound. It was something I didn't remember hearing the last time I listened.

It grew louder and louder, until I was waved to a halt by people on the seafront. They pointed back towards the embassy, where a security guard with a whistle in his mouth was rapidly approaching.

"Why was I taking photographs of the embassy?" he demanded. I needed to delete them, immediately.

What an idiot I was. The dumbest place to take a photograph in any city in the world is outside its US embassy. I'd be in trouble even in Canberra.

"Who are you? Show me your ID," the guard ordered.

"I don't run with it," I responded honestly.

This was a problem. I was marched back to the embassy's security post where two more guards joined us.

"Where's your passport?"

"In the hotel."

No-one looked happy. My final day in Manila was going to be spent in detention.

Then I remembered that I had a photograph of the passport in my phone.

The guard was pleased with this. He copied down all of my details, then looked up from the screen for the really important questions.

"What is your height?"

"Err, 195."

"What is your weight?"

"Um, 105 kilograms… when I hold in my stomach."

The guard looked at me and gave me a half smile.

"What is your nickname?"