Philippines' Duterte threatens unvaccinated people with arrest
Source: CTV
MANILA -- Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday people who have not taken COVID-19 shots will be arrested if they disobey stay-at-home orders as infections hit a three-month high.
Duterte in an televised address to the nation said he was asking community leaders to look for unvaccinated people and make sure they were confined to their homes.
"If he refuses, if he goes out his house and goes around the community, he can be restrained. If he refuses, the captain is empowered now to arrest recalcitrant persons," Duterte said.
Daily coronavirus infections in the Philippines hit the highest since Sept. 26 at 17,220 cases on Thursday, the health ministry said, including those caused by the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
(Eurasian Review) The Philippines and the United States kicked off one of their largest-ever joint exercises Monday with officials saying they hoped it would convey a message of strong bilateral military ties in the face of maritime challenges from China.
Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the exercises called Balikatan, which means “shoulder-to-shoulder” in Tagalog, “marks another milestone in the enduring alliance” between the two countries. The drills will end on April 8.
“This year’s Balikatan exercise is no ordinary iteration because it is the largest edition ever held, with almost 9,000 participants from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the United States Indo-Pacific Command,” Lorenzana said in his opening remarks read out by his assistant at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.
“We are, thus, sending a message to the world that the alliance between our countries is stronger than ever and that we remain committed to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in response to the evolving security challenges that face both our nations and the region,” Lorenzana said.
The 37th edition of the annual exercise under the countries’ Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) is designed to enhance force capability and strengthen cooperation in maritime security, amphibious operations, live-fire training, urban operations, aviation operations, counterterrorism, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, according to organizers.
(Eurasian Review) Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed during a bilateral meeting on Friday to remain “committed to broaden the space for positive engagements” in dealing with disputes over the South China Sea.
The telephone summit between the two leaders took place the same day the Philippines and the United States wrapped up two weeks of war games, which were among the biggest between both allies. The scenarios included the defense of an isolated island from foreign invaders.
In their phone call, Duterte and Xi “stressed the need to exert all efforts to maintain peace, security and stability in the South China Sea by exercising restraint, dissipating tensions and working on a mutually agreeable framework for functional cooperation,” Duterte’s office said in a statement.
“Both leaders acknowledged that even while disputes existed, both sides remained committed to broaden the space for positive engagements which reflected the dynamic and multidimensional relations of the Philippines and China,” it said.
(AFP via Courthouse News) — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has rejected a proposed law requiring social media users to register their real names and phone numbers, citing threats to free speech and privacy, his spokesman said Friday.
The legislation, designed to combat fake news, online abuse, text scams and militant bombings, also required mobile phone users to provide their personal details when buying SIM cards.
It was approved by both houses of Congress in February, but critics said it was a form of state surveillance.
While supporting efforts to tackle cybercrime and other online offenses, Duterte said he opposed the inclusion of social media user registration in the bill.
He called for “a more thorough study” of the provision, citing concerns it could lead to “dangerous state intrusion and surveillance threatening many constitutionally protected rights” such as individual privacy and free speech, presidential spokesman Martin Andanar said in a statement.
(Mother Jones) When Filipinos elect a new president next month, polls suggest they will select a man with a familiar name. Front-runner Ferdinand Marcos Jr., known by the nickname “Bongbong,” is the son and namesake of the brutal dictator who ruled the island nation for two decades before a popular demonstration forced him out.
Since Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, fled the Philippines in 1986, their family has crept back into politics and began systematically whitewashing his tyrannical regime. With more than 50 percent of support in the most recent polls, Marcos Jr. is set to complete that process—to the horror of the Filipinos who survived his parents’ violent crackdowns on dissent.
The Marcos family history reads almost like a collection of tall tales. Ferdinand Marcos grew up in an influential family—his father was a member of the state legislature—and he first became famous as a college student after a judge convicted him of murdering his father’s political rival. The charge was eventually overturned, part of a decades-long trend in which, as the New York Times put it, the Marcoses have been “remarkably adept at avoiding jail time.”
Marcos became president in 1965, quickly becoming a key Cold War ally of the United States even as his rule turned more despotic. In 1972, he declared martial law, jailing and torturing dissidents while he and Imelda plundered the national treasury. By the time a popular resistance movement, known as the People Power Revolution, forced the Marcos family from power in 1986, they had amassed a nearly $10 billion fortune despite Ferdinand Marcos never collecting a salary greater than $14,000 a year. As Human Rights Watch noted, a commission once estimated that his government “killed more than 3,000 people and tortured thousands of others.”
caltrek wrote: ↑Mon Apr 25, 2022 2:56 pmThe Son of a US-Backed Dictator Is the Favorite in the Philippines’ Upcoming Election
by Dan Spinelli
April 25, 2022
(Mother Jones) When Filipinos elect a new president next month, polls suggest they will select a man with a familiar name. Front-runner Ferdinand Marcos Jr., known by the nickname “Bongbong,” is the son and namesake of the brutal dictator who ruled the island nation for two decades before a popular demonstration forced him out.
Since Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda, fled the Philippines in 1986, their family has crept back into politics and began systematically whitewashing his tyrannical regime. With more than 50 percent of support in the most recent polls, Marcos Jr. is set to complete that process—to the horror of the Filipinos who survived his parents’ violent crackdowns on dissent.
The Marcos family history reads almost like a collection of tall tales. Ferdinand Marcos grew up in an influential family—his father was a member of the state legislature—and he first became famous as a college student after a judge convicted him of murdering his father’s political rival. The charge was eventually overturned, part of a decades-long trend in which, as the New York Times put it, the Marcoses have been “remarkably adept at avoiding jail time.”
Marcos became president in 1965, quickly becoming a key Cold War ally of the United States even as his rule turned more despotic. In 1972, he declared martial law, jailing and torturing dissidents while he and Imelda plundered the national treasury. By the time a popular resistance movement, known as the People Power Revolution, forced the Marcos family from power in 1986, they had amassed a nearly $10 billion fortune despite Ferdinand Marcos never collecting a salary greater than $14,000 a year. As Human Rights Watch noted, a commission once estimated that his government “killed more than 3,000 people and tortured thousands of others.”
How exactly is he a dictator if he is democratically elected and gives up power once his term is over? How exactly is he a dictator if his nations legislative body has more power then him and he has to pass bills through it to move his beliefs forward. Just because he is killing drug dealers and scum doesn't exactly make him a dictator! I wish our president would kill all the leaders of the cartels that are killing our children with drugs and invading our nation on a daily basis.
Not even in the roman republic sense is he a dictator. I'd have more power.
Dictator's Son a Front-Runner as Filipinos Elect Next Leader
Source: Associated Press
Filipinos began voting for a new president on Monday with the son of an ousted dictator and a champion of reforms and human rights as top contenders in a tenuous moment in a deeply divided Asian democracy.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the strongman ousted in a 1986 army-backed “People Power” uprising, has led pre-election surveys with a seemingly insurmountable lead. But his closest challenger, Vice President Leni Robredo, has tapped into shock and outrage over the prospect of another Marcos recapturing the seat of power and harnessed an army of campaign volunteers to underpin her candidacy.
Eight other candidates, including former boxing star Manny Pacquiao, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno and former national police chief Sen. Panfilo Lacson have lagged far behind in voter-preference surveys.
The winner will take office on June 30 for a single, six-year term as leader of a Southeast Asian nation hit hard by two years of COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns.
Marcos set for landslide win in Philippine presidential election
Source: Nikkea Asia
MANILA -- Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the late Philippine dictator, is set to win the country's presidency by a landslide, in a remarkable reversal of fortunes for a political dynasty that 36 years ago was ousted by the "People Power" revolution.
Marcos is on course to secure around 60% of the vote in Monday's election, giving him the strongest mandate for president since his father's rule.
As of 11:24 p.m. and with votes counted from 77.32% of precincts, Marcos has 25.05 million votes, according to multiple local media outlets that cite data from the election commission late on Monday. His closest opponent, Vice President Leni Robredo, was on 11.92 million votes.
Marcos' win concludes a decadeslong effort by his family to reclaim power after the 1986 mass uprising, which abruptly ended his father's 20-year rule and forced the Marcoses into exile in Hawaii until the early 1990s.
weatheriscool wrote: ↑Mon May 09, 2022 6:07 pm
Marcos set for landslide win in Philippine presidential election
Source: Nikkea Asia
MANILA -- Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the late Philippine dictator, is set to win the country's presidency by a landslide, in a remarkable reversal of fortunes for a political dynasty that 36 years ago was ousted by the "People Power" revolution.
Marcos is on course to secure around 60% of the vote in Monday's election, giving him the strongest mandate for president since his father's rule.
As of 11:24 p.m. and with votes counted from 77.32% of precincts, Marcos has 25.05 million votes, according to multiple local media outlets that cite data from the election commission late on Monday. His closest opponent, Vice President Leni Robredo, was on 11.92 million votes.
Marcos' win concludes a decadeslong effort by his family to reclaim power after the 1986 mass uprising, which abruptly ended his father's 20-year rule and forced the Marcoses into exile in Hawaii until the early 1990s.
caltrek wrote: ↑Mon Apr 25, 2022 2:56 pmThe Son of a US-Backed Dictator Is the Favorite in the Philippines’ Upcoming Election
by Dan Spinelli
April 25, 2022
How exactly is he a dictator if he is democratically elected and gives up power once his term is over? How exactly is he a dictator if his nations legislative body has more power then him and he has to pass bills through it to move his beliefs forward. Just because he is killing drug dealers and scum doesn't exactly make him a dictator! I wish our president would kill all the leaders of the cartels that are killing our children with drugs and invading our nation on a daily basis.
Not even in the roman republic sense is he a dictator. I'd have more power.
You pose a good question. Some of it has to do with due process. Killing "leaders of the cartels that are killing our children with drugs" without due process is a threat to democracy. It can become too easy to also use such methods against political opponents who have nothing to do with peddling harmful drugs. Also, I think that the following article very much addresses your question, although perhaps only in an indirect manner.
A Member of the Marcos Family is Returning to Power – Here’s What it Means for Democracy in the Philippines
by Adrian De Leon
(The Conversation) Some 36 years after the People Power Revolution restored democracy to the Philippines, a member of perhaps the most brutal and corrupt political dynasties in the nation’s memory is set to return to the Philippine presidency.
Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., has won the presidential election, according to preliminary results. It will return him to the Malacañang Palace where he lived as a child and from which his parents fled in 1986. His running mate, Sara Duterte, the daughter of current President Rodrigo Duterte, is also set to win the vice presidency by a landslide.
Both candidates hail from political dynasties with long histories of abuses of power. The human rights offenses of the first Marcos regime, from 1965 to 1986, are well documented, involving an estimated 3,257 deaths and over 50,000 victims who were tortured and detained during the martial law period alone. Also well documented is the estimated US$10 billion Marcos plundered.
Meanwhile, the outgoing Duterte administration is notorious for its so-called “war on drugs,” during which his infamous death squads killed more than 6,200 as of 2022.
The election has been mired in tax scandals, bureaucratic corruption and voter suppression.
Security Risks of Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement Under The Marcos Jr. Administration by Rommel C. Banlaoi
November 21, 2022
Introduction:
(Eurasia Review) American Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Manila from her trip to Thailand after attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit. Harris is scheduled to visit on Tuesday, November 22, the City of Puerto Princesa, Palawan where a US facility under Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) is built facing the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
Earlier, Defense Department (DND) Officer-in-Charge Jose Faustino Jr. has announced the construction of five additional American military facilities in Philippine bases across Luzon to boost the implementation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). Locations of these new facilities have been identified: two in Cagayan and one each in Isabela, Palawan, and Zambales. The original five facilities built and being further developed are in Antonio Bautista Air Base in Palawan, Basa Air Base in Pampanga, Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, Lumbia Airpot in Cagayan de Oro, and Benito Ebuen Air Base in Mactan, Cebu.
US Ambassador to the Philippines, Mary Kay Carlson, also disclosed the plan of Washington, DC to provide Manila $70 million worth of military assistance to the Philippines in the next two years to implement EDCA under the administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.
Though Faustino has strongly stressed that EDCA sites are primarily earmarked for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response facilities, training facilities, warehouses and operation centers, these areas are some of the country’s top strategic locations that can effectively facilitate US military activities in major flash points of armed conflicts in Asia, particularly in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Straits and the Korean Peninsula.
Building American military facilities in Philippine territories amid worsening geopolitical rivalry between the US and China also raises the risks of the Philippines getting inevitably involved in the event of military conflicts between these two competing major powers.
The American Repossession of the Philippines by Walden Bello
March 4, 2023
Introduction:
(The Nation) When the news broke in early February that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had struck a deal allowing the United States to dramatically expand its military presence on the archipelago, many people reacted with surprise. After all, the US military’s relationship with the Philippines is a politically sensitive subject, and Marcos had made noises about staying out of the rapidly escalating conflict between the US and China that is fueling Washington’s buildup in the region. The announcement of the deal—in which the United States will be allowed to occupy four military bases in addition to the five it already operates—also came just a month after what was touted in the Philippines as a triumphant visit by Marcos to Beijing, where he reportedly secured $22.8 billion in investment pledges and exchanged warm words with President Xi Jinping.
But those who have followed the Marcos family’s relationship with the United States—or, indeed, the long saga of American intervention in the Philippines—were hardly surprised. The deal was less a bold break with the status quo than a reminder of a colonial relationship—first explicit, and then implicit—that has existed now for over a century.
Marcos’ First Year Was A Mixed Bag – Analysis by Kevin Nielsen M Agojo
January 18, 2024
Introduction:
(Eurasia Review) Despite mixed results in his first year in office, the promising developments in the presidency of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr should not be overlooked. His notable achievements include the signing of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, which condoned US$1 billion of debts belonging to 610,054 beneficiaries. He also signed the Regional Specialty Centers Act, which institutionalises the creation of new specialty health centres.
His administration also granted amnesty to members of various rebel groups, agreed to resume peace talks with insurgents and ordered the recalibration of the infamous National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.
The Philippine economy has also done well under Marcos. Inflation subsided from a 14-year high of 8.7 per cent in January 2023 to 3.9 per cent in December 2023. The Philippines also saw third quarter growth of 5.9 per cent, the strongest in Southeast Asia.
Marcos has walked back many of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s more controversial policies. Not only did he admit the drug war abuses during Duterte’s violent populist regime, but his administration also implemented a cleansing of the Philippine National Police. He has broken with Duterte’s China appeasement strategy by being assertive in defending the country’s sovereign rights over the West Philippine Sea.
But other policy areas need to be given due attention. In September 2023, Marcos ordered a price ceiling on rice amid an ‘alarming increase’ in its retail price attributed to ‘unscrupulous traders and importers’. The price cap was removed after a month, but not before causing confusion and dissent among government officials on how to manage rice shortages.
Marcos-Duterte Rift Gets Ugly With Drug Accusations by Jason Gutierrez
January 30, 2024
Introduction:
(Eurasia Review) In a snide counterattack, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said Monday that the extended use of the opioid painkiller fentanyl by his immediate predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, might have caused the former leader to accuse him of being a drug addict.
Marcos hit back at Duterte in a feud simmering between the country’s top two dynastic political families, which had allied together in the last election. Duterte’s daughter, Sara, is the vice president under Marcos.
The rift first took an ugly turn when Duterte, at a rally on Sunday, called Marcos a “son of a bitch.” In addition, but without presenting evidence, the famously foul-mouthed 78-year-old said that the current president and namesake son of a former Philippine dictator was hooked on illegal drugs.
When reporters questioned Marcos on Monday about Duterte’s drug allegations against him, the Philippine president referred to a 2016 admission by the former president, who, according to various news reports, had said that he had used fentanyl to relieve pain.
“I think it’s the fentanyl. Fentanyl is the strongest pain killer that you can buy. It is highly addictive and it has very serious side effects, and [Duterte] has been taking the drug for a very long time now,” Marcos, 66, told reporters before embarking on a two-day visit to Vietnam.
India Sends 1st BrahMos Cruise Missiles to Philippines by Keoni Everington
April 24, 2024
Introduction:
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — India delivered its first batch of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to the Philippines on Friday (April 19) amid rising tensions over Manila's maritime disputes with Beijing.
In 2022, the Philippines signed a deal worth US$378 million to acquire three batteries of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles from India to defend its territorial waters. On Friday, an Indian Air Force C-17 Globemaster landed at Clark International Airport in Pampanga carrying the first shipment of munitions, reported Inquirer.net.
This acquisition represents the Philippine military's first shore-based anti-ship missile system. It also marks the first time India has exported attack cruise missiles to a “friendly nation” and is the country's largest single weapons export order, reported The Economic Times.
During an election rally on Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the deal: “Now we are also exporting BrahMos missiles. The first batch of this missile is going to the Philippines today.”
The missile system has a range of 290 km and can carry a 300-kg semi-armor piercing warhead. It was the result of a joint venture between India and Russia and its name is a combination of the Indian river the Brahmaputra and the Russian river Moskva.
President of Philippines Says It Won't Back Down, but Won't Start a War, after Clash with Chinese Coast Guard June 23, 2024
Introduction:
(AP via Asahi Shimbun) MANILA--The president of the Philippines said Sunday his country would not yield to “any foreign power” after Chinese forces injured Filipino navy personnel and damaged at least two military boats with machetes, axes and hammers in a clash in the disputed South China Sea, but added the Philippines would never instigate a war.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. flew with his top generals and defense chief to the western island province of Palawan, which faces the South China Sea, to meet and award medals to navy personnel who came under assault by the Chinese coast guard Monday as they attempted to deliver food and other supplies to an outpost on the hotly contested Second Thomas Shoal.
Videos and pictures of the chaotic faceoff made public by the military showed Chinese coast guard personnel hitting a Philippine navy boat with a wooden bar and seizing a bag while blaring sirens and using blinding strobe lights. The Chinese government said that its coast guard had to take action after Filipino forces defied warnings not to stray into what China calls its own offshore territory, a claim long rejected by rival claimant governments and international arbitrators.
The violent confrontation sparked condemnation and alarm from the U.S., the European Union, Japan, Australia and other Western and Asian nations, while China and the Philippines blamed each other for instigating it. Marcos’s key advisers said Friday that his administration has no plan to invoke the country's mutual defense treaty with the United States.
“We are not in the business to instigate wars,” Marcos told Filipino forces. “In defending the nation, we stay true to our Filipino nature that we would like to settle all these issues peacefully.”
