The Philippines Under Duterte

I just came from talking with several Filipinos now based in Hongkong. Likewise, I was able to talk also with different nationalities and boy, are we seriously in trouble!

The trouble right now is our image. People from outside the Philippines have this impression that our country is burning, that it is too chaotic and we are on the verge of collapse! Seriously.

While we don't really feel what President Duterte is actively telling us that we are seriously chaotic hence, it justifies the imposition of a national state of emergency, such scenarios, real or imagined, are putting a great strain on our external image.

I ask our President to refrain from picturing our country right now as seriously fucked because I really don't think we are really on that precipice where everything is titling southwards. For the past six years, we were okey except of course with all those corruption committed by people who masqueraded as angels while, in truth, they are demons in barongs.

What are the impressions that our fellow Filipinos abroad and others think of us right now. What is the Philippines under Duterte?

1. To solve our population problem, our President daw tagged 3-4 million Filipino drug addicts for extermination, while allowing drug lords to escape scot-free. Ask for Peter Lim. He's nowhere to be found after his lawyer conversed with the President and after their photo together got prime time TV exposure.

2. To solve poverty, kill Filipinos, especially those from the countrysides, and tag them as drug addicts. Duterte logic: You do drugs, your mind is already fucked up. If you're mind is fucked up, you are like a Zombie. Zombies are menaces. They kill. Hence, it is now the duty of government to annihilate them.

3. To solve insurgency, put fear into the hearts of the urban and rural poor, violate their rights, enter their houses, conduct sonas, and when they resist, kill them. Tag them as drug pushers who resisted arrest.

4. To solve the Communist problem, give those tired revolutionaries sinecures in government.

5. To solve graft and corruption, allow the burial of someone who invented systematic and large-scale thievery in government. That institutionalizes graft and corruption and sends a great message to those who want to dip their fingers into the public coffers---when you steal other people's monies, steal billions, so that you have monies to bribe your way out of court cases and even make yourself, an immortal and a hero.

6. To solve student militancy, withhold government subsidies of state universities.

7. To solve another country's intrusion into Philippine territory, declare the area as nature reserve.

8. To solve the Moro problem, resurrect the man who thinks he's sultan.

9. To solve the problem of rape into the country, make it presidential to think that women are lowlifes, portray them as just legs without brains and easy for the picking. It is like saying, " when you are being raped, just lie down, and enjoy it," to paraphrase a dead prick who once was our foreign secretary.

10. To avert a revolution, bring in the beauties of Miss Universe.

So, these are the learnings that our children have heard and even seen, during these past six months. I just pray to God that God spares our kid's ears from these immorality and profanities.