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Welcome to The Philippines, the Pearl of the Orient Seas! Welcome to a world where it's bright and sunny every day 6 months of the year, and as of 2016, a land where using drugs can lead to your completely deserved death at the hands of vigilantes! Let's go on a quick tour! The Philippines is divided into three major island groups: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. In terms of international news, Luzon and Mindanao are the ones that you'll typically be hearing about. Mindanao, to the south, is home to all the rebel forces you keep hearing about. Yes, it's actually relatively safe in Luzon and Visayas in that you really don't have to worry about terrorists kidnapping, torturing, and killing you. There are actually two different rebel groups down there: the New People's Army--a communist insurgency--and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front--Islamic separatists who are seeking autonomy. And yes, we have heard your joke about the MILF before and I can assure you it is very funny every time we hear it. Luzon, to the north, is home to our most populous region, Metro Manila (also known as the National Capital Region), which is where all the action is. This region, while also known as simply Manila, is not to be confused with Manila, our capital city, which is itself found within Metro Manila. Politics It's pretty rare to see so much discussion about the Philippines outside of the Philippines, but in this topsy-turvy year of 2016, all bets are off. Sure, we can talk about some of our rich history, or our older hot-button topics like the Reproductive Health Bill, or our more colorful personalities, like comedian-turned-senator Tito Sotto, or our more famous ones, like boxer-turned-congressman-turned-boxer-turned-senator Manny Pacquiao. But let's get real, you're all here to talk about the new star of our show: President Rodrigo Duterte Elected into office just a scant two months ago, Duterte has wasted no time in making good on many of his promises, chief among them, the speedy execution of suspected drug lords, drug pushers, and even drug users. There are just so many layers to peel here that I don't even know where to begin, but he was notorious enough that John Oliver actually did a bit on him prior to the election, and this should serve as a rough primer. As someone who lives in the Philippines, I can tell you that his writing team is not exaggerating any of these things in the least. It may seem baffling, but I can see why so many people support him, even if I absolutely, vehemently do not. Prior to his run, he was Mayor of Davao for many years--and for those who don't know, Davao is located in the heart of Mindanao, which, if you were paying attention, is where all the terrorists are. This helped feed into his legend greatly because Davao was actually extremely safe considering where they were, and this was all due to his iron fist, which cracked down on even the most minor offenses, such as jaywalking. Of course, even there, he'd be quite... creative, to say the least. Aside from that, Davao is known to have the most progressive women's rights legislation in the country, which makes it all the more confusing when he openly admits to being a womanizer, or makes remarks like how he would have liked to be first in line to rape a murdered missionary. And despite his frequent use of homophobic slurs, he's the only candidate who was unambiguously in favor of gay marriage. This all pales, of course, next to the one thing that he's reached international renown for--extrajudicial killings galore. There were a ton of these in Davao, and since his election, killings of alleged criminals have been on the rise nationwide--although his supporters will tell you that they were always this bad, and it's just that the anti-Duterte media wants to feed you a narrative that this is new. And certainly, at the moment, we can't explicitly tie him to these killings, but it's not unreasonable to investigate considering he actually ran on a platform of murder, has repeatedly endorsed vigilantes to kill suspected drug dealers, andvowed to pardon himself for mass murder. Not to mention the fact that bodies have been found whose murders were either inspired by his rhetoric, or at minimum used it as an excuse. Where we are now Well, it's only two months in, but one thing Duterte _has_ definitely been doing like crazy is cracking down on suspected drug lords. The best I can say about this is that at least he isn't flat out killing these people, but it's nuts that he just decided to read a list of names to the public and basically claimed "these are drug lords". He's named a ton of relatively big-name people, and has ordered them to surrender themselves or die. Additionally, one thing fuelling his supporters is that thousands of drug users and dealers have surrendered themselves for rehabilitation. I don't have a lot more information than that, but color me skeptical on the legitimacy of any of this. Because of all this, the senate is conducting an investigation, spearheaded by Senator Leila De Lima. Of course, his supporters are rabidly against her, calling her a "so-called human rights advocate" on account of the fact that she's investigating these killings, but she didn't investigate all the random senseless murders committed by drug users. Duterte himself is running the counteroffensive, first by discrediting her by calling her an adulteress, then by linking her to drug trade herself. I can't claim to know for sure that she's innocent, but pardon me if I find it suspect that he only showed his hand against her now, rather than during his big drug lord blowout. I mean, this is exactly the situation we were worried about--under his administration, you can get rid of your enemies simply by naming them as being involved in drugs. Filipinos That's how it's spelled. Please stop spelling it Philippinos, or some other variant thereof. Lastly, and most importantly Don't say anything bad about the Philippines or Filipinos! If you are a foreigner you are only allowed to compliment us and talk about how great we are! If you don't follow this instruction, you will be faced with the wrath of the Philippine Defense Squad. (full disclosure: this page was made by a friend, and the data was almost entirely populated by me) Argue fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Aug 25, 2016 |
# ? Aug 25, 2016 04:10 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 07:04 |
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The best part of the John Oliver video is the commentsquote:Ahmed Almulla1 day ago quote:Nikki Hentai3 days ago quote:den adriano1 month ago quote:major problem1 day ago and in response to Major Problem quote:justAguyDs1 day ago poo poo is this dude batman??
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 04:26 |
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Is the drug problem in the country actually as serious as Duterte supporters claim?
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 04:49 |
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muike posted:The best part of the John Oliver video is the comments You'll also see this on every other comment section on any article criticizing Duterte. Duterte has massive approval from a lot of Filipinos, who see him as an incorruptible political outsider who has all the solutions. I can't even really talk to some of my older Filipino family members about Duterte, they hijack the conversation to talk about how safe and clean the Philippines is now (which I guess ignores all the corpses in the street). Basically imagine if Donald Trump got elected, and explicitly told his followers that it's okay to kill certain groups of people. Also imagine those followers are armed vigilantes, and he has a 90+% approval rating. Some Duterte quotes: quote:If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful. quote:I will recommend to Congress the restoration of death penalty by hanging in public. quote:I don't care about human rights.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 05:20 |
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Only Filipinos are now allowed to talk poo poo about the Philippines, mabuhay!
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 05:35 |
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"Death Squads...are OK" made me go through the looking glass hard.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:02 |
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1stGear posted:Is the drug problem in the country actually as serious as Duterte supporters claim? Here's a document from the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, back in 2001, where drug trafficking is described as the #1 domestic threat to the country, with an estimated 1.7 million regular drug users, or about 2% of the country's population at the time. It's not difficult to score drugs if you know where to ask and where to look. The slums and lower classes abuse crystal meth, which we call shabu, and then the cocaine problem is similar to white suburban America. What's problematic is that Duterte and his supporters use it as leverage for just about everything that they want to do and justify. The Philippines lacks the ethnic and racial tensions of other countries, so he's basically turned to drug traffickers and drug users as his fascistic "Other" of choice, with a side-order of indefensibility because it is of course exceedingly difficult to argue and advocate on the side of people who are otherwise literally breaking the law and shooting back at policemen and killing them. This is going to be a clumsy analogy, but you know how Sanders drew flak for resting a lot of his campaign platform on "income inequality"? That institutional racism is going to be alleviated by taxing the rich and reducing the GINI coefficient? It's kind of like that, but with drugs. That is, once Duterte cleans out the drug problem, it's going to boost the Philippine economy, because the country will be so safe that foreign investors will be better encouraged to come here. Once Duterte cleans out the drug problem, it's also going to resolve corruption in the government sector, because all those bribes and kickbacks that delay and overcost public works programs are apparently being done by high-level drug lords. Once Duterte cleans out the drug problem it's also going to resolve Manila's traffic problem, for God knows what reason. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Aug 25, 2016 |
# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:03 |
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It isn't just any article criticising him - it's any non Filipino media reporting about the Philippines situation that you will get tons of people talking about how only Philippines can talk about themselves and all Western media or government are scum for trying to interfere, etc I had assumed this was a rhetoric that was only praticised by the Malaysian politicians but seeing the Filipino go crazy with it is eye opening
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:07 |
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That problem was exacerbated with Duterte, but mobbing naysayers from other countries is also practically a Philippine tradition, from banning Claire Danes from the country for saying that she didn't enjoy her stay here, to having rallies to save Filipinos who are facing the death sentence abroad (usually for drug smuggling, and usually culminating in the president or some high-ranking official making a visit to the country to petition them). That list I linked at the end of the OP is a pretty comprehensive compilation of these things. Conversely, Filipinos are also first to the party when someone even vaguely implies Filipino involvement in something: Getting back to Filipinos rallying behind Filipinos, I wonder how many of the people who lobbied for the lives of drug mules are pro-Duterte. One said drug mule was expatriated back to the Philippines, and rather than anyone investigating her, she used her new fame to launch a (poor) career as a singer, so the mindset of the country really sends me mixed messages.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:18 |
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To be fair with Duterte though, his heart is in the right place and has a can-do attitude that allowed him to pull off some surprising none-drug related poo poo faster than I thought. The 911 hotline has been doing well, the Freedom of Information bill, even the MRT is back to running decently (comparable to 5 years ago) - and its barely been two months. But the drug war and EJK is really awful. My stance on both has always been the former is a poverty issue and the latter is that it's prone to abuse (there's been a handful of cases of murderers using the cardboard strategy as a ruse to cover up their misdeeds like that poor lady who got capped at the jeep on the way to work).
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:19 |
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On economics: We keep making comparisons to Donald Trump winning the Presidency, right? One of the fears of a Republican President in the White House is that it would allow them to go whole hog on the Free Market ideology. The Duterte administration plans to pass tax reform that will reduce income taxes, from 32% to 25% at the highest bracket. This was another big bullet point of his campaign promises: economic literacy in the country is fairly low, and most people resent the gently caress out of having a big chunk of cash taken out of their paychecks for a government that they've been trained to think does nothing and isn't capable of doing anything, and not a lot of people know what progressive taxation and tax brackets are, so Candidate Duterte promising to lower taxes was a big thing for winning over middle-class voters. But that buries the lede in the story: quote:To compensate for the foregone revenues from lower personal income tax take, earlier pegged by the Department of Finance at P139 billion, the Duterte administration proposes the following compensating measures: And this very Paul Ryan-ish follow-up next year: quote:The second package planned for passage in June next year will reduce the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent from 30 percent over time and simplify provisions to improve compliance. And that's not all. The administration also plans to "reform" Estate Taxes as well. All this coming from a candidate that ran on the platform of "the Aquino administration failed to let the entire country feel the economic bloom" is really disappointing, to put it mildly.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:22 |
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Edit: this was in response to Disharmony, not the tax cuts Yeah, like I said in another thread, Duterte's got the most stances and projects I agree with among any candidates. But none of it, I would say, is worth this whole drug war and the EJKs (how ridiculous is it that "EJK" is even an acronym we need to be using now?). Are there a lot of historical instances of despots actually doing a lot of progressive things amidst their horrors? Off hand, I was thinking it's similar to the Shah of Iran's westernization push, even though he was pretty much the opposite of the demagogue that Duterte is.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:27 |
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"Who cares if the previous regime lowered our debt-to-GDP ratio and Global Corruption Index placement by several points? It's their job anyway! But goddamn look at my nipples harden on these new passports and nationwide hotline by my lord and savior Duterte!"
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:31 |
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Out of curiosity, what is classified as an illegal drug in the Philippines? gradenko_2000 mentioned meth and cocaine use as a thing, but how wide is the spectrum?
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:39 |
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I'm not very up to date on that, but marijuana is illegal, and consider that--if I'm recalling correctly--even morning-after pills are technically illegal drugs, although that's for different reasons.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:43 |
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Disharmony posted:To be fair with Duterte though, his heart is in the right place and has a can-do attitude that allowed him to pull off some surprising none-drug related poo poo faster than I thought. The 911 hotline has been doing well, the Freedom of Information bill, even the MRT is back to running decently (comparable to 5 years ago) - and its barely been two months. My take on this is that Duterte knows how to get things done directly, because as Davao Mayor, what he said goes, but he doesn't know how to cooperate. The 911 thing is under his purview as an Executive, so he got that done immediately The FOI is an Executive Order that only covers the Executive, so he got that done immediately, but it's not the same as passing a bill through Congress. The MRT's new trains were acquired by the previous admin, and yeah he threw out the previous admin's Transportation Secretary (who was a piece of poo poo), but again, under his purview as the Executive But he can't stand criticism. He picked a fight with the Chief Justice for not immediately having justices kowtow to his list of drug-involved officials, and he picked a fight with a sitting Senator for wanting to investigative EJKs. And now the Senate is having hearings on whether or not to give the President special and emergency powers to resolve Manila's traffic problem, because the only thing he knows how to do is to do it himself, at his direct orders. Kthulhu5000 posted:Out of curiosity, what is classified as an illegal drug in the Philippines? gradenko_2000 mentioned meth and cocaine use as a thing, but how wide is the spectrum? Marijuana is also an illegal drug*. Ecstasy is also an illegal drug. Does that help? I'm not sure what the scope of your question is. * as in, super-duper Reefer Madness illegal. There's a very small millenial population that knows of the "legalize weed, dude!" belief, but a vast majority of the country still believe it turns people into the Hulk and you can OD on it and all that stuff, and legalization is not discussed at any level in politics.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 06:50 |
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Argue posted:I'm not very up to date on that, but marijuana is illegal, and consider that--if I'm recalling correctly--even morning-after pills are technically illegal drugs, although that's for different reasons. I'm actually doing some legal research on the Bureau of Customs right now, and according to the recently revamped tariff code (and also the older customs code of 1978 since the specific part is unchanged), materials and paraphernalia intended for and/or supports and advertises abortion is illegal contraband. I imagine morning-after pills get shuffled into that category.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 07:00 |
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Yep. That was a big talking point during the RH debates, arguing about whether or not the morning-after pill has abortifacient properties. I think they may have even tacked on an amendment onto the RH bill to make sure they didn't accidentally legalize it. Edit: vvvvv Honestly, if you're middle class or above, aside from 911 now working (and laughably conflicting with Pizza Hut's delivery hotline), you'll never feel a difference in terms of safety. This whole thing is a big check-your-privilege reality check for me, and I'm annoyed that a lot of my middle-class Duterte-supporting friends don't. Argue fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Aug 25, 2016 |
# ? Aug 25, 2016 07:18 |
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And to those living outside the Philippines, while the drugs situation here is "bad" (and the subsequent and ongoing drug war to boot), that doesn't mean it's Robocop 2 here. Unless you live near the slums, this whole thing will just pass you by if you don't pay attention to the news or a Filipino friend's social media profile. I live in a city that's top 2 or 3 in the crime and drugs index and our subdivision is sandwiched on all corners by large slum communities and just a few blocks away from an intersection where guys are summarily executed while waiting for the stoplight to go green, but I've never felt the drug crisis at all. Personally, I think the media and cops tend to exaggerate a bit - particularly with drugs. If someone does something completely bat poo poo crazy, it almost always has to do with drugs (they even blame marijuana for it) even though there isn't any proof that the suspect was a user yet. Take this case for example of a guy that ate a kid's heart . This happened a stone's throw away from our ancestral house in the province and I can confirm that at least 1 in every 5 house there has a person with some form of mental illness so it very well could possibly be that. But nope, drugs is easier to explain! And evil! PS: I'm straightedge btw
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 07:45 |
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Argue posted:Edit: vvvvv Honestly, if you're middle class or above, aside from 911 now working (and laughably conflicting with Pizza Hut's delivery hotline), you'll never feel a difference in terms of safety. This whole thing is a big check-your-privilege reality check for me, and I'm annoyed that a lot of my middle-class Duterte-supporting friends don't. This is absolutely true. A lot of my friends completely bought into the Duterte hype because they wanted less traffic, less taxes, faster passport and driver's license processing, and general anti-establishment dissatisfaction (especially since the previous admin had some very latent, indefensible faults of their own). The anti-drug/anti-crime schtick was basically an afterthought compared to "I don't want the government to keep taking a quarter of my paycheck"
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 09:08 |
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Historically, they've been human privileges more than rights.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 09:25 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:A lot of my friends completely bought into the Duterte hype because they wanted less traffic, less taxes, faster passport and driver's license processing, and general anti-establishment dissatisfaction (especially since the previous admin had some very latent, indefensible faults of their own). The anti-drug/anti-crime schtick was basically an afterthought compared to "I don't want the government to keep taking a quarter of my paycheck" I hope to remember these anecdotes, and how easy it is to accept literal death squads in exchange for the promise of reducing mundane annoyances, whenever I find myself about to defend an imperfect politician I want to approve of.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 10:20 |
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Duterte just showed up on TV earlier after hyping for days a "matrix" that's in his possession that conclusively links De Lima (Senator leading the investigation on EJKs) and a few officials to drugs. The so-called "matrix" was simply a flow chart that didn't even have footnotes or credits. But somehow everyone I knew thought it was groundbreaking.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 13:19 |
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I can't believe this isn't a scene from a movie where the main character is connecting strings on a corkboard and it's ridiculous that people think this qualifies as evidence or even slightly damning also lol "matrix" perhaps he meant an adjacency matrix?
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 13:22 |
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Cross-posting from the PYF Awful Graphs thread:gradenko_2000 posted:A "matrix" of leaders and personalities behind the Philippine drug trade: Combined with the Fox News quality graph on murder statistics earlier this week: And this is shaping up to be a really fun administration for "truthiness"
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 13:23 |
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All we need is Ice Cube and we're all set
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 15:10 |
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Argue posted:I can't believe this isn't a scene from a movie where the main character is connecting strings on a corkboard and it's ridiculous that people think this qualifies as evidence or even slightly damning oh he knew what he meant
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 15:49 |
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Argue posted:I can't believe this isn't a scene from a movie where the main character is connecting strings on a corkboard and it's ridiculous that people think this qualifies as evidence or even slightly damning I love the unaligned text balloons and how someone being rich = drugs apparently
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 17:25 |
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I dunno, I'm pretty nervous about the guy seen in "cockpit areas" (whatever that means).
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 17:30 |
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Nice article from TIME with actual facts and numbers on our supposed "drug problem" http://time.com/4462352/rodrigo-duterte-drug-war-drugs-philippines-killing/
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 17:43 |
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There's a new Time article out on Duterte's anti-drug, anti-crime campaign.quote:But how bad is the Philippine drug problem? According to UNODC data, the highest ever recorded figure for the prevalence of amphetamine use (expressed as a percentage of the population aged 15 to 64) in the Philippines is 2.35. That is a high figure, but then the equivalent figure for the U.S. is 2.20, and the world’s real amphetamine crisis is among Australian males, where the prevalence is 2.90. 2.35% of the population falling into amphetamine use would roughly match the figures cited in the 2001 government letter of instruction I shared earlier: gradenko_2000 posted:Here's a document from the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, back in 2001, where drug trafficking is described as the #1 domestic threat to the country, with an estimated 1.7 million regular drug users, or about 2% of the country's population at the time. So the Time article's figures and the official government's numbers are similar, but Time helpfully points out that Australia's amphetamine, opioid and cocaine problems are much more severe, and yet Australia is not, last time I checked, a post-apocalyptic wasteland overrun by warlords and gangs. Donkwich posted:I dunno, I'm pretty nervous about the guy seen in "cockpit areas" (whatever that means). It means a pit for cock-(as in male chickens)-fighting gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Aug 25, 2016 |
# ? Aug 25, 2016 17:44 |
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That quote of his about killing addicts is just so extremely hosed up. I mean, extra-judicial killings of dealers is also super hosed up, but I can at least sort of understand where it's coming from (since dealing is an action that can cause significant harm to others), but saying that addicts themselves should be killed is no different than, for example, executing the mentally ill.
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# ? Aug 25, 2016 18:33 |
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Duterte spills secret: P50-m paid to Abu Sayyaf quote:Mr. Duterte was asked if he was aware of the beheading of a kidnap victim in Sulu province on Tuesday. Same as my pin number!
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# ? Aug 26, 2016 00:16 |
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Kills drugs users but send ransom money to terrorists.
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# ? Aug 26, 2016 00:41 |
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All I know about the Philippines is that chicken adobo and pancit bihon own.
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# ? Aug 26, 2016 03:16 |
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This should be a movie. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37172002 The most incredible part to me is how much a hit costs--20 thousand pesos is just $450.
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# ? Aug 26, 2016 05:04 |
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if they actually conduct the EDK on the MILFs and Abu Sayaaf maybe even Malaysia will start to like Duterte (we lose so much tourism money due to the MILFs constantly kidnapping/executing people from the Sipadan islands, and the Malaysian police - especially the IGP - is known for being less than useless)
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# ? Aug 26, 2016 05:15 |
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The Saddest Rhino posted:if they actually conduct the EDK on the MILFs and Abu Sayaaf maybe even Malaysia will start to like Duterte (we lose so much tourism money due to the MILFs constantly kidnapping/executing people from the Sipadan islands, and the Malaysian police - especially the IGP - is known for being less than useless) Does MILF even do that many kidnapping/executions anymore? I always assumed that Abu Sayaaf had monopolized that after MILF tried to enter into peace talks.
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# ? Aug 26, 2016 05:53 |
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The Saddest Rhino posted:if they actually conduct the EDK on the MILFs and Abu Sayaaf maybe even Malaysia will start to like Duterte (we lose so much tourism money due to the MILFs constantly kidnapping/executing people from the Sipadan islands, and the Malaysian police - especially the IGP - is known for being less than useless) Duerte might've actually gotten international support if he decided to scapegoat MILFs and other potential Muslim extremists. Sure, the UN might've still wagged the finger at him, but US conservatives, potentially Israel and other groups might've thrown the Philippines a bone of support.
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# ? Aug 26, 2016 06:14 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 07:04 |
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Ytlaya posted:That quote of his about killing addicts is just so extremely hosed up. I mean, extra-judicial killings of dealers is also super hosed up, but I can at least sort of understand where it's coming from (since dealing is an action that can cause significant harm to others), but saying that addicts themselves should be killed is no different than, for example, executing the mentally ill. I believe the logic he gave was that poor addicts, specifically, must also be dealing to support their habit.
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# ? Aug 26, 2016 08:56 |