How Do You Solve a Problem like Duterte?

How do you solve a problem like Duterte?

Sung to the tune of “Maria”

How do you solve a problem like Duterte? How do you check the power in his hand?

Another dark period in our history

By: Joel Ruiz Butuyan - @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:09 AM March 19, 2018

The Philippines is sliding back to another dark period in our history at the rate the government is destroying institutions that protect the people against abuses of power by our leaders.

After we ousted the Marcos dictatorship, we created or adopted institutions aimed at making our leaders accountable for any misuse of power. These institutions include a Constitution with a strong Bill of Rights, a powerful Congress, an independent judiciary, an empowered Ombudsman, a vibrant and free press, and Philippine membership in the International Criminal Court. In less than two years, the Duterte administration has weakened all these institutions by undermining their ability to safeguard the people’s welfare.

The government is working to render the Bill of Rights worthless, as a result of the methods it employs in its war on drugs. Policemen are encouraged to make arrests and searches by doing away with the necessity of court-issued warrants, and they have been emboldened to perpetuate the killing of thousands of drug suspects under dubious claims of resisting arrest (“nanlaban”). The government is waging a virtual war against the Bill of Rights.

Congress has been reduced to an inferior branch of the government that is completely subservient to the President. The legislature fails to perform its constitutional role as a counterbalancing power whenever the President oversteps the limits of his authority. It is true that Congress has always been submissive to an incumbent chief executive. But in the past, the Senate flexed muscle whenever a president got brazen in his or her ways. Regrettably, the current Senate is incapable of acts of brave defiance against the Duterte administration.

The administration’s persecution-theatrics has needlessly undermined the genuine gripes of the judiciary against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. The mischief of certain members of the House and the pointless meddling by the Solicitor General have overshadowed the legitimacy of the grievances against the Chief Justice. As a result, the telling significance of the unanimous interdiction of the associate justices—including Justice Marvic Leonen, a long-time ally of the Chief Justice—for her to take an indefinite leave has been muddled by the unnecessary brouhaha.

The refusal of the administration-controlled Congress to implement the decisions of the Ombudsman dismissing or suspending members of Congress has undermined the valiant work of the graft-busting office to make powerful politicians liable for corrupt practices. For her fearless efforts, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales has repeatedly been badgered with threats of impeachment by the administration.

The freedom of the press is emasculated by the government’s maltreatment of the media organization Rappler that is critical of its actions. Rappler’s reporter has been banned from covering events attended by the President, and it faces a trumped-up criminal charge for cyberlibel, among other forms of harassment. Rappler is presented as Exhibit A to serve as warning to media organizations who displease administration leaders.

The most recent act committed by the administration to undermine the safeguards against abuse of power is the withdrawal of the Philippines’ membership in the International Criminal Court. All the safeguards earlier mentioned involve domestic institutions that are within reach of manipulation by a misbehaving administration. Recourse to the International Criminal Court serves as the Filipino people’s last resort to make our leaders liable in case all the domestic safeguards are compromised.

The President has not secured immunity for himself by withdrawing the Philippines’ membership in the International Criminal Court, because the withdrawal takes effect one year from now, at best. All he has managed to do is disable his people from obtaining a remedy from the international tribunal against the wayward ways of the future leaders of this country.

Another period of dark days is ahead for long-suffering Filipinos.

Comments to fleamarketofideas@gmail.com 

Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/111847/another-dark-period-history#ixzz5AtsDhugV         

‘Our challenge IS President Duterte’

By John Nery

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:09 AM January 23, 2018

At the “Catholic media in challenging times” forum in San Carlos Seminary in Makati City on Friday, the veteran journalist and former professor Crispin Maslog—he wryly introduced himself as a “centennial,” not a millennial—rose during the open forum not to ask a question but to offer a comment. “I would like to share with you an answer,” he said. He pointed to the theme of the forum blazoned on the backdrop, read it out loud, and said: “I think our challenge is President Duterte.”

He cut to the quick. That is in fact the real reason why we live in challenging times, and why Catholic media organizations—in common with other media and with other sectors of society—are facing a challenge. The election of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte inaugurated a parallel era of anxiety in the Philippines; behind the record high survey ratings of the President are consistent confessions of fear, mistrust, uncertainty. The same surveys that show majority satisfaction or trust ratings for the President and approval for his signature anti-drugs campaign show that almost three-fourths of voting-age Filipinos fear they or someone they know will be the next casualty in the so-called war on drugs. A far greater majority, over 90 percent, say keeping suspected drug dealers or users alive is important. Less than one-tenth say they trust the police when the police allege that suspects were killed because they fought back.

...The forum featured the Archbishop of Manila, Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, as keynote speaker. His task was to give an overview of church teaching on the media, starting from “Inter Mirifica,” the Vatican II decree on “the media of social communications.” Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara of Pasig, Howie Severino of GMA Network, and I formed a panel of reactors.

…The deadly “war on drugs” is anti-poor, counter-democratic, un-Filipino. Based on the theory that drug dependents are less than human, it is also deeply unchristian. (The drug rehabilitation initiatives of many dioceses are good examples of the proper Christian response.) The challenge for Catholic journalists is to both give witness to the slaughter and help end it.

Cardinal Tagle paid close attention to the problem of “moral evil,” a key subject in “Inter Mirifica” which in its complexity can be usefully summed up in one question: “How do you report on it?” he asked. “The way we describe sana should not awaken the base instincts.” I was reminded of another challenge presented by President Duterte: the rehabilitation of the reputation of the Marcoses. The Marcos dictatorship was a moral evil; Pope John Paul II had harsh words for Ferdinand Marcos behind closed doors, when he visited the country in 1981. The attempt to rehabilitate an unrepentant family responsible for such moral evil presents another challenge to Catholic (and other) journalists.

A third challenge: The Duterte administration’s cowardly acquiescence to China’s increasingly aggressive conduct in the South China Sea approaches the level of treason. Shepherds must guard the land on which their sheep graze, not run away when the wolves appear. The Duterte administration’s lack of resolve to implement the country’s rights to the West Philippine Sea, firmly asserted by the landmark arbitral tribunal ruling, means that Filipino fishermen are losing fishing grounds and Filipino servicemen guarding the outposts find themselves at greater risk. The challenge for journalists, Catholic or not, is clear: Tell the truth about the impending loss of our sheep’s own verdant pastures.

Link: http://opinion.inquirer.net/110482/challenge-president-duterte#ixzz58SUGWEJX

Latest Opinion

Marcos’ ‘resurrection’

Philippine Daily Inquirer

05:02 AM March 19, 2018

Alarmingly, yet another minor was killed recently. As was expected, a cop is the alleged culprit. I could not help but wonder what has become of this country and of our government. Indeed, we have been baffled since July 2016, but from my point of view, the situation is becoming increasingly worse that even a boy in his teens could fall as victim. What if one of these days the victims’ age would get even younger? Do we have to wait for that horrifying circumstance to happen?

I am not inciting, but rather imploring citizens to speak up, because it seems that we are again being cloaked by the evils of an autocratic leadership. Not since the regime of Marcos have we witnessed how uniformed men could be as bloodthirsty and ruthless, and how the state is inclined to blatantly commit atrocities against its own citizens. The statistics alone corroborates our continued degeneration.

Should we expect the worst in a few years or so? Is it plausible, should these killings continue, that we would soon be regarded by the international community as the summary execution capital of the world?...

IAN CARLO ARAGON, iancarloaragon@gmail.com

Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/111833/marcos-resurrection#ixzz5AtuCReVn

[OPINION] What scares me the most about China’s new, ‘friendly’ loans

China is appropriating our territories even without any of its infrastructure projects breaking ground. It’s like a bank foreclosing your house even if it hasn’t given you any money yet.

By JC Punongbayan

Rappler

Published 10:00 AM, March 02, 2018

Updated 12:02 AM, March 03, 2018

In a recent meeting of businessmen, socioeconomic planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia admitted that China’s infrastructure loans are more expensive than Japan’s.

Yet when asked why the Duterte government still wants to borrow huge loans from China, Pernia offered various answers like, “we cannot get all the loans” from Japan, the processing of Japanese projects tends to be “slow”, and China’s rates are “still much better” than commercial loans. Most notably, he said we need “more friends”.

But is China really being friendly here? In this article we show that China’s new loans to the Philippines are more sinister and onerous than they appear.

In recent years, China – in a strategy now known as “debt-trap diplomacy” – has lent billions of dollars to many poor countries worldwide, ostensibly to help finance their infrastructure projects.

But many of these countries, once unable to pay, are forced to give up their natural resources and strategic assets as a form of collateral. This, in turn, promotes China’s economic and political interests worldwide.

We should heed the experiences of these other borrower countries. Given the actions – rather, inaction – of our current leadership, the Philippines could well be the next victim of this devious scheme.

Link: https://www.rappler.com/thought-leaders/197207-china-loans-philippines-fears

Weak peso propels outstanding PH debt to record P6.73T in January

By Ben O. de Vera - Reporter / @bendeveraINQ

Inquirer Business / 07:48 AM March 02, 2018

As the peso weakened at the start of the year, the government’s outstanding obligations further rose to a record P6.73 trillion in January.

The national government’s outstanding debt as of January inched up 1.1 percent from P6.65 trillion at end-December 2017, as it also jumped by a tenth from P6.12 trillion a year ago, the latest Bureau of Treasury data released Thursday night showed.

In a statement, the Treasury attributed the month-on-month increase in the debt stock mostly to “the impact of foreign currency fluctuations.”

Foreign debt by end-January 2018, for instance, amounted to P2.29 trillion – up 3.8 percent from December’s P2.21 trillion and 6.2 percent higher than the P2.16 trillion in the same month last year.

The hike in external debt, equivalent to 34.1 percent of the year-to-date debt portfolio, was mainly due to “peso depreciation and the impact of third-currency appreciation that raised the value of the US dollar and third currency-denominated indebtedness amounting to P61.21 billion and P6.78 billion, respectively,” the Treasury explained.

“These added to the net availments on foreign loans for the month amounting to P16.15 billion,” according to the Treasury.

At end-January, the peso weakened to 51.341:$1 from end-2017’s 49.958:$1.

…The weakness of the Philippine peso against the US dollar was primarily because of market concerns on the prevailing current account deficit amid a surge in imports that also resulted in a wider trade deficit.

A component of the balance of payments, the current account was expected to have had swung to a $100-million deficit in 2017 from the $600-million surplus in 2016 amid the government’s push to ramp up infrastructure investments leading to strong capital goods importation.

This year, the current account deficit is seen swelling to $700 million.

Link: http://business.inquirer.net/246832/weak-peso-propels-outstanding-ph-debt-record-p6-73t-january#ixzz5AiSXAefa

Duterte is the fox guarding the chickens. Deny human rights. Destroy due process. Plant evidence. Broadcast outrageous lies. Smear your political opponents. Kill, kill, kill. Grease collaborators, the petty to the plundering. Buy off political allies—the more unscrupulous, the better. Glorify dictators. Falsify history. Appoint cronies, bootlickers, hangers-on. Threaten with devastating lawsuits your political opposition at the highest levels of government. Let criminals off to extract political favors. Weaponize them by converting them into false witnesses testifying against your political adversaries. Tighten restrictions on the free press. Bring ruinous regulatory and financial sanctions to bear on major media organizations. Smile for the camera.

Duterte’s agenda, which is to destroy democratic institutions, establish a dictatorship, and enrich himself and his cronies through massive corruption, will have catastrophic economic effects in the Philippines. Bad governance is already showing the signs in massive hidden debt to Communist China, weakening foreign investment, a diminishing peso, ballooning inflation, and degraded economic growth.

Duterte is using Communist China as a hedge in his agenda to exploit for his personal aggrandizement the Philippine nation and its people. He is a traitor to the Philippines.