Remember that murderous authoritarian who bragged about throwing suspects out of helicopters and encouraged police death squads to shoot first and never bother with questions? Turns out karma's a patient beast – Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines' notorious strongman, just got nabbed at Manila airport and is currently winging his way to face justice at the International Criminal Court, reports the BBC. — Read the rest
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is making threats: Get vaccinated or else.
And the else isn't pretty. "You choose, vaccine or I will have you jailed," he said on television yesterday, threatening those who haven't yet received a Covid-19 shot. And even worse than jail, he also made this monstrous threat: "You get vaccinated, otherwise I will order all the village heads to have a tally of the people who refuse to be vaccinated. — Read the rest
The Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte said back in August, "When the vaccine arrives, I will have myself injected in public. Experiment on me first, that's fine with me." But that's all changed, now that he's insisting on getting the shot in the buttocks. — Read the rest
During the long years when Philippines strongman Rodrigo Duterte (previously) was mayor of Davao (circumventing term limits by periodically allowing his daughter to run for mayor and serving as her vice-mayor) the city was terrorized by death-squads who enjoyed total impunity as they assassinated police suspects and Duterte's political opponents, while Duterte cheered them on (Duterte has boasted about his participation in extrajudicial killings during this period, but has also denied participation in the death squads).
Philippine dictator Rodrigo Duterte, whom Trump envies and greatly admires for his ruthlessness and cruelty, told people at a public event that his country's rape crisis is the victims' fault. "They say there are many rape cases in Davao," Duterte said. — Read the rest
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had a message for women who oppose him: "Tell the soldiers. 'There's a new order coming from the mayor. We won't kill you. We will just shoot your vagina.' If there is no vagina, it would be useless." — Read the rest
President Trump's recent phone call with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte wasn't released in detail by the Trump White House, but someone else leaked it. Trump praises Duterte on the call for doing an "unbelievable job on the drug problem," which consists of Duterte literally murdering people in extrajudicial street executions. — Read the rest
Duterte has vowed to stop using "epithets" (for example, he called Pope Francis a "son of a bitch" and told Obama to "go to hell") because God threatened to crash the airplane he was flying home from Japan in if he didn't cut it out.
Journalists who've lived through freedom-of-the-press-hating dictators who have some words of warning for us here in Murica: with Trump in office, "prepare for the worst."
The Nieman Foundation at Harvard asked journalists from places like Hungary, the Philippines, and other spots where democracy's taken a few kicks to the teeth what they think about our current situation. — Read the rest
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte announced Saturday that she had contracted assassins to kill president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his wife. Duterte warned that she was not joking and that the threat is intended as a deterrent to her own assassination. — Read the rest
As Covid suddenly surges in the Phillipines' Metro Manila area, which has a population of 14 million, President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered a lockdown — but only for the unvaccinated.
And any unvaxxed individual — whether a resident or traveler — who breaks the stay-at-home order could face up to six months in jail. — Read the rest
• Chinese accounts posted material supporting U.S. President Donald Trump, and pro-Left material
Facebook has removed a number of Chinese accounts on the platform that are oddly active in Philippines and U.S. politics, reports Joe Menn at Reuters today.
Facebook says it suspended 155 accounts on its main platform along with six Instagram accounts. — Read the rest
The election of the violent Philippine autocrat Rodrigo Duterte and the subsequent widespread extrajudicial killings, torture, and other crimes against humanity was a blow to the rule of law in the Philippines and the democracy advocates who have struggled to make a just society after centuries of colonial exploitation.
Last week, Viktor Orban's authoritarian government rammed through a pair of massively unpopular laws: the "slave labor" law (employers can require up to 400 hours/year of overtime, and take up to three years to pay for it); and a law creating a parallel system of "administrative courts" dealing with "government issues" like voter fraud, overseen by political appointees from within Orban's regime.
A new report from the Institute For the Future on "state-sponsored trolling" documents the rise and rise of government-backed troll armies who terrorize journalists and opposition figures with seemingly endless waves of individuals who bombard their targets with vile vitriol, from racial slurs to rape threats.
While it should come as no surprise to anyone that follows the news or gets depressed by Twitter on a regular basis, freedom of the press – an important check against corruption and the misuse of power in a democracy – is on the decline. — Read the rest
Opioid overdoses now kill more Americans every year than guns, breast cancer, or car accidents. 20 million Americans suffer from addiction to alcohol, illicit, or prescription drugs. On the second anniversary of Prince's death from fentanyl overdose last weekend, the President of the United States demonstrated a deep ignorance of this medical epidemic, calling someone he considers an alcoholic and addict a "drunk/drugged up loser." — Read the rest
If you've had the sneaking suspicion over the past year that the world is going to hell, you're not alone. Amnesty International's 2017-2018 State of the World's Human Rights Annual Report says that in many countries, the politics of hate and fear are quickly becoming the norm. — Read the rest
Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, has been the source of many shocks since he took office last year: he admitted to murdering people as a teen gangbanger and then later as a public official; he zeroed out the budget for the National Commission on Human Rights, and announced that deposed mass-murdering dictator Ferdinand Marcos would be treated as a hero, even as he rolled out death squads that have murdered thousands in cold blood (he also hears voices from God).
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, London Business School organizational behavior scholars Niro Sivanathan and Hemant Kakkar used empirical methods to find the socioeconomic circumstances that predict when voters will elect "dominance-style" strongman leaders like "Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Rodrigo Duterte, Nicolás Maduro and Recep Erdogan."
