About Duterte

A lot of people want current Mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo Duterte, to make a run for the presidency. A lot of people too voted for the current clown-in-chief so who cares what "a lot of people" think.

Duterte is an infamous figure. It's always just assumed that he's behind the "Davao Death Squads" that allegedly prowl the streets of his city and summarily execute criminals. He denies personal involvement of course but let's just say that he's "tough on crime", alright?

Vigilante justice is another topic for another time. For now, I think that the people who want Duterte to run for President are naive. The common idea is that Duterte will bring his toughness and brutality to Malacanang and whip this country into shape. The more delusional of his followers think that he'll bring his penchant for vigilantism with him and start rounding up criminals nationwide to be shot.

Let's go over how this might not work:

1. A single city is not the country contrary to what Manila folk like to believe. This applies to Duterte. Duterte may be able to impose his will on a number of people in a limited area but I doubt he can do that on an entire nation of millions, over thousands of islands.

2. He will meet his match. Duterte is the big boss man of Davao because he's entrenched there and nobody has the will to oppose him. Put him in Malacanang and he'll be out of his element. He'll be up against the worst of the worst of Philippine politics; backstabbers, power brokers, murderers and thieves. They won't give two shits about some guy from Davao and will most definitely have the means to retaliate and take care of Duterte if they have to.

3. Duterte is not as well known as his supporters think. People in the South and people connected to Davao know of him. I doubt people in Manila care about places other than Manila. The same goes to the more far flung areas. Duterte even getting close to the number of votes he needs to be a legitimate threat is itself doubtful.

4. No fear factor. Citizens of Davao may fear him but that's the extent of his influence. You can't grip an entire nation in terror by yourself unless you're North Korean.

All of these have to do with his reputation as a strongman. I don't like strongman politics but there is something that I like about Duterte. It's not explored by the media as much as his reputation but Duterte is a federalist. That's something I can agree on.

If he runs on that, I think that's a broader and more appealing message.

Inspire

I find myself unable to blog about anything lately.

Tomorrow, I'm going to try just writing whatever pops into mind or rolling my face on the keyboard; whichever produces the best results.

Drug Alley

There's a common road outside our property that's used as right-of-way for several of the houses and condominiums further away from the main road. It has streetlights but the large branches stretching out from the trees in our yard provide areas of cover. In these shady spots, shady people do all sorts of evil.

We had known for a while now that people shoot up drugs just outside our house. It used to be that all the indications we saw of them were discarded bottles and syringes in the morning. But now, the criminals are so brazen. Sometimes you can see them shoot up right then and there. Just today, they were doing deals in broad daylight.

The drug is Nubain. I don't know much about it but it's enough to know that it's addicting and bad for you. How long will it be before peddlers of the more serious bad stuff use that spot for their sessions? How long till some poor sap gets mugged by some idiots on a high?

The police made a few rounds but they can't be there all the time.

There has to be a solution.

Voices In My Head

Is it natural to hear strange things just before falling asleep?

Usually, the sound I hear sometimes is a loud bang like I was firing a gun. However, at around lunchtime today, I felt unusually tired so I tried to take a nap. Just when I was dozing off, I heard somebody say "Hello." right in front of me. There was nobody there of course.

I tell you, I got so unnerved that I couldn't lie down again.

Am I going insane?

Sick

I've been feeling under the weather lately.

In times like these I find that an emergency shot of vitamins and crap do wonders. There's this fizzy tablet that you put into your water that's supposed to help with the illness. It's full of zinc and...things. It usually works.

Maybe this is just a placebo but that's fine too.

MayPac: The Aftermath

So... people waited five years for that?

"Fight of the Century" or the cure for insomnia? People were disappointed to say the least. Manny didn't knock Floyd out as they had wanted. Instead, Floyd evaded Manny's fists and landed accurate counter-punches to rack up points. That's about it. Save for a small cut on Floyd's face, both fighters probably had a comfy sleep later that night and woke up to the aroma of bacon, eggs and freshly printed money.

You know, this whole affair reminds me of DOTA 2. If you're not familiar with DOTA then I'm sorry. The grand finale last 2013 of The International, DOTA 2's biggest event, featured the team of Na'vi versus Alliance. Na'vi was the crowd favorite. They were likable enough but what impressed people were their propensity to pull off the "big plays". They made the game look fun and that's what people loved about them. They're like Manny Pacquiao in certain ways. They were really fun to watch.

During the finale, Na'vi were wiping the floor with Alliance. However, while the entire team of Na'vi were pushing up the lane to the enemy base, Alliance sneakily split-pushed them while they weren't paying attention. Na'vi may have owned in the fighting but the objective of the game is to destroy the enemy's throne. Aliance relied on this particular hero that was really good at pushing lanes solo. When Na'vi realized this and attempted to teleport back to stop it, Alliance cancelled their teleportation with a well placed Dream Coil and Na'vi lost the match.

For all their skill, they seemed to lose sight of the main objective of the game: destroying the throne. That's the final objective. Killing the enemy team is but a step towards the final goal.

So it was with Manny. You have to beat your opponent, not just try to knock him out. A knockout is great but there's more than one way to win. The ideal scenario for him would have been to catch Floyd and unleash a flurry of powerful punches to knock his ass out. Floyd, to his credit, always remembered that Boxing has rules and you can use these rules to your advantage. As much as Filipinos wanted to see a glorious knockout, it all came down to punches thrown and accuracy.

People want an epic fight; the kind of fight you'd tell your children about. In the end, it just kinda boils down to bullshit stuff like that. Na'vi were great but were beaten by some guy who just went for the win while they weren't looking. Manny is exciting to watch but knockouts aren't the only way to win a Boxing match.

Like Alliance, Floyd was smart. Who cares what the crowd thinks, really? The contestants are there to win not to make people happy. In the end, it's only the sport that suffers anyway so why care? Just laugh all the way to Bern and offload that sweet prize money in a Swiss bank account.

That's life basically. We want life to be like the movies; exciting and thrilling but in the end, it's just about boring rules and technicalities.

Bonnie Pink - It's Gonna Rain

In this heat, I wish it would.