Duterte - "Corrupt journalists will be killed"

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...elect-says-corrupt-journalists-will-be-killed

I have raised the question of May0r Duterte here before and I have been told by residents and former residents of Davao that he is the finest thing that has ever happened to the Philippines.

I see that the Guardian has chosen to edit a news agency report to produce that story. But I'm pretty sure the original didn't contain these words:

Which prompts me to ask: since when has the Sterling/Peso exchange rate been £1 = 207.61 Pesos? Maybe Duterte's warning should also apply to shrill Guardian scribes who don't fact-check their stories.

I can understand that the Filipino people want an end to corruption but to vote in a man who will authorise state-sponsored death squads.
The people must have known about Duterte's M.O..
I don't understand the Philippines now.

http://www.rappler.com/rappler-blogs/134946-dear-president-rody-duterte

Serious Filipino journalists don't understand Duterte.

Maria Ressa is making a real point here - Duterte makes outrageous statements and if he is called on them he says they are "jokes", and tells people that in order to understand their President they must ask the provincial Press in Davao (those of them whom he hasn't had murdered)...

This may explain a very great deal:

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/

http://interaksyon.com/article/1285...ed-for-sharing-post-vs-marcos-libingan-burial

See here;

http://cmfr-phil.org/mediakillings/

https://raissarobles.com/2014/11/29...rno-called-dictator-ferdinand-marcos-a-thief/

Here is a very educational page from an old newspaper:

I am not expecting anyone who still lives in Davao to say anything other than " Duterte is wonderful" - anyone has a right to remain alive and, if possible, un-molested by goon squads. And the same goes for people like Markham, who no longer live there, but who may have relatives by marriage there.

More light reading - according to Duterte, this lady deserved to be killed, for exposing his friend and ally Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo:

https://www.cpj.org/killed/2005/marlene-garcia-esperat.php

Please note: no quotes from news agencies, or reprints from the foreign press. All the links above apart from the one from Wired come from the serious end of the Filipino Press.

Thought I would just keep these coming:

http://politics.com.ph/is-duterte-the-king-of-twitter-study-shows-his-online-buzz-may-be-fake/

Not unless he was followed

In the local paper...

http://www.mindanews.com/mindaviews/2016/05/29/commentary-libingan-ng-mga-bayani/

Here's the original of the Grauniad story...

http://www.mindanews.com/top-storie...n-for-every-drug-lord-captured-dead-or-alive/

http://interaksyon.com/article/1284...ks-way-to-untangle-territorial-row-with-china

http://philipjrlustre.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/protector-of-people-doctrine.html?spref=fb

One from Indonesia:

http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/...ss-enigmatic-less-dramatic-president-duterte/

I guess you are also referring to Peter who spent the last year or so living in the city. He and I have one other thing in common - we've actually met and spoken with Rodrigo Duterte and (in my case, at least) his daughter Sara, who is very much her father's daughter; more so than her siblings. He - and she - may not appeal to your refined sense of political correctness and, viewed through western eyes, may be less than an ideal choice of leader. But he does appeal to the majority of Filipinos who have obviously tired of the patronage politics, cronyism and corruption that has blighted them all their lives where only the moneyed were represented. They voted for change and Duterte seems willing to deliver.

I see that Duterte intends to appoint former or still-serving senior AFP officers to head the Bureau of Immigration, LTO and the Bureau of Customs. Few here will have had any dealings with either and therefore little understanding of the pervasive (sometimes low-level) corruption that's omni-present in those agencies. I've heard first-hand accounts given by western settlement visa applicants who are "invited" to pay a sizeable, yet undocumented or receipted, surcharge to ensure their applications are accepted. Under the last three Commissioners, BoI has held foreigners in complete contempt and Duterte seeks to clean-up that department, along with Customs, LTO and the PNP. More power to him and I hope he succeeds. You can rest assured that were either Roxas or Binay to be the next President, such a clean-up would not be on the cards.

I confidently predict that by the time of the next Presidential election, either you or I will have to eat our words and I naturally believe it will be you. I rather think that Duterte will move to scrap the 60-40 foreign investment/ownership law and with corruption stamped-out and transparency introduced into key agencies, those measures combined will go a long way to attracting foreign companies to invest in the country.

Aquino may have been ostensibly one of the better holders of his high office but he and his family hold the Philippine people in utter contempt. Why, for example, should tax-payers fund pleasure trips in Presidential flying machines taken by his sister and her entourage and why were the helicopters in that fleet grounded throughout the immediate post-Yolanda relief operation - and that's before we ask where all the foreign-aid money has disappeared to. Or peer into the rather murky yet significant alleged sale to China of an islet in the Spratleys that involved around 17 tax-payer funded trips to China undertaken by Senator Trillanes. I have the distinct feeling that rather than read about state-sponsored vigilantism, the news will be dominated by an investigation of Aquino, Roxas and Trillanes (inter alia) for treason and plunder.

Duterte's Presidency hasn't started yet, let's give him the chance to swim or to sink.