Duterte Harry: The Philippines General Discussion (read the last post)

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

I want to see a Chinese drug trafficker land to see if Duterte follows through with his promise that he'd kill them. If he does, the way China will react would be very interesting considering the Solomon dispute.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Frankly I'm not totally convinced this is illegitimate. Pilipino citizens have been dealing with "corrupt" politicians for so long that they actually are impressed with a candidate going through with his word, no matter how terrible his proposed policies might be.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

He also just issued a pretty funny retort to the Catholic Church, saying that he was going to hell, and that the priests should join him there. Hilarious that the most Catholic country on earth has basically elected an edgy internet atheist (although granted he has very understandable, pesonal reasons to be angry at the Catholic clergy).

The influence of the Catholic Church I think has waned since the early Aquino years. If anything soap operas are more of a religion now.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

He also just issued a pretty funny retort to the Catholic Church, saying that he was going to hell, and that the priests should join him there. Hilarious that the most Catholic country on earth has basically elected an edgy internet atheist (although granted he has very understandable, pesonal reasons to be angry at the Catholic clergy).

The influence of the Catholic Church I think has waned since the early Aquino years. If anything soap operas are more of a religion now.

The Catholic Church would have more credibility now if it hadn't been so brazenly part of the social and political establishment for so long.

Of course, the exact same is true in Ireland, Latin America, Quebec, Italy, etc, etc.

I mean before, you needed to have the approval of the church in order to be successful. Cardinal Sin's opposition to Marcos was part of what brought him down. But as people have turned to more economic despair, the corruption within the church has become more and more evident (together with the press just generally being more free).

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

He would probably purge the Church's influence on the Philippine government which is arguably a good thing. The only problem is that his purging would probably result in countless more innocent deaths.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Anyway, let's not go full on "trains run on time". Yes I understand why poor and provincial Filipinos support him after being dicked around by half hearted land reform since the Cory administration, but we have the luxury of seeing the bigger picture: his mobilisation of a wave of reactionary state thugs targeted at the poorest in society.

Again though, it's not the intent that matters anymore to a lot of Pilipinos. It's the results. As far as they're concerned, the results are more important than anything else. Let's be real -- the Pilipino social structure is totally screwed up. When your family is constantly being torn apart and you're having to focus on sending one kid to school so that they can go abroad to become a teacher or a maid or something to support the entire family (grandparents, parents, and siblings included) or your mother or your father end up having to do the same, the entire society eventually ends up in some form of psychological distress. It's really been the failure of every administration post-Cory to provide an appropriate social service structure that's lead to this point. That said, without Marcos going stupid, the Philippines might already be a South Korea-level power.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

It occurred to me yesterday that this is exactly the kind of situation in which it would be morally justified for the US to do to him what they did to Allende. But of course, it won't.

No. If the US did this, the backlash would be incredible and a civil war might emerge. The geopolitical situation would be a disaster.

Even if that didn't occur in the immediate term, it would occur in the long term unless an enlightened leader(TM) is installed.