Monday, September 24, 2018

Philippine headlines

Another day, another typhoon?

should hit the far north of the Philippines on Thursday.

Kuya is busy harvesting and drying our crop at the farm.
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another day, another volcano.

Not in our area, but in the Visayas.

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If you just read the social media posted by students who live in gated communities, you might not know this:

from the Manila Bulletin: Filipino support anti drug campaign.


The nationwide survey, conducted on June 27 to 30 among 1,200 respondents, found 78 percent satisfied and 13 percent dissatisfied with the administration’s campaign against illegal drugs.
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and remember when you see demonstrations in the Philippines:  in this one they estimate 1000 people are expected to protest, which is about remembering Marcos' imposition of martial law. (i.e. hinting that they will be very very angry if Duterte extends martial law).

Only 1000 people? it means either the organizers are too cheap to pay people to join the demonstration  or else no one cares.

And it's harvest season: What type of grass roots organization will ask people to go to demonstrations during harvest season?

this demonstration is remembering Marcos' martial law, which was oppressive, but given that too many presidents since then just looked the other way when corrupt politicians looted the country, for some, Marcos is looking good.

background information:

the going price for protesters is 500 pesos a day plus meals, and so when the organizers like the one in the article claim they will have "1000 people" in their dmonstrations, either they are too cheap to pay the usual fee, or the locals don't want to demonstrate.

It's similar to buying votes: since they are all crooks, folks will let their vote be bought. Going price is 500 pesos, but can be higher for closely contested elections.

But when things are serious, people either ignore the vote buyers, or else take the money and vote for who they want. Which is how we got Duterte...

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we had two landslides after the last typhoons, caused by illegal mining or quarrying.

Cebu report here.

Duterte discusses here. trying to stop open pit mining.

I don't know enough about the subject, except to note that it's easier to bribe local officials than to follow the laws.

Rappler article on mining.

AlJ has an article on the landslide north of here:

Decades of unrestrained mining has made many areas of this mountain-range precarious and dangerous, leading environmental activists blaming the illegal mining for the landslides.


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