SURVEY: Is Philippine's President Duterte a help or a hindrance to the Philippines?

[Scott]

President  Rodrigo Duterte has made some very strong statements in the past.   He has made verbal attacks on the UN and Ban-ki-Moon, the Pope and most recently on the US President.   In your opinion, do you believe that he is a good leader for the Philippines or that he is a hindrance to the overall development and international standing of the Philippines?

 

Please feel free to leave a comment.  

 

Here are some recent links to threads on the site:

 

 

www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/941794-obama-duterte-meet-despite-filipino-leaders-crude-language/#comment-11127017

 

 

[elgordo38]

Its refreshing to see someone shake up this good ole boys club. They are truly a boring bunch with a threatening vocabulary that achieves zero zilch nada.  Right now the bad boy of North Korea is in the sights of the good ole boys club. They as usual are verbally bombbasting him after yet another nuclear test and he is giving them the finger as usual and laughing up his sleeve. Ho Hum. Given time I think he will be OK. Frankly I find him refreshing as in past all the battles against the drug trade have proven fruitless and people just keep on dying and the dealers keep laundering the illicit green. Even though the odd innocent person is killed there are many more killed by drugs. At least now the drug leaders are looking over their shoulders. He has definitely taken them down a peg or two. 

[lungnorm]

President Duterte does speak off the cuff often. His English is far from perfect. He is often mis quoted in the press ie He was recently reported to have called Obama a son of a whore, the truth of that story is that crude remark was directed at the reporter and not Obama. I have lived in the Philippines for the last 2 years and have witnessed the tremendous support he has here. They do have a drug problem here and it needs to be cleaned up. Unfortunately there are some innocents getting in the firing line, but when you consider there are so many Government officials and Police in the drug trade it will take someone like Duterte to get any kind of result.

[claynlr]

I have a friend that is a Filipino. On the Facebook posts that I have read the comments of, she and her friends think he's the second coming....Of course she's from Davao City where he was Mayor

[yogi100]

5 minutes ago, claynlr said:

I have a friend that is a Filipino. On the Facebook posts that I have read the comments of, she and her friends think he's the second coming....Of course she's from Davao City where he was Mayor

 

I've been to Davao. The locals loved him. I've never heard the same said about a British politician except in some instances Nigel Farage.

[ncc1701d]

He is a barely literate, obnoxious, misogynist simpleton. Perfect for president of the philippeans. 

 

As as for whether he will be of any good to the philipeans or not will take a lot longer to know.

[DipStick]

13 minutes ago, ncc1701d said:

He is a barely literate, obnoxious, misogynist simpleton. Perfect for president of the philippeans. 

 

As as for whether he will be of any good to the philipeans or not will take a lot longer to know.

He is also a trained lawyer would you believe. His dress sense is nearly as rough as his tongue

[fredv]

Duterte is a mass murderer plain & simple. He's supposedly a lawyer (his alma mater must be very proud) who has no respect for the law. If there were any justice, he, the police chief and the rest responsible would be arrested, convicted and put in prison where they belong. They're already responsible for 2,000 plus murders. How many will there be at the end if his term in office?

 

The 80%+ of the Filipino people who apparently support this criminal should hang their heads in shame.

[Credo]

He seems hell bent on cleaning up the Philippines.   No problem.   Now he needs to clean up his mouth.   

[rosst]

I live in the Philippines and the people here love him and so do I,  I believe he will be a great President of the Philippines. 

[sirineou]

I dont see how making him self an international pariah would enhance his ability to effectively  represent the Philippines interests  around the world.

As far as domestic policy is concerned, his kind of war on drugs has being tried by many countries with very little success

The definition of insanity is: doing the same thing but expecting different results. 

[Credo]

I work with quite a few Filipinos and they also love him.   The problem is that on the international stage he has shown himself to be very, very undiplomatic.   By doing so, he is more likely to isolate himself (and the country as a result).   I am sure other than the obligatory invites to association meetings, a lot of leaders are not going to be courting him.   

 

I am also rather sure that a lot of large businesses will give momentary pause to increasing investment in the country based on his words and actions.   

[boomerangutang]

Everything I've heard about him sounds bad.

[lovelomsak]

I love the guy. He does what has to be done screw political correctness or diplomacy. He gets down and gets his hands dirty. He shows drug dealers there are no laws protecting them well he is around and they better learn to live (or die) with that. Drug dealers live thinking the law protects them well breaking the law. Duterte lets  them, know those days are over he has sunk to their level and will show them he can be a player

Edited September 11, 2016 by lovelomsak

[Jingthing]

18 minutes ago, boomerangutang said:

Everything I've heard about him sounds bad.

He's a mass murderer. His rule began in tears and it will end in tears. Popular or not. He won't be the first or last popular mass murderer. 

[Jingthing]

1 hour ago, rosst said:

I live in the Philippines and the people here love him and so do I,  I believe he will be a great President of the Philippines. 

Yeah if you liked Marcos, you'll love Duterte ... 

[reenatinnakor]

But why stop at drug dealers and pushers? Why not kill all those scammers also? It's the scammers that give Philippines a bad name not the drug dealers. And why stop there? Just kill anyone who breaks the law. You see where I'm going with this? His shoot to kill policy only wins votes, it can never be practical.

[lovelomsak]

4 minutes ago, reenatinnakor said:

But why stop at drug dealers and pushers? Why not kill all those scammers also? It's the scammers that give Philippines a bad name not the drug dealers. And why stop there? Just kill anyone who breaks the law. You see where I'm going with this? His shoot to kill policy only wins votes, it can never be practical.

Appears to be practical to me. Bad guys dead. Hundreds of thousands of people surrender. Pretty tough stats to compete with. Where else in the world where this is not practiced can they say drug dealers are surrendering by the 100,000's .there have been over 500,000 people surrender.

[happy Joe]

We can see the results of an unwavering allegiance of his predecessors to the great America:
Philippines today is one of the poorest countries in the world, plagued by an endemic mafia, corrupt officials and the same for leaders. Of course as anywhere with US military base, thousands of whores.

 

Notes that Pattaya is a paradise compared to Angeles City

 

I think it will be successful in its fight against the traffickers. I also think it will be closer to China and take some distance with the West as almost all nations of the region. Difficult to speculate on the benefits of these new alliances, but this country does not have much to lose.

 

At last it is expected on the settlement of territorial disputes on southern Muslim. The task is difficult and complex. It should however be noted that on Mindanao, tourist kidnappers and bombers stop at the gates of his city, Davao.

[reenatinnakor]

Appears to be practical to me. Bad guys dead. Hundreds of thousands of people surrender. Pretty tough stats to compete with. Where else in the world where this is not practiced can they say drug dealers are surrendering by the 100,000's .there have been over 500,000 people surrender.

So why not kill all bad guys? Scammers, rapists, robbers, paedos... Why just drug dealers? If they start killing rapists then some of these will surrender also. Start killing robbers, they will surrender also.

[Ulic]

People are sick and tired of politics as usual corruption as usual and will accept extreme

positions for now in order to facilitate change. I have talked to a number of Filipinos

in my world wide travels and I have yet to hear from one who does not support him.

Plenty of work to do in SEA to end (control) corruption and drug trafficking so we shall see

what comes to pass. Of course people want other peoples corruption to stop not

the corruption that benefits them and people want to get tough on drugs until it is their

family members that are caught with a joint. If they focused on the drug traffickers

and Mr Bigs instead of the low hanging fruit end line users and started with the corruption

involving government projects, before moving on to police, politicians, and government

bureaucrats  maybe they could get somewhere.

[tropo]

1 hour ago, happy Joe said:

 Philippines today is one of the poorest countries in the world, 

 

Not even close:

 

GDP: 30th /230

 

PPP: 153rd /229

 

The main reason the country is in such a poor state is because of the high birth rate.

 

34% of the population are 14 years of age or under - 34 million

43% of the population are 24 years of age or under - 43 million

 

Let's look at Thailand by comparison:

 

17% of the population are 14 years of age or under - 11.7 million

 

Duterte had it right. The Catholic Church is mainly responsible for the problem, insisting on no birth control. Where is the Catholic Church when the people need to be fed? Nowhere to be seen.

[Broeno]

He is not a president to lead a country to a fair future. He's a fichter in the ring and a killer for people who got addicted because of their hopeless situation. The people behind this walk free and rich. A so could psychopath. 

[balo]

He sounds like a crazy man to me , I voted  NO. 

 

[tropo]

1 hour ago, Broeno said:

He is not a president to lead a country to a fair future. He's a fichter in the ring and a killer for people who got addicted because of their hopeless situation. The people behind this walk free and rich. A so could psychopath. 

You're going on all the media hype and bs. In our town, on Leyte, population over 50k, where there was a huge drug problem we have not heard of one drug dealer being shot. The problem was that drugs (mainly shabu) were so cheap people could get a hit for as low as 50 pesos and every man and his dog was using it. The jails are overflowing with dealers and the users were enticed to have their details documented (photos, thumbprints etc). My 3 brother-in-laws had all their details recorded as they too were users. There's a town curfew at 10 pm and everything is peaceful. The poor are receiving more aid and health care than ever before. 

 

There's over 42,000 barangays in the Philippines, with a population of over 100 million.  2000 deaths would equate to 1 death in every 21 barangays. There's no more people dying in the drug business now than there were before, only before no one was taking notes and it wasn't the law enforcers killing them (they were killing each other). Drug dealers who resist arrest and threaten to fire upon the police are going to be shot. Drug dealers facing life in prison will be desperate. A lot of in-prison drug dealing has been stomped out too... and corrupt cops all over the country arrested.

 

He's 71 and probably won't be around for too long, but while it lasts he's a blessing to the country, long devoid of strong leaders.

Edited September 11, 2016 by tropo

[tropo]

3 hours ago, reenatinnakor said:

 

So why not kill all bad guys? Scammers, rapists, robbers, paedos... Why just drug dealers? If they start killing rapists then some of these will surrender also. Start killing robbers, they will surrender also.

 

 He was sworn in on June 30, just over 2 months ago. Rome wasn't built in a day. 

[swanny321]

6 hours ago, tropo said:

 

 

He's 71 and probably won't be around for too long, but while it lasts he's a blessing to the country, long devoid of strong leaders.

 

  And your idea of a strong leader is...Marcos I suppose!

[wombat]

16 hours ago, fredv said:

They're already responsible for 2,000 plus murders. How many will there be at the end if his term in office?

 

 

 

Who cares?

 new broom sweeps clean and a whole new set of players appear, nothing changes just re-arranges.

[freebyrd]

17 hours ago, DipStick said:

He is also a trained lawyer would you believe. His dress sense is nearly as rough as his tongue

 

I've lived in PI, there is a 'lawyer' on every corner.

[Briggsy]

I voted no because he is usurping power from national institutions and the rule of law and transferring it to himself.

Development is based around functioning institutions and the rule of law so his rule is hindering progress.

 

Having said all that, I believe it is in the nature of South East Asians to live under strong autocratic rulers in hierarchical village-like political structures. Western-style democracies will never be accepted and societies here will always revert to type. They lack the self-discipline for a country ruled by law and they lack the bravery to impose a moral code on figures in authority whether that be the president, the local police chief or the village headman.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Briggsy