originally posted by: AutonomousMeatPuppet
Does anyone have a better solution?
Is no solution better than a crappy solution?
Duterte cleaned up his home town Davao so that it is finally rising above third world conditions.
People saw what happened in Davao and saw a chance to escape the corruption of politicians. The corrupt politicians who steal everything for
themselves. The ones who keep their Country in third world status, causing far more death and suffering than Duterte.
oh yes he
"cleaned up" Davao all right. by the use of
DEATH SQUADS to murder those they deemed criminals, without pesky things like
trials. and even when during the election he backed up the killing of people without a trial for suspected drug use, people applauded. i rather
suspect many of those are the same people who cheer when some poor fool gets electrocuted and dies when trying to steal electricity they can not
afford. it would not surprise me if those same people would cheer Duterte on if he were to say he was going to kill off millions of the poor (which by
the way are the the largest number of those murdered over drugs), to
reduce crime. and for those not familiar with the Philippines Davao in on
Mindanao, one of the Muslim dominated areas of the country, that is a mecca for Muslim terrorism. and has been for hundreds of years, going back to
Spanish conquest of the country (which of course the real cause for that can be attributed back to the Muslim conquest of Spain even longer ago).
which is really why Duterte hates the Muslims, since they want to be a fully Muslim country under sharia law.
i actually find it ironic that people see Duterte as a chance to escape
corrupt politicians, police etc. since that corruption mainly stems
from the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. a time when corruption was the way everything worked. a regime that only ended 31 years ago, due to the
EDSA revolution of 1986. you see Duterte and many of his supporters admire Marcos and his regime. many being the younger generations under 30, who
thanks to whitewashing of history in school think that dictatorship was a time of great prosperity (well it was for the rich and corrupt), with almost
no crime at all (thanks to brutal enforcement against anything Marcos didn't like, and a controlled press that said there was little crime). now 31
years does seem like a long time, but remember we are only now getting to the point where most higher officials of the government, police etc, that
were in power, working and trained under and in that corrupt regime are getting old enough to retire. in fact the last two governments before Duterte
had been making good progress in ending a lot of that corruption. just a few years ago when you were stopped by a traffic enforcer, it was fully
expected that when you handed over your license that a monetary bribe would automatically handed over as well for example. they would also
suggest that you just pay them any fine, so you would not have to go down to city hall in a couple weeks to pay the fine and get your driver's
license back. that was just standard operations for the police. yet they seriously cracked down on things like that. that was all normal day to day
life. there was even a case a few years ago when an OFW (offshore worker) was "arrested" for murder, a murder that there was no way they could have
committed. yet the police wanted a
bribe of $20,000 (US$, not Philippine Piso), to make the problem go away. ironically a few years back a bus
full of Chinese tourists were taken hostage. this was during the crackdown of corrupt police. the
hijacker was a cop who had been fired for
being corrupt. what did he want in return for the hostages? HIS JOB BACK.
you ask if anyone has a better solution? are you referring to drugs and other crime, other than just murdering people with no evidence needed? how
about actually dealing with the extreme poverty of the country? there are millions of people in Manila alone who are far beyond what a North American
thinks of as poverty. people who dig through trash, to try and find things they might be able to sell to a junk dealer, to buy some food (mainly just
cheap rice) and
provide for their family. people who live n a lot of cases in the hand cart they use to collect the stuff. where there are
millions of people in Manila who can't afford a home, and squat wherever they can find a place to set up. or sleep literally anywhere they can find a
space. where millions of people in the city cook on cheap coal, because electricity and even a hot plate are far too expensive for them. where people
are so poor they will steal anything and everything, including toilet paper and seats if they actually put them in washrooms. people who are further
locked into a cycle of poverty because they can't afford to go to even grade school. where there is no real welfare system to help people (to be
honest there is no way the government could afford to have that). even those with decent jobs struggle to pay their 30 year mortgage on their 15'x15'
house. while there are people driving Ferraris and living in mansions. is it any wonder people try to escape using shabu (methamphetamine),or rugby
(sniffing glue, paint, or other chemicals)? or steal anything that's not nailed down?