Rodrigo Duterte

Rodrigo "Rody" Roa Duterte (Tagalog: [roˈdɾigo dʊˈtɛrtɛ]; born March 28, 1945), also known as Digong,[5] is a Filipino politician who is the 16th and current President of the Philippines and the first from Mindanao, the southernmost island of the country to hold the office.[6][7][8][9] He is chair of the ruling PDP–Labanparty. At 71 years old, Duterte is the oldest person to assume the Philippine presidency; the record was previously held by Sergio Osmeña at the age of 65.[10]

Duterte studied political science at the Lyceum of the Philippines University, graduating in 1968, before obtaining a law degree from San Beda College of Law in 1972. He then worked as a lawyer and was a prosecutor for Davao City, a highly urbanized city on Mindanao island, before becoming vice mayor and, subsequently, mayor of the city in the wake of the Philippine Revolution of 1986. Duterte was among the longest-serving mayors in the Philippines, serving seven terms and totaling more than 22 years in office.

Duterte's political success has been aided by his vocal support for the extrajudicial killing of drug users and other criminals.[11] Human rights groups have documented over 1,400 killings allegedly by death squads operating in Davao between 1998 and May 2016; the victims were mainly drug users, petty criminals and street children.[12] A 2009 report by the Philippine Commission on Human Rights confirmed the "systematic practice of extrajudicial killings" by the Davao Death Squad.[13][14] Duterte has alternately confirmed and denied his involvement.[15] The Office of the Ombudsman closed an investigation in January 2016 stating that they found no evidence that the Davao Death Squad exists, and no evidence to connect the police or Duterte with the killings.[13][14] The case has since been reopened.[16] Duterte has repeatedly confirmed that he personally killed three kidnapping suspects at a police checkpoint while Mayor of Davao in 1988.[17][18]

On May 9, 2016, Duterte won the Philippine presidential election with 39.01% of the votes, defeating four other candidates, namely Mar Roxas[19] of the Liberal Party (23.4%), Senator Grace Poe (21.6%), former vice president Jejomar Binay of the United Nationalist Alliance (12.9%), and the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago of the People's Reform Party (3%).[20] During his campaign, he promised to reduce crime by killing tens of thousands of criminals.[21] His domestic policy has focused on combating the illegal drug trade by initiating the Philippine Drug War. According to the Philippine National Police the death total passed 7,000 in January 2017, after which the police stopped publishing data.[22] Following criticism from United Nations human rights experts that extrajudicial killings had increased since his election, Duterte threatened to withdraw the Philippines from the UN and form a new organization with China and African nations.[23] He has declared his intention to pursue an "independent foreign policy",[24] and sought to distance the Philippines from the United States and European nations and pursue closer ties with China and Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodrigo_Duterte

 Skye-N-Rain:

I'm actually really curious about Filipino MDL'ers thoughts on him, and why he is good or bad. The one Filipino I asked from Davao really liked him and said that the Media is just butchering his name.

My experience is that domestic Filipinos love him and overseas Filipinos hate him! (You would be the latter I bet :p)

Political discussion in MDL .... I am not a Filipino but I am interested  in politics... First of all Filipinos who voted for him i.e. 39.01%  knew his past, his scandal and what he holds for their future, so we can say those people love him and voted for him...remaining person did not even vote for him so , it is clear that they don't like him..

Lets talk about his approach towards drug trafficking and other, we all know how many countries / organisations are fighting against it  and we hardly have any country who has won the battle against it... So nobody can preach him , how he should fight  the battle ...western media simply demonize and bully any leader who gives zero F**k about their moral policing...

Regarding his alignment towards Russia, China, etc since he is standing up against west, he is following the assumption that " My Enemy's enemy is  my Friend".

 Skye-N-Rain:

I'm not Filipino haha.  The person I asked was someone who lived there, so perhaps you're right. 

YOU ARE NOT???

What are you?

 Joowonholic:

What's with this? Lol. Got my attention while reading the main page then checked if i was still on MDL. 

So are you an anti or a pro? 

Pro

 joker:

Political discussion in MDL .... I am not a Filipino but I am interested  in politics... First of all Filipinos who voted for him i.e. 39.01%  knew his past, his scandal and what he holds for their future, so we can say those people love him and voted for him...remaining person did not even vote for him so , it is clear that they don't like him..

Lets talk about his approach towards drug trafficking and other, we all know how many countries / organisations are fighting against it  and we hardly have any country who has won the battle against it... So nobody can preach him , how he should fight  the battle ...western media simply demonize and bully any leader who gives zero F**k about their moral policing...

Regarding his alignment towards Russia, China, etc since he is standing up against west, he is following the assumption that " My Enemy's enemy is  my Friend".

We had much more discussion 5 years ago on MDL. MDL less discussion now (Skye disagrees!)

General Filipino Talk is basically discussing everything and anything else under the sun about the Philippines.

Filipino here who lives in the Philippines and who did not vote for him the last election. :-) 

I'm not a rabidly anti- Digong  (another of his nicknames) and I see the pros and cons up-close. 

Just one thing each from both sides of the discussion (I'm basically neutral in politics and avoid discussions except on certain issues that are non-negotiable for me):

Positive : A lot of the delay in dealing with government offices has been streamlined.  It took me an hour and  half to renew my professional license ID card when it took me about three days to over a week before. Red tape has been diminished thanks to DU30 (another of his monickers).

Negative: "Collateral damage" and indiscriminate killing of people in the war on drugs is real. I work with someone who got hit by a stray bullet in the leg while driving past an area where a raid was going on. Good thing he recovered just in time to take the board examination for radiologic technology, but that will affect the rest of his professional life as he can no longer assist patients inside the MRI room (that would be lethal for him do). He decided not to pursue legal action anymore.  Children have even been killed in this raids when they happen to be next to the target.

I'm a Filipino. I have no comment with regards our president.

Lol.

I like and dislike him at the same time. I like what he has been doing so far but there are things that I also don't like.

He's a bit hard to figure out.

I'm an overseas Filipino here. I do agree with some of his agenda but also disagree with some few issues. I do agree with his support of adding another telco company because internet and telecommunications are basically run by only 2 companies with the Philippines having slowest internet in Asia.

I disagree with his proposed plan to change the current system of the government to federalism. I'm not entirely sure if this type of government will work in the Philippines. I also disagree with his soft approach with China even though China are installing missiles in the Spratly Islands which are also claimed by the Philippines. I also don't get why he doesn't approve of divorce with Philippines and Vatican as the only countries in the world that don't allow divorce. I  do understand why the Vatican would never allow divorce because they are run by the Catholic Church. But in the Philippines, it should be legalized by now. 

Are you from Canada? I’m living in Canada too. In my view, I’m totally ok with the legalization of marijuana as it will be better regulated once legalized. Yet, I’m against with the drug killings that is happening in the Philippines. I feel like they should be locked up in jails instead of just killing them. 

 dada123:

Coming from a country where marijuana just go legalized and is everywhere, I do not know how to react to people when they asked me about Duterte. They talked about his injustice against killing people. Because in this country, you cannot kill someone because they smoke or sell marijuana. People do it in public. I am not a smoker or a regular drinker myself and definitely against drug use. However, I don't see people act weirdly to me when I tell them I don't like drinking. It is just a matter of respect. I think that is what most people don't have.