"The Man" Is He Who Has The Plan

Much criticism has been made against Duterte and his methods. Predictably, the cry of "Human rights!" is used by his opponents as well as the tiresome phrase of "due process". These criticisms aren't enough. If you really want to get at the President, you have to do something radical.

Allow me to explain how the present criticisms of Duterte simply won't work and how one can really make a dent on the Duterte machine.

Let us begin with the status quo or rather, what was once the status quo. The Philippines was at best, stagnant and at worst,  a car careening downhill with no brakes. The situation had become insufferable. The presidential candidates last election season, before Duterte entered the scene and mowed over them like an eighteen-wheeler, either offered more of the same crap or "change" that amounted to little toppings on a pile of cow dung. This wasn't good enough. People wanted real change; preferably of the drastic kind. Along comes a man from Davao making outlandish promises like solving crime in six months or less. The people picked Duterte because he was so unlike the others and promised to take the country to a radical direction. At that point, it didn't matter what he said but only that he was going to do something extreme. It's like that scenario where you're stuck in a really terrible place and you scream, "Anywhere but here!" The people at that point were desperate for Duterte to just take them somewhere else - anywhere but the quagmire of Pnoy's do-nothing, let-it-burn presidency.

Now this is key. The critics today fail to understand the circumstances that fueled El Jefe's rise to power. It's not enough to criticize Duterte's methods. One must also provide a vision and solution that's better than what Duterte is selling. People chose Duterte because they thought he could fix the country's problems. If you criticize Duterte but don't also step up and offer your own fixes, people won't give you the time of day.

Let me put it this way: there is a big bad problem. That's the given. Duterte comes in and offers his solution. It's not the best solution. It's not an elegant solution. It's messy and it's a slow poison to our civil society in the grand scheme of things but it's a solution. Everybody criticizes Duterte's solution but nobody offers alternatives. Duterte wins by default.

Duterte's critics lose because people want solutions and they have none. It's especially worse for critics who were toadies for the previous administration. They can't even accept the "given" in the equation. To them, the Philippines was just fine and Duterte is ruining all the imaginary gains we made. No, the Philippines wasn't "just fine". Step one is admitting there's a problem. If you don't even admit that there's a problem, you're at less than square one. Stop fighting for the status quo. Admit the situation sucks and outdo Duterte in offering actual solutions. That's the only way you can beat him. 

Everyone is sick of the same old crap and wants to move forward. Duterte is the only one who has the momentum. Notice how he controls the narrative, how he's basically setting the terms for the national conversation everytime he deigns to give the media his attention. He has framed himself as one who looks to the future. Burying Marcos? It's more symbolic than anything. Duterte is framing himself as one making actual progress. A serious critic must not allow him to do this. One must SEIZE the momentum; take the initiative from the President. The President is selling radical change and it's selling well. A competitor must also offer radical change but one that's even better. A serious critic must not allow the President to have the monopoly. Ah, but that would require a certain boldness and a willingness to swallow one's pride and admit that the past was a failure. How some people cling to the past...

Anyway, I really should write about things other than politics.

Rowdy Rody's Dirty Laundry

Dirty Laundry

This administration is a gold mine. God bless Duterte. God bless him.

Go ask the older folks if they have ever seen a President do this. Ask them if they've ever seen a President engage in brazen prime time mudslinging to such a nasty degree. De Lima always fancied herself as some kind of smart ass so why bother playing at taking the high road? You can't beat her at pompous moral posturing so a different tactic is required. Who knew that for El Jefe, that would mean accusing her of having an affair with a married man and implying that they benefit from drug money? 

You should have seen De Lima. It was unexpected. She was totally unprepared, the poor devil. It was a kidney punch.

Critics say it was dirty and uncalled for but in case you haven't noticed, we are well past that point already. It seems everything is getting pried open in the Philippines. Sure it was nasty, but in a way, it was tactically brilliant. Today was the Senate hearing on the extrajudicial killings. Thanks to Duterte, nobody can pay attention to the proceedings. All people can do is look at De Lima and think, "Wow. Somebody is actually banging this dumpy broad?", and everyone will forget what actually happened.

UN-necessary

The papers today reported that Duterte got fed up with international criticism of the extrajudicial killings so he threatened to leave the United Nations. I laugh."Threaten"? Threaten who? Let's not pretend we're a member of the security council. We're more of a dependent than anything. What about all the foreign aid? Yolanda?

But of course, it's all straightened out later that Duterte was exaggerating and so forth. You know, it's getting a little tiresome. On the one hand, we're supposed to take Duterte seriously but on the other, we're not supposed to take him seriously. He means what he says except when he doesn't? My advice: Duterte should cross his fingers and show it to us when he speaks off the cuff. It'll be our little sign; our little in-joke. If he crosses his fingers, he doesn't mean it and he's just trolling the media. Tee-hee!

Look, he's mad at the U.N. Understandable. It really is a useless organization. But he shouldn't make so much noise. If I've learnt anything from the many dictators, armed groups and genocidal maniacs in the world, it's a safe bet to just ignore the U.N. Just ignore it. I doubt the U.N. sincerely cares about brown people Filipino lives any more than we do.

I hope this man is President for life.

The Old Ways And The New

It was inevitable.

It was only a matter of time that El Jefe would clash with the Chief Justice. They represent opposite ideas that are destined to collide with each other. The President said himself that there's no "due process" as far as he's concerned and wants to solve the crime problem the fast and dirty way. The Chief Justice, on the other hand, is a symbol of the usual way we do things. She stands for the "rule of law" and other tiresome phrases like that.

One should take the time to study these current events well. All we can do is observe. There are no laboratories or experiments. There is only history and it's maddeningly circular patterns.

People are tired of the old ways. They're tired because it's painfully obvious that they didn't work. That's why a lot of things that we once thought were unquestionable are now being questioned. This spat with the judiciary is just a symptom of an underlying condition. The judiciary is fast becoming irrelevant and obsolete. A lot of things are becoming irrelevant and obsolete. There is a new wave happening and the Chief Justice just got swept away by it. Oh, I know that Duterte apologized (sort of) to the Chief Justice, but the damage was done.

To put it simply, Filipinos are now in a mood to try reversing course on the traditionally held orthodoxies of Filipino culture. The old rule of law and due process shtick isn't working so now Filipinos want to try Duterte's methods. Our centralized bureaucracy is horribly inefficient so there's a serious move to federalize. The constitution is a cumbersome and increasingly irrelevant document so there's a move to amend (or even revise) it. We have a President who has a disturbingly chummy relationship with the reds at the start although it's rocky at the moment.

Duterte just coming out and saying that we should just go ahead and bury Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, I think, encapsulates perfectly the zeitgeist of today. People want to do away with the past, and the ways of thinking it spawned, even if it means sacrificing that which we once considered holy. Even if Marcos was a villain, and he was a villain no matter how you slice it, people are willing to commit one last injustice to the victims of his rule if doing so would finally free us from our historical baggage and let us move on with our goddamn lives.

Same thing could be said with the daily killings of suspected drug criminals. The old Philippines would huff and puff about how killing is wrong, about the "culture of violence" and about the "rule of law" and so on. Nowadays, people are asking, "Why not?". It's very unusual since Filipino mentality is timid and reluctant to question stuff that are thought to be important. I don't know the reason. Perhaps it's just the sheer exasperation and desperation of the people. Perhaps our institutions have degraded to such a phenomenal extent that people do not have any faith in it anymore and are slowly putting all their faith on a single man instead. The constant attention Duterte gets and the very aggressive and, dare I say, dictatorial way he deals with problems reminds me of certain people. But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Thinking of those comparisons too quickly is not good also.

How long can this movement be maintained? How far are we willing to go? Who knows what the next sacred cow of Philippine politics is going to be sent to the butcher shop. I predict that divorce may be coming in one or a few year from now. Ultimately, it doesn't matter to me though. It's simply amusing to me seeing all this unfold. It's amusing for now at least,  but maybe not so when they start rounding people up, me included.

Just enjoy the ride.

Antoine Dufour - Ashes in the Sea

Drug Dudes Done In Dirt Cheap

The Philippines is kind of like a kitchen at midnight. Turn on the lights and you'll see it's swarming with cockroaches. Try to focus on a problem and you'll see how it's even more terrible than you imagined.

I knew the Philippines had a drug problem but I never thought it was this bad. Suspected drug peddlers and users are coming out of the woodwork, out of trees and manholes it seems, to "surrender" to the government. This is a little odd to me. See, people are admitting to their crimes but they just sign a thing? Acknowledge they've been bad little boys and promise not to do it again? Some have suggested hooking these people up with jobs instead of drugs but where are you going to find jobs for thousands of people who have admitted to a history of crime or drug use and most of whom probably aren't that bright to begin with?

Those who don't surrender are simply shot. It seems people are being killed daily. Instead of crying about the end of the "rule of law", let's play the devil's advocate.

Realistically speaking, a Filipino life is fairly worthless in the grand scheme of things. Years of rampant population growth coupled with general neglect (governmental or societal) to improve our human capital have made the Philippines a country filled with disposable people. Hell, I know I'm not exempt from this calculation. Someone could kill me tomorrow and it wouldn't even matter. Sure, some of the people who know me would probably be a little bummed but that feeling will eventually pass.

What I'm saying is that the Philippines, a country of about ninety-eight million people and rising, can absorb these losses. Maybe we can stand to lose a few hundreds, thousands or even a million? If a million Filipinos disappeared, would anyone notice? I doubt it. People hardly notice each other as it is. 

Maybe the lack of outrage over the spate of killings means that the people have finally realized and come to terms with the glaring truth that was always staring them in the face like a beggar on the other side of the car window. Life is cheap in the Philippines. If you aren't being slaughtered like a pig in the name of progress, you're busy being milked like a cow for all your ungrateful dependents. People are treated like cattle, from cradle to crave, being herded through the various institutions happy to mold them into the perfect worker/consumer. Employers treat their very replaceable employees like dirt because they're dirt cheap. We even export our surplus meat to foreign markets and call it heroic.

So what's a few deaths honestly?

Squarepusher - Everyday I Love