Election day

Crossing our fingers that there won't be any violence.

Our town has the two clans running against each other that in the past one of them has shot the other, and the other one finally shot back and then said the feud is over. 

But it's not over: and we are holding our breath hoping there won't be any more hits that kill bystanders, which is how our nephew died.

Most of the foreign news only sees the Presidential election.

BBMarcos is the one most popular: and he believes he lost the VP slot six years ago due to fraud. So it does not bode well when we hear of problems with the ballots or with the machines counting votes.

But does a BBM (or a Leni for that matter) mean that they will continue to try to root out corruption in the Philippines? 
As my husband Lolo would say: They're all Crooks.

Strategypage had an essay about the election a few days ago, and is cynical: because the key question is if BongBong will follow the script of Duterte and try to stop corruption, or will he follow his father's very corrupt ways 

The younger Marcos favors the nickname Bongbong, which comes from a popular stew but can also be interpreted as “fiery” or “inspirational.” The younger Marcos also favored BBM (Bong Bong Marcos). Politicians often adopt a nickname to enhance their popularity and such was the case with the son of Ferdinand Marcos, who has spent his entire adult life in politics and striving to revise the bad reputation of his father and his notoriously spendthrift wife Imelda. His father stole as much as $14 billion while in office and much of it has not been recovered.

 Because I fear BBM is pro Chinese, I'd probably vote for Leni, who is being portrayed on the social media as being a puppet of the Americans. (this is called fake news, but hey, I read Chomsky and know that the CIA does this all the time. Of course, so do China and Russia and corporations and rich technocrats).

So the usual liberal suspects, i.e. the catholics and the liberal college students, the media and a lot of celebrities back Leni. But for the common people, this means it is easy to portray her as out of touch and elitist. 

ALJ on youtube has a long discussion, but mainly with people with elite jobs... given the lies of the WAPO about the last election in the USA, why should we believe this discussion with a FilAm WaPost reporter with an American accent and other experts from think tanks lamenting that there is too much fake news out there.

So is it fake news? A better analysis could be done from interviewing someone from the INC or the average tricycle driver.

Indeed, watching Leni's huge rallies on youtube suggest that she has support. 

But does she? 

Reality check: I know that here they held a political rally for her : loads of people there to be entertained and get a free tee shirt while waiting for her to arrive (she arrived five hours late). So were they there because after two years of quarantine people want to party, or because they support her? I have no idea. But fake news goes both ways.

and of course vote buying goes both ways.

The Catholic bishops back Leni, who is nice. But niceness might not stop the corruption which is the main problem here.

But murder, you might cry. Look at all those innocent drug pushers who were shot by cops (and yes, some were innocent, and some of the cops were crooked).

But what about our neighbors who were killed by home robberies? They don't count? What about our neighbor's daugher who died of a shabu overdose? What about the angry assaults against family or girlfriends by shabu induced rage? 

Nope, they don't count.

Even Joy pointed out to Ruby (who of course is a liberal college student in the USA and anti Duterte due to the drug war), that things have changed here: She can walk down the street in Manila without being afraid of being robbed or assaulted.

I was surprised to hear this: I know it is true here, but hey this is the provinces. But even here drugs were behind several in our middle class area being killed in home invasion robberies, or assaults on the street, and now these things aren't a problem.... By the way, the main problem is meth: aka shabu, and yes it comes via Chinese gangsters.

Sigh.