well that explains why all those planes are flying over our town

 Lots of airplanes and helicopters flying over our town. We are on the flight path to nearby Fort Magsaysay, and usually only hear this when they have the joint US/Philippine war games.

So what's going on? From 24 days ago;

Army to rehearse mobilization in Visayas, Mindanao

uh, we are no where near the Visayas or Mindanao. But later in the article they note:

The Philippine Army's Combined Arms Training Exercise Katihan has been expanded to include areas in the Visayas and Mindanao to test its command and control capabilities for territorial defense. Participants will move to consolidation areas including Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, as well as the new training sites for this year, Camp Peralta in Capiz and Camp Kibaritan in Bukidnon. “This time we are rehearsing mobilization in Mindanao and the Visayas region. Two areas so we are now expanding,” Philippine Army chief Lieutenant General Roy Galido said in a press conference. “If we would want to simulate a national crisis situation when it comes to territorial defense, it's the Army's ability for command and control,” Galido said.

“And that's the role of the Army, to be able to prevent physical occupation of the land and to be able to push them back in case the scenario would exist,” he added.

translation: Preparing for China to invade Taiwan and because China is still threatening fishermen and the Phil coast guard in the west Philippines sea. 

This is essentially saying to China: Well, we can move our soldiers around if you try to invade us. In some ways, the Philippines has a good military who has had experience in fighting both insurgencies and as UN Peacekeepers, whereas China does not.

 The cooperation with the USA is about using high tech weapons in the fight (see Land of Bad on how this works).

now a question that might or might not be related: Is the arrest of Duterte using the excuse of the International Criminal court, that the Philippines quit a few years ago, a way to placate the deep state because he stopped the Philippines from becoming a narcostate, or because he hated the CIA and their candidate lost to him? Or because he tried to make nice with both the NPA (communist insurgents) and also with China to improve the economy (but pulled back after they screwed him over too?) Or is this merely Marcos playing political games like his father did in the good old days (/sarcasm)?

the estamates of those killed are vague: The latest number is 30 thousand but Bloomberg via Gulf News said it was 6000 , and correctly noted the Duterte arrest was about the feud between the various political families.

the reason for the numbers being inaccurate is that if a body was found, you didn't know if he was killed by a rival drug seller, by locals who wanted revenge for their family members being killed or destroyed by drugs, a robbery by the usual thugs, a political hit against one's political rival, a revenge murder against a businessman or low grade politician who harmed your, a hit by a businessman or low grade politician against activists or reporters who were blowing the whistle on their corruption, by hit squads by rogue cops, or in a shoot out with the police.

and few of these murders (except by the hit squads) can be blamed on Duterte, because this was business as usual before he took over, and the bad news is that the crime rate against ordinary folks is now going up again.

Sigh.