Philippines

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Ahead of Election, Young People in the Philippines Rally Around Leni Robredo

      by

      As the election in the Philippines nears, tens of thousands of young people who fear another Marcos presidency are rallying around Leni Robredo, the country’s vice president.VALENZUELA CITY, Philippines — John Benvir Serag knocked on doors in the working-class neighborhood, wearing his pink “Youth Vote for Leni” T-shirt and holding a stack of fliers. He has spent nearly every day in the past month trying to explain to strangers why Leni Robredo is the best person to lead the Philippines.“What are you looking for in a president?” Mr. Serag asked an older woman, ahead of the country’s presidential election in May.“Of course, someone who does not steal,” she responded.“Right! Leni has no trace of corruption,” Mr. Serag said. “Also, she is not a thief.”Anyone who made eye contact with the 26-year-old Mr. Serag in this neighborhood was an opening. Questions about her proposal for clean government? Needed more information about her plans for farmers and businesses?In the past six years, many young people in the Philippines have grown increasingly disenchanted with President Rodrigo Duterte’s leadership: both his brutal war on drugs and his approach to the pandemic. They have watched men and boys being gunned down in the streets and experienced the mental toll from a prolonged shutdown of schools, two years and running.John Benvir Sera, 26, a junior high school teacher, is among the many young volunteers for Ms. Robredo.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesIn this election, many have come out in full force for Ms. Robredo, the country’s vice president, who is an outspoken critic of Mr. Duterte and a frequent target of his insults. They are facing long odds, with Ms. Robredo polling a far second behind the front-runner, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the only son and namesake of the late dictator.They are also fighting a wave of disinformation that has recast the Marcos dictatorship as what supporters of the younger Marcos call a “golden age.” Some of their peers are swayed by YouTube videos that portray Mr. Marcos as a cool parent, while some among an older generation are nostalgic for strongman rule.Presidential elections in the Philippines have long been a contest for the hearts of young Filipinos. This time, at least half of the record 65 million registered voters are between the ages of 18 and 30.But they have rarely been marked by this level of passion and intensity. As of Feb. 25, two million volunteers had signed up for Ms. Robredo’s campaign, according to Barry Gutierrez, her spokesman. Many of them are first-time voters or too young to vote. Her rallies have drawn tens of thousands of people.Supporters of Ms. Robredo preparing to go house-to-house in Manila to campaign for her. Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York Times“It’s like my mom’s a rock star every time she goes around, and this is something very surprising to us,” said Tricia Robredo, one of Ms. Robredo’s daughters. “Especially because we’ve been going off our experience the past six years where my mom has been very vilified online.”Dozens of groups have sprouted up, combining their shared interests in K-pop and Taylor Swift with getting the vote out for Ms. Robredo. The “Swifties4Leni” wear T-shirts with the hashtag #OnlyTheYoung, referencing Ms. Swift’s track about youth empowerment against the “big bad man and his big bad clan.”Many of Ms. Robredo’s young supporters are united in their desire to prevent another Marcos from becoming president. Aside from the human rights abuses committed during his father’s 20-year rule, Mr. Marcos — who is known by his nickname, Bongbong — has been convicted of tax fraud, refused to pay his family’s estate taxes, and misrepresented his education at Oxford University.Many of Ms. Robredo’s young supporters are united in their desire to prevent another Marcos from becoming president. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the only son of the late dictator, is leading in the polls.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesMs. Robredo, a lawyer and an economist, beat Mr. Marcos narrowly in 2016 to win the vice presidency, which is separately elected from the presidency. She has vowed to stop the extrajudicial killings in the drug war. During the pandemic, she sent medical equipment to patients and dispatched supplies to frontliners. She has helped marginalized communities and is usually one of the first top officials to visit disaster-stricken sites.Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Ms. Robredo’s young volunteers has been the wave of disinformation that has lionized the Marcos era and vilified Ms. Robredo as a communist. Spliced videos have also portrayed her as stuttering and unintelligent.Tsek.ph, an independent fact-checking project in the Philippines, found that Mr. Marcos has benefited the most from disinformation this year, while Ms. Robredo has been its biggest victim so far. The group said that of more than 200 election-related posts it analyzed, 94 percent targeted Ms. Robredo; only 10 percent went after Mr. Marcos.“It’s a little late for us to fight that disinformation,” said Mr. Serag, a junior high school teacher who goes by V.J. “But we’re still doing it, even if it’s a little too late. That’s what pushed me to be active.”Preparing campaign literature for Ms. Robredo. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Ms. Robredo’s young volunteers has been a wave of disinformation targeting her.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesOn a recent Thursday, Mr. Serag led a team of 20 other volunteers in the neighborhood of Gen T. de Leon, where posters of Mr. Marcos and his running mate, Sara Duterte, the president’s daughter, were plastered outside many homes.Just a week before, several of Mr. Marcos’s supporters in the next neighborhood had dumped a bucket of water on them.“What are you looking for in a president?” Mr. Serag asked a middle-aged woman who runs a stall.“Someone who can help us find jobs,” the woman replied.“Leni has set aside a budget of 100 million for small and medium enterprises and when it comes to employment —” Mr. Serag began, before he was cut off.Dozens of groups have sprouted up, combining their shared interests in K-pop and Taylor Swift with getting the vote out for Ms. Robredo. Above, one such group, K-Pop Stans for Leni.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York Times“Isn’t Leni a ‘yellow?’” the woman asked, referring to the “yellow” Liberal Party. The party of the Aquino family, which has produced two former presidents, has been seen by some as an elitist group that has failed to improve the lives of ordinary Filipinos.“No, she’s independent,” Mr. Serag responded. He pressed on: “Even if we do away with the political colors, yellow or whatever, let’s think about what she really has done. She really has helped a lot of communities.”The youth vote remains divided between Ms. Robredo and Mr. Marcos. Many young people remain big fans of Mr. Marcos — a survey has shown that seven out of 10 Filipinos aged 18 to 24 want him to be president. The country’s textbooks dwell little on the atrocities of the Marcos era. Mr. Marcos’s young supporters say they enjoy watching his YouTube videos, which often feature his family in game-show segments.One volunteer on Mr. Serag’s team, Jay Alquizar, 22, had a speaker blasting a rap and pop jingle touting Ms. Robredo’s achievements, which he carted through the streets. A group of teenage boys cycled past him. Some shouted Mr. Marcos’s initials: “BBM, BBM!”A campaign rally for Ms. Robredo. Presidential elections in the Philippines have long been a contest for the hearts of young Filipinos.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesMr. Alquizar spoke into his microphone. “We are not here for a fight, we just want to inspire you,” he said. “That is what we see as the young. You need to see that, too. Because the future is not only for you. It’s for the next generation.”Mr. Alquizar said he was inspired, in part, by his grandfather, a former police officer, who was tortured during the Marcos regime after speaking out against human rights violations. “The word ‘sorry’ from the Marcos family,” he said in an interview. “We just want to hear that from them.”In past elections, the youths in the Philippines were mostly concerned about bread-and-butter issues such as jobs. They were often frustrated by the political dynasties that dominated the establishment, but felt there was little they could do to change it. Youth turnout in the 2016 election was about 30 percent, compared with 82 percent for the general population.Maria Tinao, 16, a high school student in the city of Caloocan, said she was always disillusioned about politics, believing officials had joined government just to enrich themselves. A self-professed “pageant fanatic,” she had been more focused on winning beauty contests and listening to K-pop than thinking about her country’s leaders.Then in 2017, Kian Loyd delos Santos was shot twice in the head.A supporter of Mr. Marcos, in blue, debating volunteers from Youth Vote for Leni. Some supporters of the Mr. Marcos have cast his father’s dictatorship as a “golden age.”Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesHis death shook Ms. Tinao. He was 17. The police officers who shot him were found guilty of his murder.In January, Ms. Tinao saw an interview with Ms. Robredo and was impressed. She started researching the vice president’s stance on the drug war. Although she was too young to vote, she wanted to work on swaying people who could.“We want a change, a real change for this country,” Ms. Tinao said.For the next few months, Ms. Tinao was relentless in talking about Ms. Robredo’s policies to her mother.“I was annoyed at first,” said Monica Tinao, 43, a volunteer church worker, who was considering voting for Isko Moreno, the mayor of Manila.But she remained curious about the appeal of Ms. Robredo. In March, she decided to attend a rally for the candidate. She saw the young volunteers distribute free food and water. Her daughter was in front of the stage.That night, the elder Ms. Tinao, who lives in a neighborhood of Marcos supporters, found her daughter’s banner promoting Ms. Robredo and strung it up on her front gate.Ms. Robredo onstage during a campaign rally in Pampanga, the Philippines, in April. Her rallies have drawn tens of thousands of people.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesJason Gutierrez More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Ahead of Philippines Election, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Rises

      by

      Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has spent his political career trying to rehabilitate the family name. As the front-runner in the upcoming election, he may finally succeed.MANILA — They bopped along to the beat of a martial law anthem updated into a pop tune. They cheered when an A-list celebrity proclaimed that the spirit of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the former dictator, was alive. And when Mr. Marcos’s son and namesake held up the peace sign made popular by his father a generation ago, the shrieking crowds mirrored it in return.It is election season in the Philippines, and history is being rewritten, one campaign rally at a time.Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has spent decades defending his family’s name against accusations of greed and corruption and downplaying the legacy of his father’s brutal rule. During his presidential campaign, he has portrayed himself as a unifier, while false narratives online reimagine his father’s regime as a “golden era” in the nation’s history.Now, as patriarch of the Marcos dynasty, Mr. Marcos is expected to be the first person to win the presidential election in the Philippines by a majority in more than three decades.The race is being cast as a competition between those who remember the past and those who are accused of trying to distort it, the last chapter in a brazen attempt to absolve the Marcoses of wrongdoing and quash any effort to hold the family accountable. Five years of President Rodrigo Duterte — a strong Marcos ally known for his bloody war on drugs and for jailing his critics — may have presaged a Marcos family comeback.“It will determine not just our future but our past,” said Maria Ressa, a journalist and Nobel Prize winner who is an outspoken critic of both Mr. Duterte and Mr. Marcos.Supporters at a rally cheering for Mr. Marcos, who has spent decades defending his family’s name against accusations of greed and corruption.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesThe Marcoses are accused of looting as much as $10 billion from the government before fleeing to Hawaii in 1986, when the peaceful “People Power” protests toppled the Marcos regime. The family returned to the country shortly after the death of the elder Mr. Marcos in 1989.Despite the exile, the Marcos name never truly left the political establishment.Mr. Marcos, known by his boyhood nickname, “Bongbong,” served as vice governor, governor and congressman in Ilocos Norte, the family stronghold, for most of the period between the 1980s and 2010. That year, he entered the national political scene when he was elected senator. Imelda Marcos, his 92-year-old mother, ran for president twice and lost in the 1990s.Rehabilitating the family name has been a recurring theme. Over the decades, the Marcoses have sought to target young voters with no memory of martial law or the torture and killing of political prisoners. Fifty-six percent of the voting population in the Philippines is aged between 18 and 41, and most did not witness the atrocities of the Marcos regime — ideal circumstances for the spread of disinformation, opponents say.A voter holding a portrait of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the dictator, and his wife, Imelda Marcos. The Marcoses are accused of looting as much as $10 billion from the Philippine government before fleeing to Hawaii in 1986. Jes Aznar for The New York TimesIn January, Twitter said it had removed more than 300 accounts promoting Mr. Marcos’s presidential bid for violating rules on spam and manipulation. The influential Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines said in a statement that it was appalled by the “historical revisionism” in the election, and “the attempt to delete or destroy our collective memory through the seeding of lies and false narratives.”Mr. Marcos’s spokesman, Vic Rodriguez, said there was “no certainty” that the Twitter accounts belonged to his supporters. Last week, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said it had suspended more than 400 election-related accounts, pages and groups for violating its standards. The company cited a video on Mr. Marcos’s official Facebook page that falsely accused his election rival, Leni Robredo, who is vice president, of cheating in the 2016 vice-presidential race. (The president and vice president are elected separately in the Philippines.)Several groups have sought to disqualify Mr. Marcos’s candidacy, pointing to a 1995 tax evasion conviction and the $3.9 billion in estate taxes that his family still owes the government. Mr. Marcos, 64, has brushed off the attacks as “fake news,” and refused to participate in nearly all presidential debates.Instead, Mr. Marcos has used social media to reach a captive audience online, reviewing viral TikTok dances and agreeing to makeovers.Live streaming Mr. Marcos’s motorcade south of Manila. Instead of participating in debates, Mr. Marcos has used social media to reach a captive audience online, reviewing viral TikTok dances and agreeing to makeovers.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesAt a rally in Las Piñas, Ella Mae Alipao, 15, said that she got most of her news about Mr. Marcos from TikTok and Facebook, and that she did not “believe much in books.” After Mr. Marcos’s father was ousted, Ms. Alipao said, “the Filipinos found out how good he was; that’s when they realized that they should have made him president for a longer time.”Mr. Marcos has made similar comments: “I’m not going to vindicate my father’s name because his name doesn’t need vindication,” he said in 1995. “I am so confident that history will judge him well.”In the 36 years since the father was ousted, many Filipinos have become disillusioned with the country’s democracy. Poverty is widespread, income inequality remains high and few people trust their elected leaders. When Mr. Duterte came to power, he promised radical change, ushering in a new era of strongman politics that has been embraced by many across the country.The names of those who died during the Marcos regime are etched on a wall at a memorial site in Quezon City. Opponents fear a Marcos victory would amount to rewriting history.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesMr. Duterte formed an alliance with the Marcoses early in his six-year presidential term. In 2016, he arranged for the father’s body to be moved tothe Philippines’ equivalent of Arlington National Cemetery, despite protests. And it was not until Sara Duterte, Ms. Duterte’s daughter, made the surprise announcement that she would run for vice president instead of president that Mr. Marcos gained his large lead in the polls.In recent weeks, the opposition has been working furiously to counter the false narratives online about the Marcoses. Sergio Osmena III, a former political prisoner, senator and a grandson of the fourth president of the Philippines, said he had hired 10,000 volunteers to wage a counteroffensive against the Marcos campaign by releasing videos on the economic devastation and human rights violations of the Marcos years.“It’s probably too late,” he said.The Marcoses have been remarkably adept at avoiding jail time. Mr. Marcos was sentenced to up to three years in prison in 1995 for tax-related convictions, but his sentence was overturned on appeal two years later, even though his conviction remained on the books. In 2018, his mother was sentenced to up to 11 years in prison for creating private foundations to hide her unexplained wealth. She posted bail, and the Supreme Court is still reviewing her appeal.Waiting to catch a glimpse of the Marcos motorcade south of Manila. “I’m not going to vindicate my father’s name because his name doesn’t need vindication,” Mr. Marcos said in 1995. Jes Aznar for The New York TimesThe government has recovered just $3.3 billion of the estimated $10 billion that the Marcoses are accused of stealing, but $2.4 billion in assets are still under litigation, with various groups tussling over them. Should Mr. Marcos win the presidency, many fear those proceedings, along with the $3.9 billion in estate taxes, will be swept away, cementing the false idea that the Marcoses are innocent.Among some young voters, that view has already taken hold. “If he is a thief, how come he hasn’t been jailed?” asked Rjay Garcia, a 19-year-old rug salesman, at a recent rally in the city of Santa Rosa. Mr. Garcia said that he believed the cases against Mr. Marcos’s family were meant “to destroy his reputation,” and that he had “never heard” of the People Power protests.Even those with intimate memories of the country’s struggle for democracy may feel it is time to move on.Benjamin Abalos Jr., Mr. Marcos’s campaign manager, led protests against the Marcos regime as a student council officer of the Ateneo Law School. He said he never talked about those days with his candidate. “Whatever justice was achieved in those 36 years, I think that’s already enough,” he said. “Perhaps now it’s about moving forward.”Such attitudes could signal that a full rehabilitation of the Marcos name may soon be complete. The family now includes a governor, a senator, a mayor and a possible congressman. Mr. Marcos’s eldest son, Ferdinand Alexander, 28, is running for a congressional seat in Ilocos Norte, where his cousin, Matthew Marcos Manotoc, is governor.Volunteers and supporters in front of a campaign logo for Mr. Marcos and Sara Duterte, the daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte. Mr. Marcos has seized on his alliance with the Dutertes to present himself as a unifier.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesMr. Marcos has seized on his alliance with Ms. Duterte to present himself as a unifier who is ready to lead, but his political track record is mostly thin.While in his six years in the Senate he helped pass laws on protecting older people and expanding emergency relief to children, nearly 70 percent of the 52 laws he pushed for were on designating holidays and festivals, renaming highways and reapportioning provinces and cities, a review by The New York Times found.An investigation in 2015 found that his résumé on the Senate website had been embellished to include a bachelor of arts from the University of Oxford. The university later said he did not complete his degree, but obtained instead a special diploma in social studies. Mr. Marcos has denied misrepresenting his education.Though Mr. Marcos is seen as the front-runner in the May 9 election, rallies for Ms. Robredo, the vice president, have drawn hundreds of thousands of young supporters in recent weeks. Hecklers have shouted “magnanakaw,” or “thief,” at Mr. Marcos’s motorcade, and the petitions to disqualify his candidacy are still under appeal, though experts say they are unlikely to succeed.“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” said Ms. Ressa, the journalist, recalling a quote from the author Milan Kundera. She described the election as a “microcosm of a global battle for facts.”“If facts don’t win,” she said, “we’ll have a whole new history.”Waving campaign posters and flashing the peace sign made popular by Mr. Marcos’s father, a dictator who oversaw the torture and killing of political prisoners in the Philippines.Jes Aznar for The New York Times More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines Won't Run for Senate

      by

      The populist president also promised a peaceful transition of power when his term ends next year.MANILA — President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines on Tuesday ended his bid for a Senate seat in next May’s elections, one day after promising a peaceful transition of power.It was a surprising move by the populist, ruthless Mr. Duterte, who is constitutionally barred from seeking another six-year presidential term. He had previously announced plans to run as vice president, in what critics charged was part of a scheme to hang on to power unofficially and ward off possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court. A report from that court has said there was sufficient evidence to show that crimes against humanity had been committed in Mr. Duterte’s bloody drug war, which has left thousands dead.However, he dropped the vice-presidential plan in October and announced that his chief aide, Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, would run instead.Another widely reported possibility had been that Sara Duterte-Carpio, his popular daughter, would seek the presidency, but she has chosen instead to run for vice president. She is effectively the running mate of presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the late dictator who was ousted in 1986 after two decades in power.Mr. Duterte, 76, then said he would seek a post in the Senate. If he won, he would have at least a semblance of protection from outside forces seeking to prosecute him.But on Tuesday, both Mr. Duterte and Mr. Go separately ended their candidacies.It is not clear what Mr. Duterte plans next. He has vehemently denied the criminal accusations against him, and his aides have said that no International Criminal Court prosecutor would be allowed into the Philippines.Last week, Mr. Duterte attended President Biden’s Summit for Democracy, where he reiterated his nation’s commitment to democratic principles.A spokesman for Mr. Duterte said in a statement that the Philippines’ leader believed that withdrawing from the Senate race would allow him to better focus on the Covid-19 pandemic response and on efforts to ensure “transparent, impartial, orderly and peaceful elections” in May.On Monday night, in his weekly televised address to the nation, Mr. Duterte said: “As I step down in June 2022, it will be my highest honor to turn over the reins of power to my successor knowing that in the exercise of my mandate, I did my best to serve the Filipino people.”According to early polls, the Marcos Jr. and Duterte-Carpio ticket leads a crowded presidential field. Also running are the boxer-turned-politician Manny Pacquiao, a former national police chief and Francisco Domagoso, the mayor of Manila.In the Philippines, the president and vice president are elected separately. While the vice presidency is a largely ceremonial job, analysts say that if an opposition figure holds the post, it can provide a semblance of checks and balances on the chief executive. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Rodrigo Duterte to Run for Senate in the Philippines

      by

      Rodrigo Duterte entered the race days after his daughter announced her bid for vice president. He had previously said he would leave politics at the end of his term.Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, will run for Senate in next year’s elections, the secretary-general of Mr. Duterte’s political party said on Monday. The announcement was a reversal of Mr. Duterte’s previously stated plan to retire and came just days after Sara Duterte, his daughter, filed her papers to run for vice president.Mr. Duterte entered the race just before the final filing deadline. On Saturday, his press secretary said Mr. Duterte intended to run for vice president, against Ms. Duterte.That political intrigue was another twist in the start of a competitive and unpredictable election, which will take place in May. More than 90 candidates have entered the race for president, including Manny Pacquiao, the former champion boxer, and Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, a top aide to Mr. Duterte.Ms. Duterte had been widely considered a presidential front-runner before Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the former dictator, said on Saturday that she would back him as president and run on his ticket as vice president.By staying in politics, Mr. Duterte could harness his network to try to protect himself from criminal charges. He is currently being investigated by the International Criminal Court for his bloody and heavily criticized war on drugs and has repeatedly said he would not allow I.C.C. investigators to enter the country.Mr. Duterte is still widely popular in the Philippines, despite his penchant for vulgar outbursts and his brutal campaign against drugs. Many have credited him for starting social-welfare policies like universal health care, free college education and, during the pandemic, cash handouts.But in August when Mr. Duterte first flirted with the idea of running for vice president, many Filipinos saw it as an overreach. The Philippine Constitution limits presidents to a single, six-year term. Social Weather Survey, a top public opinion research body, found that 60 percent of people polled said it would be unconstitutional for him to seek the V.P. spot.Mr. Duterte later said he would retire after his current term came to an end.When Mr. Duterte appeared to renew his interest in running for vice president on Saturday, it sent a shock wave throughout the country. But Harry Roque, the spokesman for Mr. Duterte, said on Monday that the president and his daughter “love each other.”“They will never clash, they will never fight over any position,” Mr. Roque told reporters.On Sunday, Ms. Duterte released a video on Facebook in which she said her decision to run for vice president would allow her to meet her supporters “halfway.”“It’s a path that would allow me to heed your call to serve our country, and would make me a stronger person and public servant in the years that lie ahead,” she said.Jason Gutierrez More

    • 88 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Enters Philippine Presidential Race

      by

      Ferdinand Marcos Jr. joins the former boxing champion Manny Pacquiao in seeking to succeed Rodrigo Duterte in next year’s election.MANILA — The son and namesake of the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos formally announced his plan to run for president of the Philippines on Tuesday, more than three decades after a popular uprising toppled his father’s brutal regime and restored democracy to the country.Ferdinand Marcos Jr. joins the former boxing champion Manny Pacquiao and Francisco Domagoso, the mayor of Manila, in seeking the presidency in next year’s election. Leni Robredo, the vice president, and Sara Duterte-Carpio, the mayor of Davao City and daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte, are also expected to enter the race.Mr. Marcos, 64, once served as a governor and a senator. He lost his bid as vice president to Ms. Robredo in 2016, and sought to overturn that vote by accusing her of cheating. In his announcement on Tuesday, Mr. Marcos said he would focus on helping the public overcome the coronavirus pandemic, and vowed to lift the economy out of crisis.“That is why I am announcing here today my intention to run for the presidency of the Philippines in the coming May 2022 elections,” Mr. Marcos said. “I will bring that form of unifying leadership back to our country. Join me in this noblest of causes and we will succeed.”He also took an oath as a member of the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas, the political party he would be representing in the election. The party founded by his father, the New Society Movement, also recently endorsed him as a candidate.Ferdinand Marcos ruled the country with an iron fist for two decades. He was defeated by a popular uprising in 1986 and went into exile in Hawaii, where he died three years later. He was accused of stealing up to $10 billion from state coffers and leaving thousands of activists dead or missing.His widow, Imelda R. Marcos, and children were later allowed to return to the Philippines, where they worked to rehabilitate the family name. Mrs. Marcos was found guilty of corruption in 2018, but has eluded jail time.Mr. Duterte, who announced his retirement last week, often publicly thanked the Marcos family for backing his candidacy in the 2016 presidential election. Just months into office, he allowed the dictator’s remains to be transferred to a national cemetery in Manila.Judy Taguiwalo, an activist with the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law, said the announcement from Mr. Marcos was a “brazen show of disregard and contempt for the thousands of Filipinos killed, disappeared, tortured, displaced and violated” during his father’s brutal regime.“Bongbong Marcos and his family have long been seeking to reclaim the highest seat of power after they were kicked out of the country by the people,” she said, referring to Mr. Marcos by his nickname, “and today, their shameless gall to return to the highest office in government is in full display.”Mr. Marcos, she said, was “spitting on the graves of the dead.” More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      President Duterte Plans to Run for the Vice Presidency

      by

      The president of the Philippines says he’ll run for the vice presidency next year. Critics see a plot to avoid prosecution for the killings in his drug war.MANILA — Rodrigo Duterte has dominated politics in the Philippines since becoming president five years ago, with an antidrug crusade blamed for thousands of extrajudicial killings and a pressure campaign against opposition leaders and the news media.Now, with mere months left in his six-year term, his opponents fear he is laying the groundwork to stay in power for years to come.Mr. Duterte announced this week that he intended to run for the vice presidency in the elections next May. Critics say it is a blatant attempt by Mr. Duterte, 76, to save himself from his “political sins” as he confronts possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court. An I.C.C. report last year said there was sufficient evidence to show that crimes against humanity had been committed in Mr. Duterte’s bloody drug war, which has left thousands dead.But Mr. Duterte says he still has unfinished business, chiefly the drug war and his fight against the country’s Communist insurgency.“I may not have the power to give direction or guidance, but I can always express my views in public,” he said of his potential new role as vice president.He has long flirted with the idea of staying on in government, though he repeatedly said during the past year that he was tired of the presidency, which he claimed had taken a toll on his health.Then, late Wednesday, during a nationally televised cabinet meeting, Mr. Duterte said unequivocally: “All right, I will run for the vice presidency. Then I will continue the crusade.”The political and defense analyst Chester Cabalza, founder of the Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation, a research institute, said Mr. Duterte’s decision was clearly meant to save him from prosecution.Jimboy Bolasa, 25, of Manila was found dead in 2016 with gunshot wounds and signs of torture. His killing was one of thousands that have been attributed to Mr. Duterte’s drug war. Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times“However, international laws are tested to have teeth against world leaders who have committed crimes against humanity,” Mr. Cabalza said in an interview. “And this will not spare him from his political sins.”In addition, he said, Mr. Duterte likes to be portrayed as the man in charge, and playing second fiddle is clearly not his style.“We will see clashes and divides if this happens,” Mr. Cabalza said, adding that the president’s fading health could also work against him.In the Philippines, the president and vice president are elected separately, with each serving a single six-year term. The Constitution bars a president from seeking re-election, but it allows him or her to run for a lower office afterward.Two graft-tainted former presidents, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, were elected to other public offices after their terms as leader of the country ended.There is no legal reason why Mr. Duterte cannot be prosecuted as president, but he has made it clear that he would defy any summons by the international court. A vice president would have less power to do so, but Mr. Duterte hopes to run in tandem with Senator Christopher Lawrence Go as the presidential candidate.If both men win, political experts say, Mr. Go can either resign to allow Mr. Duterte to step in as leader or let Mr. Duterte rule the country by proxy, ensuring he escapes prosecution.Harry Roque, the president’s spokesman, confirmed on Thursday said that all Mr. Duterte was waiting for now was for Mr. Go “to make up his mind” about his candidacy.Mr. Go did not return a phone call requesting comment and has not publicly addressed the issue of running for president. In a statement to local reporters, he said of Mr. Duterte: “I promised him that I will serve him as long as he lives. And that promise includes taking care of his children when he is gone.”Mr. Duterte hopes to run in tandem with Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, left, as the presidential candidate.King Rodrigues/Presidential Photo Division, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Duterte’s decision puts him on a collision course with his daughter, Sara Duterte, the mayor of the city of Davao. She has shored up popularity as a potential successor to his father but is not a member of his political party.She appeared not to be amused by the latest development. She said that her father had informed her ahead of time about his decision and that “it was not a pleasant event.”Mr. Roque, for his part, said he did not wish to comment on an internal “family affair.”Among other figures who have indicated they planned to contest the presidency are Senator Manny Pacquiao, the boxing star who parlayed his sports popularity into a career in politics; Francisco Domagoso, the current mayor of Manila, who was once a matinee idol known as Isko Moreno; and Vice President Leni Robredo, the opposition leader, who is a lawyer and a former member of Congress.The former congressman Neri Colmenares, a human rights lawyer, said Mr. Duterte’s announcement appeared to be an attempt to perpetuate his own political dynasty. He suggested that the president was exploiting the Constitution.Mr. Duterte remains popular in the impoverished Philippines, though his luster has been dimmed somewhat by corruption allegations and the extrajudicial killings, according to various surveys. Corruption accusations have also hounded Mr. Duterte’s Covid-19 response; he has refused to fire his health secretary over discrepancies in the accounting of state funds.“He is now a lame duck and will surely lose in the 2022 elections,” Mr. Colmenares predicted.Mr. Colmenares, who is one of a group of lawyers who brought charges against Mr. Duterte before the I.C.C., added, “His craving for immunity only shows he is afraid of the International Criminal Court after all his bluster of being a fearless president.”The only way for Mr. Duterte to escape prosecution is for him to stay on as president, Mr. Colmenares added, and the only way he can do that is through the back door.“He’s hoping to escape prosecution after he is out of power,” he said. “It is not only legally insane, but also exposes his real fear of going to prison.” More

    • 63 Shares169 Views

      in World Politics

      The Spread of Global Hate

      by

      One insidious way to torture the detainees at Guantanamo Bay was to blast music at them at all hours. The mixtape, which included everything from Metallica to the Meow Mix jingle, was intended to disorient the captives and impress upon them the futility of resistance. It worked: This soundtrack from hell did indeed break several inmates.

      For four years, Americans had to deal with a similar sonic blast, namely the “music” of President Donald Trump. His voice was everywhere: on TV and radio, screaming from the headlines of newspapers, pumped out nonstop on social media. MAGAmen and women danced to the repetitive beat of his lies and distortions. Everyone else experienced the nonstop assault of Trump’s instantly recognizable accent and intonations as nails on a blackboard. After the 2016 presidential election, psychologists observed a significant uptick in the fears Americans had about the future. One clinician even dubbed the phenomenon “Trump anxiety disorder.”

      What Led to Europe’s Vaccine Disaster?

      READ MORE

      The volume of Trump’s assault on the senses has decreased considerably since January. Obviously, he no longer has the bully pulpit of the Oval Office to broadcast his views. The mainstream media no longer covers his every utterance. Most importantly, the major social media platforms have banned him. In the wake of the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, Twitter suspended Trump permanently under its glorification of violence policy. Facebook made the same decision, though its oversight board is now revisiting the former president’s deplatforming.

      It’s not only Trump. The Proud Boys, QAnon, the militia movements: The social media footprint of the far right has decreased a great deal in 2021, with a parallel decline in the amount of misinformation available on the Web.

      And it’s not just a problem of misinformation and hate speech. According to a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on domestic terrorism, right-wing extremists have been involved in 267 plots and 91 fatalities since 2015, with the number of incidents rising in 2020 to a height unseen in a quarter of a century. A large number of the perpetrators are loners who have formed their beliefs from social media. As one counterterrorism official put it, “Social media has afforded absolutely everything that’s bad out there in the world the ability to come inside your home.”

      So, why did the tech giants provide Trump, his extremist followers and their global counterparts unlimited access to a growing audience over those four long years?

      Facebook Helps Trump

      In a new report from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), Heidi Beirich and Wendy Via write: “For years, Trump violated the community standards of several platforms with relative impunity. Tech leaders had made the affirmative decision to allow exceptions for the politically powerful, usually with the excuse of ‘newsworthiness’ or under the guise of ‘political commentary’ that the public supposedly needed to see.”

      Even before Trump became president, Facebook was cutting him a break. In 2015, he was using the social media platform to promote a Muslim travel ban, which generated considerable controversy, particularly within Facebook itself. The Washington Post reports:

      “Outrage over the video led to a companywide town hall, in which employees decried the video as hate speech, in violation of the company’s policies. And in meetings about the issue, senior leaders and policy experts overwhelmingly said they felt that the video was hate speech, according to three former employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg expressed in meetings that he was personally disgusted by it and wanted it removed, the people said.”

      But the company’s most prominent Republican, Vice-President of Global Policy Joel Kaplan, persuaded Zuckerberg to change his position. In spring 2016, when Zuckerberg wanted to condemn Trump’s plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico, he was again persuaded to step back for fear of seeming too partisan.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Facebook went on to play a critical role in getting Trump elected. It wasn’t simply the Russian campaign to create fake accounts, fake messaging and even fake events using Facebook, or the theft of Facebook user data by Cambridge Analytica. More important was the role played by Facebook staff in helping Trump’s digital outreach team maximize its use of social media. The Trump campaign spent $70 million on Facebook ads and raised much of its $250 million in online fundraising through Facebook as well.

      Trump established a new paradigm through brute force and money. As he turned himself into clickbait, the social media giants applied the same “exceptionalism” to other rancid politicians. More ominously, the protection accorded politicians extended to extremists. According to an account of a discussion at a Twitter staff meeting, one employee explained that “on a technical level, content from Republican politicians could get swept up by algorithms aggressively removing white supremacist material. Banning politicians wouldn’t be accepted by society as a trade-off for flagging all of the white supremacist propaganda.”

      Of course, in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, social media organizations decided that society could indeed accept the banning of politicians, at least when it came to some politicians in the United States.

      The Real Fake News

      In the Philippines, an extraordinary 97% of internet users had accounts with Facebookas of 2019, up from 40% in 2018 (by comparison, about 67% of Americans have Facebook accounts). Increasingly, Filipinos get their news from social media. That’s bad news for the mainstream media in the Philippines. And that’s particularly bad news for journalists like Maria Ressa, who runs an online news site called Rappler.

      At a press conference for the GPAHE report, Ressa described how the government of Rodrigo Duterte, with an assist from Facebook, has made her life a living hell. Like Trump, President Duterte came to power on a populist platform spread through Facebook. Because of her critical reporting on government affairs, Ressa felt the ire of the Duterte fan club, which generated half a million hate posts that, according to one study, consisted of 60% attacks on her credibility and 40% sexist and misogynist slurs. This onslaught created a bandwagon effect that equated journalists like her with criminals.

      This noxious equation on social media turned into a real case when the Philippine authorities arrested Ressa in 2019 and convicted her of the dubious charge of “cyberlibel.” She faces a sentence of as much as 100 years in prison.

      “Our dystopian present is your dystopian future,” she observed. What happened in the Philippines in that first year of Duterte became the reality in the United States under Trump. It was the same life cycle of hate in which misinformation is introduced in social media, then imported into the mainstream media and supported from the top down by opportunistic politicians.

      The Philippines faces another presidential election next year, and Duterte is barred from running again by term limits. Duterte’s daughter, who is currently the mayor of Davao City just like her father had been, tops the early polls, though she hasn’t thrown her hat in the ring and her father has declared that women shouldn’t run for president. This time around, however, Facebook disrupted the misinformation campaign tied to the Dutertes when it took down fake accounts coming from China that supported the daughter’s potential bid for the presidency.

      President Duterte was furious. “Facebook, listen to me,” he said. “We allow you to operate here hoping that you could help us. Now, if government cannot espouse or advocate something which is for the good of the people, then what is your purpose here in my country? What would be the point of allowing you to continue if you can’t help us?”

      Duterte had been led to believe, based on his previous experience, that Facebook was his lapdog. Other authoritarian regimes had come to expect the same treatment. In India, according to the GPAHE report, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party:

      “… was Facebook India’s biggest advertising spender in 2020. Ties between the company and the Indian government run even deeper, as the company has multiple commercial ties, including partnerships with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the Ministry of Women and the Board of Education. Both CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg have met personally with Modi, who is the most popular world leader on Facebook. Before Modi became prime minister, Zuckerberg even introduced his parents to him.”

      Facebook has also cozied up to the right-wing government in Poland, misinformation helped get Jair Bolsonaro elected in Brazil, and the platform served as a vehicle for the Islamophobic content that contributed to the rise of the far right in the Netherlands. But the decision to ban Trump has set in motion a backlash. In Poland, for instance, the Law and Justice Party has proposed a law to fine Facebook and others for removing content if it doesn’t break Polish law, and a journalist has attempted to establish a pro-government alternative to Facebook called Albicla.

      Back in the USA

      Similarly, in the United States, the far right have suddenly become a big booster of free speech now that social media platforms have begun to deplatform high-profile users like Trump and take down posts for their questionable veracity and hate content. In the second quarter of 2020 alone, Facebook removed 22.5 million posts.

      .custom-post-from {float:right; margin: 0 10px 10px; max-width: 50%; width: 100%; text-align: center; background: #000000; color: #ffffff; padding: 15px 0 30px; }
      .custom-post-from img { max-width: 85% !important; margin: 15px auto; filter: brightness(0) invert(1); }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h4 { font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-h5 { font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
      .custom-post-from input[type=”email”] { font-size: 14px; color: #000 !important; width: 240px; margin: auto; height: 30px; box-shadow:none; border: none; padding: 0 10px; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-pen-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center right 14px; background-size:14px;}
      .custom-post-from input[type=”submit”] { font-weight: normal; margin: 15px auto; height: 30px; box-shadow: none; border: none; padding: 0 10px 0 35px; background-color: #1878f3; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-email-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 14px center; background-size: 14px; }

      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox { width: 90%; margin: auto; position: relative; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label { text-align: left; display: block; padding-left: 32px; margin-bottom: 0; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px;
      -webkit-user-select: none;
      -moz-user-select: none;
      -ms-user-select: none;
      user-select: none;
      order: 1;
      color: #ffffff;
      font-weight: normal;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label a { color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input { position: absolute; opacity: 0; cursor: pointer; height: 100%; width: 24%; left: 0;
      right: 0; margin: 0; z-index: 3; order: 2;}
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:before { content: “f0c8”; font-family: Font Awesome 5 Free; color: #eee; font-size: 24px; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; line-height: 28px; color: #ffffff; width: 20px; height: 20px; margin-top: 5px; z-index: 2; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:before { content: “f14a”; font-weight: 600; color: #2196F3; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:after { content: “”; }
      .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:after { position: absolute; left: 2px; width: 18px; height: 18px; margin-top: 10px; background: #ffffff; top: 10px; margin: auto; z-index: 1; }
      .custom-post-from .error{ display: block; color: #ff6461; order: 3 !important;}

      Facebook has tried to get ahead of this story by establishing an oversight board that includes members like Jamal Greene, a law professor at Columbia University; Julie Owono, executive director at Internet Sans Frontiere; and Nighat Dad, founder of the Digital Rights Foundation. Now, Facebook users can also petition the board to remove content.

      With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others now removing a lot of extremist content, the far right have migrated to other platforms, such as Gab, Telegram, and MeWe. They continue to spread conspiracy theories, anti-COVID vaccine misinformation and pro-Trump propaganda on these alternative platforms. Meanwhile, the MAGA crowd awaits the second coming of Trump in the form of a new social media platform that he plans to launch in a couple of months to remobilize his followers.

      Even without such an alternative alt-right platform — Trumpbook? TrumpSpace? Trumper? — the life cycle of hate is still alive and well in the United States. Consider the “great replacement theory,” according to which immigrants and denizens of the non-white world are determined to “replace” white populations in Europe, America and elsewhere. Since its inception in France in 2010, this extremist conspiracy theory has spread far and wide on social media. It has been picked up by white nationalists and mass shooters. Now, in the second stage of the life cycle, it has landed in the mainstream media thanks to right-wing pundits like Tucker Carlson, who recently opined, “The Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate of the voters now casting ballots with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World.”

      Pressure is mounting on Fox to fire Carlson, though the network is resisting. Carlson and his supporters decry the campaign as yet another example of “cancel culture.” They insist on their First Amendment right to express unpopular opinions. But a privately-owned media company is under no obligation to air all views, and the definition of acceptability is constantly evolving.

      Also, a deplatformed Carlson would still be able to air his crank views on the street corner or in emails to his followers. No doubt when Trumpbook debuts at some point in the future, Carlson’s biggest fan will also give him a digital megaphone to spread lies and hate all around the world. These talking heads will continue talking no matter what. The challenge is to progressively shrink the size of their global platform.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More