millionaires and elections and mudslides.

 guess who is funding the Philippine elections illegally?

LINK

yes, NGOs linked to the US gov't. such as the National Endowment for Democracy.

and the next time you read praise for Rappler (or read about their noble peace prize) just remember: it was essentially funded by foreign dollars, by the NED, or by other NGOs founded by a millionaire tech guy who also funded the media that overthrew the pro Russian president of the Ukraine a few years back.

the Manila Times has an article that notes the links between this manipulation in the past against Duterte's election (to make a pro US president as a bulwark against China) and a similar manipulation of public opinion in the Ukraine.

alternative LINK

and this anti American leftist paper worried that this will the result in a push to involve the Philippines in a war, not to mention manipulation for the next election? LINK

Do I believe any of this? Not really, but it reminds me of Chomsky and the anti war Left of the 1970s: noting the geopolitical manipulation is going on, and that a lot of psyops is being fed to the public under the guise of news.

and I am old enough to remember reading an interview with President Kennedy where he said that he welcomed the anti nuke peaceniks of the 1960s (who at that time were essentially Russian stooges) because their voice helped to mitigate the pressure from the pro war factions of what Eisenhower called the military industrial complex.

One sided news and censorship of alternative opinions didn't start with Twitter you know.

of course, this is only one side of the story: lots of money comes from those who will benefit from one candidate or the other, and although there are few reports of illegal Chinese funding of election candidates, one suspects that this is going on also. Duterte was accused of getting money from China, something he denied, and although he was pro Chinese, he had to back off because China is unpopular here. But what about this election?

BBMarcos is seeking support from the Chinese Philipine business community that essentially runs the economy here. 

But that community is not the same as the government of China who fears pro US candidates will ask for American help against their open stealing of Filipino assets in the West Philippine Sea.

But if China thinks bribery will let them steal stuff, they forget nationalism triumphs over money: so they have made a mistake in their aggression in recent weeks, pushing around the Philippines in the nearby West Philippine sea: that has angered everyone here, so much that even BBM is against them.-

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but the big news is the almost 200 deaths in the Visayas from a low pressure area with a huge amount of rain causing mudslides.

Global warming will be blamed, but it's actually from illegal logging which is being done due to corruption.

from Asahi.com notes the problem in a 2020 article:  illegal logging denudes the slopes, and illegal mining leads to destruction of the environment and allows heavy rainfall to cause mudslides in these denuded areas.

And this is illegal: but a small gift will get the local authorities to look the other way, and environmental activists and reporters who name names often face violence.... something that long predates Duterte, although from news reports you wouldn't know this.

2020 article from Times of Malta notes this is a world wide problem.

the world bank is funding coal burning plants here, while the Catholic bishops and environmental groups are promoting not investing in fossil fuel development.

my main sarcasm: Right. And what is the alternative?

Until the greenies find a cheap alternative that won't be too expensive for poor folks, then we have a problem. 

The alternative is of course development with legal limits to stop destroying the environment, but hey, with big business too often just wanting to make money and with environmentalists coming from wealthy elites who are ignorant of the need for development, I don't see much hope here.

So why does the church push green stuff but not alternatives? You know if they stop the western companies doing these things, they leave it open for China to do it, and China is not above bribes, exploiting people, and stealing resources from poor countries.

SP on China being thrown out of the DRC for their shennanigans

March 31, 2022: In Africa, Congo has threatened to review Chinese contracts that it calls unfair and possibly corrupt, particularly in the mining sector. In the last year Congo has acted. A month ago, a Congolese court took control of Congo’s Tenke Fungurume mine away from China Molybdenum corporation...