As seen on the September 2019 issue of The Philippine Sentinel
Comparison of Trump with Duterte
Being a Republican and angry at what the Democrats are doing to my country, I must speak out to the regular comparisons between Duterte and Trump.
Trump has never openly advocated for Extra Judicial Killings. He has not given any chunk of American territory to any foreign government. He has not publicly referred to his private parts or disrespected anybody’s wife in public ━ all of which Duterte has done, and with impunity and unapologetically.
I will grant you that they are both maybe equally ugly and don’t know when to shut up. But to make up for Trump’s visual handicap, there’s Melania, probably the First Lady that might have inspired onanism the most in the populace.
━ Armando, California USA
It’s a Travesty of Justice
This “revelation” by a self-confessed scammer implicating member of the opposition in a so-called “conspiracy” is so wrong on many levels:
- An elected senator takes over a Philippine National Police briefing. It’s a police matter that a member of the legislature has no business participating in. I guess [Senator-elect] Bong Go hasn’t outgrown his photo-bombing roots.
- Bong Go and PNP chief Oscar Albayalde turn over the microphone to the person in police custody ━ Dennis Borbon, who, on cue, implicates former senator Bam Aquino, whose surname and clan is synonymous to “yellow.”
- Everyone suddenly starts treating his allegations like they were gospel truth, despite the fact that a cornered rat will say anything and implicate anyone to save his skin.
It’s not just bizarre. It’s a travesty of justice and a violation of the PNP’s own rule not to present suspects.
Witnesses totally bereft of credibility like Berbon and Bikoy become “reliable” witnesses in this alternate universe. Before that, convicts in the New Bilibid Prison sent a sitting lady senator to jail with absurd, misogynist tales.
But that’s an all too familiar phenomenon in this administration of malleable rules, transactional politics, history and manufactured matrices.
━ Lillibeth Frondoso of Rappler
Duterte’s Contempt for the Poor
With his veto of the bill ending labor contractualization, President Rodrigo Duterte proved his contempt for the poor majority and fidelity to the wealthy few.
This latest betrayal of the working class by Duterte should not come as a surprise to people who have been listening to Duterte’s significant policy commitments.
In July 2016, Duterte had announced that his government will continue former president Noynoy Aquino’s neoliberal economic policies that have been anti-labor, anti-poor, anti-government regulation, pro-creditor, pro-privatization of public domain, pro-foreign capitalist domination of the Philippines. Key appointments to the economic, finance, and defense departments are consistent with Washington Consensus orientation.
His pro-forma anti-US and anti-Catholic Church rhetorical distractions did not affect the institutional foundations of both imperial establishments. But his Washington approved war on drugs murdered mostly the poorest of the poor people.
For those who dare to see and face reality: Duterte has removed his mask and bared his real face to Filipinos. It may be painful for Filipinos to accept that they have been played for a fool by someone who appears and speaks like them. The sorrowful truth is [that] Filipinos have been captivated by a member of the same ruling social elite but with the social graces of the lumpen proletariat. The worst of both worlds.
━ Allan Tolentino