Best Posts in Thread: Is this true

I feel Duterte has to carry a big stick in the Philippines. He has a lot of issues that he has to be overcome, including drugs, the multitude of rebel/criminal groups and the generally selfish attitudes of those with even the smallest amount of power. The fear of Duterte implementing Marshall Law is constantly used as a weapon of fear against Duterte. Duterte emphasizes meeting the needs of the "normal" citizens of the Philippines as a whole, not just what is good for the the Manila based/connected power structure. This is totally different from what has been the political philosophy here recently. There is going to be friction within the country. He needs the support of the Filipinos, and with a 91% approval rate he seems to have it. The old power structure politcal clans of the Philippine kept foreign interests out of the game as best they could with their ownership rules etc, but certainly used the foreigners as well as the poor of the country to build up their own power base and wallets. I believe that Duterte has to build up a persona that he is the leader of the country in the eyes of the citizens and the international community. Filipinos do not admire wimps, which is why they often see the soft hearted generosity of foreigners as a weakness to be exploited. There are significant powerful groups in the Philippines that want things the way the use to be. They have enlisted foreign powers to try to reduce Duterte's approval rating in the world arena of opeinion, and diminish his power in what use to be their economic playground.
Personally I would like this power struggle to be focused with the Filipino community. Obviously the past Filipino administrations has not done a great job, but Duterte is new and needs the opportunity to experience successes and support from his community.... Will Duterte, make some mistakes.... absolutely but that again is how life progresses. Let him work it out, and do not be too forceful with the beer fuel soltions that you can find in so many loactions around town. Any mistake you learn from is not really a mistake but a lesson. I believe any man who can strip the office of the President of the country away from the powerful clans of the Philippines has earned the right to make his own decisions with the minimum of outside pressures.
A great move on Duterte's parts that did aid us foreigner who travel was his solution for the NIA bullet scam (laglag-bala). Within a few days of becoming President, he was smart enough to take the power out of the scam by eliminating arrests for a bullet only in luggage. There was no more power to extract bribe money to avoid jail time. NO one was arrested, or killed, but the problem of laglag-bala was gone. His political opponent, Roxas seemed to take a different approach when asked about it, which may be why today he is not addressed today as "Mr President" : "Former interior secretary and now Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer for 2016 Manuel Roxas II defended the Aquino administration over the laglag-bala (bullet-planting) controversy at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, saying the passengers have to take responsibility when they get caught with bullets. When asked who has to take responsibility over discoveries of bullets in luggage at the airport, Roxas said, “Kung nagpasok ka ng contraband sa airport, paano naging problema ng gobyerno ’yun?” (If you enter the airport with contraband, then how does that become the government's problem?)" Of coarse most people claimed they did not enter the airport with contraband but that the contraband was planted in a money making scam. With Aquino's cousin as manager of the airport, the Aquino administration could not contain the problem that occurred over 1,200 recorded cases of discoveries of bullets in passegers' luggage in the past 10 months and 6,000 recorded since 2012. That is a lot possible bribes and reduces the fear out of flying when leaving NIA. I only hope Duterte could be a similarly successful on the other problems he faces. Like I said he does have a lot of issues to deal with and representative of the past administration do not seem to be helping him. As foreigner I think we should let the Filipinos work out their own political agendas out and not be so arrogant to believe we are the only ones with the solutions. If we do not like their solutions we have an option they do not have... we can leave, where as they are sort of stuck here.

 

Not meeting this punk at all was the only reasonable thing Obama could do. Lecturing him won't work, it's a hopeless case in this age anyway.

This megalomaniac is working really hard to move international perception of the Philippines somewhere in between Venezuala and El Salvador. But yeah, of course he doesn't care, and why should he, after all economy is booming and doesn't need outside investment at all. Poverty doesn't exist, infrastructure is great, and the next super typhoon won't cause a major humanitarian catastrophe because the Phils are so well prepared. LOL this country really deserved better.

 

I surrender..Does it occur to anyone that Duterte could win a debate because he is right.
A foreign governments has no business commenting on the internal matters of this country.
As for the lowest common denominator....Yes they elected my government, your governments and this governments.

 

At least Trump would reply in kind. I can picture it now: You son of a wh*re! and reply F--k you and the caribou you rode in on!
From my point of view, this kind of attitude will keep investment money out of Philippines and get locals scratching for cash so prices may go down, well I can hope.

 

My understanding from the Filipinos I have talked to, including my wife. The media is generally controlled by the oligarchs who were out maneuvered by Duterte. Since he is not one of them, and especially since erasing corruption is one of his priorities, the media slants against Duterte pretty much every chance they get. If they don't have something to spin they will just make it up.

Accurate reporting is unlikely, unbiased is even less likely. Best strategy I have is when I see something unusual like "you son of a wh*re", research until you can find a direct quote in context or a video and decide for yourself what was said.

 

Well it looks like I got that wrong.
In my defense I mostly watch CNN, FOX, BBC and CNN PHILIPPINES or HBO etc.
Now I remember why I don't watch the other channels. Grrrr it seems I am getting forgetful. Mis culpa.
But I still think the propaganda valve of owning media here is invaluable.

 

I agree with you describing a western publication. How much money a paper or t.v.station makes here is a question. There really are not a lot of advertising to generate income.
My guess is that owning a media company here is being able to control public opinion and that is why the rich families own them.
As a bonus their children can become celebrities.

 

AH! but it sells and it is about money in the End EH?

 

How about the Kennedy's? It's not surprising that this happens. Your Dad has a good job, so why not follow in his footsteps? In some ways the family member is also bit of an incumbent. If people like the Dad they will probably like the relative or sibling. As a example, children of doctors who are 14% more likely to be doctors.

Why So Many Children of Doctors Become Doctors: Nepotism vs. Human Capital Transfers on JSTOR

Elected positions are a bit more challenging to argue cronyism (assuming no voter fraud) since the people are making the choice....good or bad. Maybe there should be a test before someone is allowed to vote. What I don't understand is the whole Marcos thing or these politicians that get convicted of crimes and then get voted into office again, and the crime is forgiven. Maybe someone here can help me to understand the Filipino thinking with respect to that.

This is a forum on a place in the Philippines, so discussions are likely to focus on the Philippines. I'll bet if you go to a forum on Pakistan or India or China, you will see the same type of comments with respect to those countries. I wonder if their members are using the Philippines as an excuse. Why do some people seek to change the discussion/focus to justify a bad behavior because someone else is worse or wasn't mentioned in the news last week? If someone fails to call out all countries who are worse, that some how makes a comment invalid? Yes, all countries have problems and I'll bet you there are lots of people talking about it on forums focused on them. Do you think in those forums people are saying how we handle our drug problem is good compared to the Philippines, so let's move on? The standard should be the standard. For example, just because member A does something out of line and doesn't get reprimanded, should that be a defense for all other member to do something out of line. So yes, other countries aren't talked about because it's not in our best interest to do it or in some cases there is no point in repeating something over and over. Does all this mean we should avoid saying anything. I think no. Other people being worse or not mentioned is not a good defense in my mind.

Obama said something like don't kill people without a trial and Duterte said you the son of a wh*re or whatever. I find it odd that people can somehow say one justifies the other.

I'm hopeful that Duterte will be successful with his war on drugs and will be able to move on to things that that I believe affect many more people. I'm sure that will require some significant power to drive those type of changes and I hope he is up for the task. Things that limit foreign investment, keep the poor down and enrich the rich. As he goes down his path, I just hope he won't loose sight of the what I think the end goad should be, which is to improve the lives of all Filipinos.

 

Regarding the majority question:

"The International Bill of Human Rights consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its two Optional Protocols. In 1966, the General Assembly adopted the two detailed Covenants, which complete the International Bill of Human Rights. In 1976, after the Covenants had been ratified by a sufficient number of individual nations, the Bill has become an international law, to be followed by all."

Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The General Assembly they are speaking of is the General Assembly of the United Nations. It's what comes as close to a forum for humanity as a whole as you can get. Obviously western countries, among whom this bill initially was developed, lost a lot of weight in terms of various criteria since then, but I doubt that the billions of Chinese people think human rights are a stupid idea just because their government violates them at times. I'm not aware of any movement at the UN to change or even undo this international law, so I think it's fair to say that these are values mankind generally agrees on.

Regarding eligibility to throw stones:

I mentioned that the US might not be a good mentor in terms of respecting human rights. Unfortunately they are, like China or Russia etc, in a much better position to get away without somebody interfering. If that's what you're criticizing, I'm all with you.

There's few if any countries with a clean record, but where would we end up if that would be reason enough to start a race to the bottom and not look left and right anymore?

The mere fact that somebody is breaking the law doesn't justify somebody else's breaking the law. You wouldn't say bank robbery is ok just because someone else somewhere else did so and got away with it, would you?

I think it's right to call it what it is, even if it is the same guy doing so who didn't manage to close up Guantanamo bay and whose country is happily drone bombing away people around the world. Which is disgusting, indeed, but unfortunately there's nobody outside the US in a position to make that stop at the moment.

Calling out Duterte now, that's obviously much easier than calling out China or the US or.... It's picking on the small guy, yes, and that carries the risk that people may sympathize in a David vs Goliath sense. But still it's the right thing to do. Yes he was elected in a proper election, but that doesn't entitle him to a life in a bubble without any outside influence or criticism. If Duterte cannot handle that well, that's his personal problem and he seriously needs to work on that if he wants to be taken seriously by people who don't fall for his shallow strong man game.