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Duterte VS the ICC: A timeline of a man digging his own grave

Rodrigo Duterte’s statement saying the Philippines is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC) would only be a surprise to someone who hasn’t paid enough attention to the moves of this President — (ill-)advised and otherwise. After all, this is a man who lives off shooting from the hip, declaring in no uncertain terms who the enemies are of nation, never mind that it reeks of double-standard at every turn, and protects his own men despite the stench of corruption and anti-people policies that now pervade his whole government.

The ICC statement, as such, is really just Duterte being Duterte. He is not disente, he does not care for what is appropriate or diplomatic, he will not apologize for his loud, dirty mouth. And he lies. He changes his mind, he shifts from one stand to another, he goes on the path of least resistance (be it China or Russia, or whoever’s willing to kiss his feet), and when faced with difficulty, his answer is violence — kill those people, call critics terrorists, bomb those schools, bomb those structures! And when held accountable for his actions, he will have the Chief Justice impeached, he will discredit the Ombudsman, he will decide to get out of a treaty that promises protection of Filipino citizens from systemic, state violence.

Duterte has often said about his oppressive, anti-people policies that we insist go against our basic rights: kung wala kayong kasalanan, bakit kayo matatakot? Seems like a question the President should be asking himself.

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Sacred cows in Duterte’s drug war: Peter Lim

We’ve always known this to be true: a majority of those dead in the drug war, whether in the hands of police or in summary executions, are poor; a small percentage that might be seen as “big fish,” are “rubbed out” in the way that a violent President’s orders have implicitly allowed and encouraged; and there is a select group of people who can get away with pretty much anything, drug-related and otherwise, as long as they are well-connected to Duterte and his men.

This is what’s called the Duterte double-standard. And this creates the select group of people who might be labeled as Duterte sacred cows.

The ones who can smuggle in P6.4 BILLION PESOS of illegal drugs and get away with it. The ones who can be pinpointed as drug lord, but get an audience with the President to declare his innocence. The ones who refuse to even prove their innocence because their father is the President of the Philippines.

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Doing CJSereno In: Her SALN VS Duterte’s Men

As expected, Duterte’s men in the House of Representatives who live to serve their king, today delivered the Chief Justice’s head on a silver platter, deciding that there is probable cause to impeach Maria Lourdes Sereno.

Now that it is going to happen, it seems important to start looking at what exactly they’ve been wasting public funds on since July of last year, starting with of course the fact of Larry Gadon’s 60+ pages of an impeachment complaint, probably one of the most terribly written, hilarious documents you will find. See, this won’t even pass as a college argumentative research paper, as all its sources are ahem … newspaper clippings.

And then there is its premise: that Sereno is mentally ill, which is why she has committed all the crimes detailed by Gadon. But in the Committee on Justice hearings, that part about mental illness is only “discussed” at the tail-end of the proceedings, excluding of course SoH Alvarez already calling Sereno “baliw” as early as Nov 2017 for refusing to appear in the House to cross-examine the witnesses herself. Never mind that Sereno has a right to have counsel question those witnesses — a right denied her by Alvarez’s Congress.

And really, if anything, Sereno’s refusal to appear in the House, to defend herself in front of Congress Reps who have pre-judged her and are out to get her — that’s proof that she got her head screwed on straight. Only the delusional would think any Duterte critic will get justice and fairness at the HoR. (more…)

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CJSereno VS Duterte: A timeline to impeachment (Part 3: 2018)

As the House of Representatives’ Committee on Justice, led by Duterte Man Rep Reynaldo Umali, continued its hearings to decide on whether or not there is probable cause for the Sereno impeachment, what became obvious was that this was a concerted effort to get the Chief Justice to crumble and just resign. After all, the allegations against her were being made public, and in the hands of Duterte’s men in Congress, these were being spun into fact. This is exactly what they did to Senator Leila de Lima, who used every platform available to her to fight back, hysteria and tears and all, including playing the victim card, which also arguably made things worse for her: this gave Duterte’s propagandists, troll army, and social media employees the ammunition to use her as object and subject of their propaganda.

CJ Sereno knows better, and refuses to play Duterte’s game. And they must hate her for not playing into their hands. (more…)

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CJSereno VS Duterte: A timeline to impeachment (Part 2: 2017)

Wherein 2016 Duterte revealed himself to be very defensive about the war on drugs, and therefore ready to attack anyone at all — including the Chief Justice — for putting it into question, in 2017 he was on a roll, blaming practically everything on the Supreme Court, and specifically on Sereno.

He continued to be hung-up on the judiciary imposing TROs on government projects, even when early on Sereno had clarified that there were very few such TROs. He started stating as fact the allegations against Sereno detailed in Larry Gadon’s impeachment complaint. He insisted that Sereno was part of a plot to oust him from the Presidency, alongside the Left, the Dilawan, the Ombudsman, and Trillanes.

Talk about Presidential paranoia.

Here’s how Duterte’s men in the House of Representative decided to give him Sereno’s head on a silver platter.  (more…)