My granddaughter reports that President Rody "the punisher" is scaring people, and that some of the mayors are cleaning up their act because he will make them responsible for what goes on in their districts. No more looking the other way for a small "gift"...
And she said when he gave his speech, it was full of jokes, which made everyone laugh. The teenagers were most upset about the curfew: but since he plans to arrest their parents, they just laughed about how this could be used for manipulating the parents.
It is hard to tell the grass roots opinions from the English language media here, although different points of view are found in different papers. You have to go to the Tagalog talk radio and/or scandal sheets, and alas my Taglog is limited.
the western press is in hysterics. They don't see past his crude jokes (which are culturally on the mark but non PC) and they don't sense the underlying messages is not that he will kill people, but that he will keep everyone's nose to the grindstone or they will be in trouble.
On the other hand, the mayor behind the hit that killed our nephew died in his bed and wasn't indicted until he was no longer mayor (and the rumor was he diverted city funds to stop the formal indictment). So excuse me for being cynical about "human rights" when a small gift will mean no justice for the little people.
as for shooting on sight: Well, they already do this.
the problem is that there are a lot of "drive by (motorcycle) murders that never get investigated, even though they are probably professional hits, not to mention in our area old people targeted and some killed in robberies, which have a professional tint to them.
Most of the US press coverage on him is off base: crude language and his jokes and hyperbole are taken at face value... seeing human rights violations of criminals but not how criminals and the culture of corruption keep ordinary people poor and in danger.
AlJ has a better summary here.
as does (of all places) this Pittsburgh newspaper.
These politically incorrect characteristics ended up serving him well, in fact, in his political campaign against establishment figures.Their spokespersons have already made haste to assure the world that they will keep Mr. Duterte under control. The Philippine establishment includes businesspeople and bankers, the military, traditional political families and the Catholic Church.
I am a Catholic, but don't get upset when he calls the SJW bishops "sons of bitches", when you see corrupt "catholic" politicians in photo ops with them.
as for the Pope and his "green agenda", the less said the better...Venezuela anyone?
The pope will be placing a green agenda course in seminaries, one report says. A better course would be a course in "thou shalt not steal" and study how Jeremiah and some of the other old testament prophets resonded to corruption....
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