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Fojar38 posted:Meh, it'll happen with or without the Philippines. Duterte is acting like a psycho but pretty much ever major non-Chinese power in the region is still a close ally of the US.
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# ? Oct 7, 2016 23:29 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 13:49 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:Again. AGAIN with delivering an anti-US tirade in the middle of a completely unrelated event. Pilsner posted:Can anyone native to Phili read between the lines and imagine that Duterte, aside from battling with words and sucking up to China, might end up turning Phili in a communist direction, like it happened disastrously in Veneluela?
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 00:13 |
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In the new battle for hearts and minds, the US Embassy in Philippines has released a video highlighting their disaster relief efforts. https://www.facebook.com/manila.usembassy/videos/10154662635359623/ I'm anxious to see how my Filipino relatives in the U.S are now taking this, since they were loud armband-wearing Duterte supporters ("Filipinos back home need discipline, unlike us cultured ex-pat gun-loving ultra-conservative nutjob pinoys"). Also, my father- and mother-in-law are mega Duterte fans, spouting all the usual memes ("just collateral damage, Marcos times = best times") but were at the U.S Embassy on Tuesday to politely request for their visas to vacation there. They actually had to push their way through a protest to get in. Some double-think going on here. Not to mention Duterte is planning to remove their senior citizen VAT discount which they loving love, and everything they buy when on their vacation will be more expensive thanks to Duterte's tanking of the currency.
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 00:23 |
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I've been staying in Boracay the last few days and this newspaper made me laugh: The previous day's front page (didn't manage to get a photo) was a picture of Duterte giving a speech, with lens flare from a light overhead giving him a halo. Coming from a country where politicians are universally despised and mocked, this is really strange to see.
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 02:30 |
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Pilsner posted:Christ. I've had an attachment to Philippines for the past few years, I have a girlfriend there going on 1½ years, visited about 5 times, and one of my good friends is slowly planning a life there, building a house and retiring there in the near future. I really feel with all the kind Filipinos, that just barely manage to scrape by in the rather harsh work climate as bottom-rank workers, as mothers, as farmers, as fishermen and the like, and wish them prosperity in the future. It's not as if there's an ongoing communist insurgency or anything like that in the country, or some kind of history with communism. Tell us more about the horrors of "Veneluela", by all means.
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 03:03 |
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CronoGamer posted:His approval ratings (I think it was 76%?) are basically on par with every other new president since Marcos. I wouldn't read a whole ton into that number. Pilsner posted:Christ. I've had an attachment to Philippines for the past few years, I have a girlfriend there going on 1½ years, visited about 5 times, and one of my good friends is slowly planning a life there, building a house and retiring there in the near future. I really feel with all the kind Filipinos, that just barely manage to scrape by in the rather harsh work climate as bottom-rank workers, as mothers, as farmers, as fishermen and the like, and wish them prosperity in the future. Rather, I think that if the Duterte administration has its way, it's going to be a slash-and-burn Paul Ryan-esque takeover of free-market corporate interests. Their economic plan involves removing the estate tax, reducing progressive income taxation but increasing value-added-tax (effectively a tax cut on the rich), and lowering the corporate tax rates directly. And then if the plan for Philippine Federalism ever pushes through (personally I think it's a little pie-in-the-sky, but hey, Brexit happened), that's basically free rein for local governors/oligarchs to set up their own little little feudal fiefdoms. Pilsner posted:My impression of the ruling system in Phili is that nepotism is ripe and good ol' boys with lots of money run the show, so I don't really know how it would fly if Duterte did a Hugo Chavez, claiming to be a representative of the common man, fighting against the wealthy elite. I don't think the public would find it to be strange, but rather, would he lack support in the government? Unless he fires up a military coup, that is... People bought into the whole "it's a grassroots movement", and "he had no political machinery whatsoever", and "he's just doing this for love of the people", and "he's actually fighting the elites, who are the only ones constantly criticizing his presidency and trying to tear it down", and "the elites are paying off the social media commentariat and the local and foreign media to give him bad coverage" bullet points of his candidacy and subsequent administration. The whole "savior of the Philippine" glamour surrounding him comes from the successful marketing campaign to portray him as something like a podunk mayor that had to be dragged into a presidential campaign and that's beholden to no special interests because he's not a traditional politician. Which is of course all untrue, but there you go.
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 03:11 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:That's actually the impression that most people have of him right now. He practically introduced to word "oligarchs" to the Filipino layman over the course of his Presidential campaign. I'm loving the analogues to Trump here. "He's not a politician" despite being intimately connected to the political machinery. I wonder how Duterte will paint his surrendering of the Spratlys to China to intensely nationalistic Filipinos. I can't wait to see the marketing scheme he'll have to run in the press and internationally to convince the world that China, a nation that has literally had a foreign policy of "gently caress you pay me or die" since the very first days of the Emperors, is actually a good guy.
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 04:40 |
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I readily believe that Duterte is popular domestic-policy wise (as vile as that policy is) but find it much harder to believe that his foreign policy conduct is at all popular. I thought that Filipinos were generally fond of the US and of the treaty. Certainly moreso than China. Am I wrong or is it one of those "His foreign policy sucks but the drug stuff is more important to the average voter" things?
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 04:47 |
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It's perhaps worth noting that Doots said back in April he had little interest in the Spratleys:quote:Duterte said, if China will ''build me a train around Mindanao, build me train from Manila to Bicol... build me a train [going to] Batangas, for the six years that I'll be president, I'll shut up." Having lived in both China and the Philippines for the best part of the last decade, I can say that the Chinese people give much more of a poo poo about the islands than the Filipinos do. The Chinese government have frequently made it into THE issue to detract from internal problems and create a foreign boogie-man. The country was alight with anti-Japanese rallies and riots just a few years ago, and sentiment has not changed. Contrast this to Duterte essentially saying he'd do nothing about the territory in exchange for a pet project railway and no-one in the Philippines batting an eyelid, and you can see that the whole situation is perfectly playing into China's hands. It was around that time I started to wonder if his campaign, which felt significantly better funded than his competitors' campaigns, was being secretly funded by China. He has been hard on everything apart from China, on which issue he has been extremely soft. However, I'm starting to think this to be a little tinfoil hat, especially now the revelations of the Marcos funding are coming out. If China wasn't involved, Duterte is an incredible gift to them, and they're playing it perfectly. The relaxation of banana imports will allow Duterte and his supporters a little bit of carrot to keep on doing all the work for them.
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 06:17 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:I bring this up because let's go back to this round-up of campaign contributions to Duterte's campaign: Not the first and probably not the last time bananas have caused international conflicts. edit: I want to make it clear--I'm not endorsing Duterte nor trying to defend China's opportunism by equating it with non-relevant, long-past US actions. My only point is that bananas, uniquely among fruits, seem to be capable of creating international problems. sincx fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Oct 8, 2016 |
# ? Oct 8, 2016 08:26 |
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Ironically, Senator Trillanes, one of Duterte's most vocal opponents outside of De Lima, also had his own controversy re: China during Aquino's term when he was accused of engaging in backdoor negotiations with the Chinese.
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 11:15 |
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I wish Trillanes wasn't the most vocal opposition to Duterte, he's pretty terrible too. In the past, he'd staged a very half hearted attempt at a coup. This somehow made him popular enough to get elected to Congress, and some time after that, he did a walk out followed by yet another half hearted coup. So there's actually precedent for Filipinos electing visibly bad people.
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 12:22 |
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chird posted:Contrast this to Duterte essentially saying he'd do nothing about the territory in exchange for a pet project railway and no-one in the Philippines batting an eyelid, and you can see that the whole situation is perfectly playing into China's hands. It was around that time I started to wonder if his campaign, which felt significantly better funded than his competitors' campaigns, was being secretly funded by China. He has been hard on everything apart from China, on which issue he has been extremely soft. However, I'm starting to think this to be a little tinfoil hat, especially now the revelations of the Marcos funding are coming out. There actually is a China connection with Duterte, by his own admission: Jan 8 2016: Duterte: Not spending my own money for TV ads quote:CEBU CITY, Philippines – Presidential aspirant Rodrigo Duterte denied spending his own money for television advertising on Thursday, January 7, during a press briefing in Cebu City. Mar 11 2016: Duterte says unknown donor paid for his pre-campaign ads quote:MANILA, Philippines — Davao City Mayor and presidential hopeful Rodrigo Duterte admitted Thursday that an anonymous Chinese donor had helped pay for his initial political ads that were aired before the start of the official campaign period. There's also this blog post that tries to deconstruct some of the Chinese ties, though I will refrain from directly quoting it here and leave it up to your discretion to look into it more closely, as this is largely internet detectivery and starting to go down the tin-foil rabbit hole.
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 17:08 |
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Fojar38 posted:I readily believe that Duterte is popular domestic-policy wise (as vile as that policy is) but find it much harder to believe that his foreign policy conduct is at all popular. I thought that Filipinos were generally fond of the US and of the treaty. Certainly moreso than China. You're on the money here. But people dont take to the streets over foreign policy, so his overall support won't suffer as much as it would for unpopular domestic moves.
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# ? Oct 8, 2016 19:02 |
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Someone needs to let Teddy Locsin Jr. know about this, and prepare for some cognitive dissonance: Adolf HItler was the 'Fuhrer' of drugs
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 01:03 |
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chird posted:It's perhaps worth noting that Doots said back in April he had little interest in the Spratleys: Well which do you think is the more valuable the the Phillipines? A few guano covered rocks or a sleek modern train? If China is willing to offer it it seems like a reasonable deal to me...
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 04:05 |
Will China have to follow through with it if the US is unilaterally booted out?
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 04:08 |
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Squalid posted:Well which do you think is the more valuable the the Phillipines? A few guano covered rocks or a sleek modern train? If China is willing to offer it it seems like a reasonable deal to me... It's China. They'll get a train that looks sleek and modern but is actually inferior to Japanese or European models and it will be built on a railroad to nowhere.
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 04:24 |
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Fojar38 posted:It's China. They'll get a train that looks sleek and modern but is actually inferior to Japanese or European models and it will be built on a railroad to nowhere. You base this statement off of what? Whatever else maybe be wrong with China the HSR system is very nice and of great quality (lol at least the trains run on time).
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 04:31 |
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GlassEye-Boy posted:You base this statement off of what? Whatever else maybe be wrong with China the HSR system is very nice and of great quality (lol at least the trains run on time). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whDOKl1AuwM&t=95s
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 08:12 |
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GlassEye-Boy posted:You base this statement off of what? Whatever else maybe be wrong with China the HSR system is very nice and of great quality (lol at least the trains run on time). Chinese engineering is fast and relatively good. They just cut corners when it comes to safety or QC.
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 11:18 |
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Yes, one accident. Since then there has been no major incident. Can't say the same for European or US train operators where accidents seem to happen every month. With their operating record and ridership the HSR system in China is incredibly successful. GlassEye-Boy fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Oct 9, 2016 |
# ? Oct 9, 2016 14:14 |
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I went and skimmed wiki's list of train accidents since 2010; there's tons of US/EU coal train derailments etc. There arn't very many Chinese ones listed at all. In fact, unbelievably few; it leads me to believe that non-fatality accidents simply arn't reported at all by the Chinese, or at least not in any source tracked by English-speakers.
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 17:56 |
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:I went and skimmed wiki's list of train accidents since 2010; there's tons of US/EU coal train derailments etc. There arn't very many Chinese ones listed at all. In fact, unbelievably few; it leads me to believe that non-fatality accidents simply arn't reported at all by the Chinese, or at least not in any source tracked by English-speakers. Actually, even high-fatality incidents are massively underreported, un-reported, or covered up by the Chinese government (even when there's like, video evidence). Like hell they're going to allow someone to report on train derailments.
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 18:12 |
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GlassEye-Boy posted:Yes, one accident. Since then there has been no major incident. Can't say the same for European or US train operators where accidents seem to happen every month. Can't speak for EU but most of the US ones are decades old and have had insufficient maintenance for a long time. New-built trains from China shouldn't be compared to the old ones...
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 18:19 |
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Xelkelvos posted:Chinese engineering is fast and relatively good. They just cut corners when it comes to safety or QC. idk man, we're working on some poo poo for the C919 and their engineers can't seem to do simple poo poo like properly dimension a drawing or proper revision control
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 19:03 |
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rscott posted:idk man, we're working on some poo poo for the C919 and their engineers can't seem to do simple poo poo like properly dimension a drawing or proper revision control The Chinese can't QC their engineers too
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# ? Oct 9, 2016 19:06 |
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Eej posted:Did anyone tell Duterte that comparing himself to Hitler, greatest slaughterer of Russians in history, when attempting to curry favour with Russia is probably not that great of an idea yet? Goon project to let him know? I'll make the website. Together we can let this man know what a ghastly faux pas he's made that neither his target audience nor the Russian foreign ministry will give a poo poo about.
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# ? Oct 10, 2016 21:51 |
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loving Pravda said Hitler was cool and good up until the war
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# ? Oct 10, 2016 22:26 |
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GlassEye-Boy posted:Yes, one accident. Since then there has been no major incident. Can't say the same for European or US train operators where accidents seem to happen every month. Someone actually trusting chinese statistics that's utterly precious.
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# ? Oct 10, 2016 23:01 |
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I'm out of town this week, so I haven't been able to post as much, but that's the recently breaking news.
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# ? Oct 10, 2016 23:40 |
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Kurtofan posted:loving Pravda said Hitler was cool and good up until the war Not new news, but did we already mention that we're getting our own Pravda? (title translates to: "From the masses, for the masses") I like to call it "Mula sa masa, Pravda sa masa" but the people who hear it either don't understand Tagalog or don't understand the reference.
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 01:02 |
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Why is he nicknamed D30? Is it just because his name sounds a bit like D-thirty, or is there something more to it?.
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 03:20 |
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I don't know that we're unique in this but Filipinos LOVE shortening names. Duterte? Du30. Constitutional Convention? Con-con. Constitutional Assembly? Con-rear end. Charter Change? Cha-cha. Hello? 30WwzZ.
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 03:50 |
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webmeister posted:Why is he nicknamed D30? Is it just because his name sounds a bit like D-thirty, or is there something more to it?. That's it, no deeper meaning.
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 04:08 |
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lol at duterte's fake news site http://dw-tv3.com/about/ "we specialise in just breaking news and spreading rumours"
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 08:20 |
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"We're totally a legit media outlet. Yes, all our articles involve the President doing great things and terrible vengeance falling upon his enemies."
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 09:24 |
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Argue posted:Constitutional Assembly? Con-rear end.
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 15:10 |
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I'm amazed Duterte didn't try make himself a lovely action movie star. He's totally the type to do it like Weng Weng in a Turkish John Wick
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 15:22 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 13:49 |
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Alan Smithee posted:I'm amazed Duterte didn't try make himself a lovely action movie star. He's totally the type to do it
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# ? Oct 11, 2016 15:50 |