Just six weeks into the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, the world is discovering with a good deal of horror that the Philippines is getting what he promised: hundreds of deaths of people who may or not be connected to the drug world, at the hands of death squads who are killing, often with little evidence.
That has earned Duterte the approval of 91 percent of the country’s citizens, according to the Asia Pulse polling organization. But at the same time he has threatened to take power through martial law, offered to “destroy” an unnamed woman public official, called the US Ambassador a “son of a bitch” and a homosexual, complicated attempts to preserve a common front against China over ownership of the South China Sea by sending former President Fidel Ramos as his personal emissary to meet Chinese officials, and has promised a hero’s burial next month to the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, whose death squads killed more than 2,500 people, whose family stole an estimated US$10 billion and who allegedly faked his military record of bravery. Marcos’ body has lain in a glass coffin in his home state of Ilocos Norte since his death in exile in 1989.
He also offered to pardon Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, whose own family is believed to have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars and who turned loose her own death squads which killed hundreds of leftists on the pretext of ridding the country of communists. Arroyo, however, has since been acquitted of the plunder charges by the Supreme Court, saving him the trouble of a pardon. He has grown close to Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos Jr., the son of the late dictator, an indication that doing away with impunity is not on his list of goals. Full story...
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That has earned Duterte the approval of 91 percent of the country’s citizens, according to the Asia Pulse polling organization. But at the same time he has threatened to take power through martial law, offered to “destroy” an unnamed woman public official, called the US Ambassador a “son of a bitch” and a homosexual, complicated attempts to preserve a common front against China over ownership of the South China Sea by sending former President Fidel Ramos as his personal emissary to meet Chinese officials, and has promised a hero’s burial next month to the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, whose death squads killed more than 2,500 people, whose family stole an estimated US$10 billion and who allegedly faked his military record of bravery. Marcos’ body has lain in a glass coffin in his home state of Ilocos Norte since his death in exile in 1989.
He also offered to pardon Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, whose own family is believed to have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars and who turned loose her own death squads which killed hundreds of leftists on the pretext of ridding the country of communists. Arroyo, however, has since been acquitted of the plunder charges by the Supreme Court, saving him the trouble of a pardon. He has grown close to Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos Jr., the son of the late dictator, an indication that doing away with impunity is not on his list of goals. Full story...
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