“We do not need a leader who fuels fear or division. We need one who can unite all Filipinos of various beliefs in this one big fight to save the nation. Duterte is not this leader. He has done too much damage to our people. He will never change. He must resign.”
The Duterte administration will end in 2022, but Dutertism could still continue to afflict the country for the next six years and even beyond should any of Mr. Duterte’s lackeys, cronies, clones, and surrogates win the presidential election that year.
Church leaders expressed alarm and concern at the deteriorating prospects for peace as shown by the Rodrigo Duterte government’s demonization of human rights.
“There is no doubt that the policies and operations under the Duterte administration are responsible for the onslaught of extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations under the ‘war on drugs.’ State officials and police forces were both brazen and confident that they would enjoy impunity in their crimes.” — Rise Up
“Rights are not won through silence, through fence sitting and inaction. Rights are won and claimed through difficult, arduous, beautiful, creative and vibrant struggle.”
For the Makabayan bloc and other progressive organizations, the recently concluded Senate hearing on red-tagging will be used by state security forces as a justification to declare them as terrorists under the Anti-Terror Law.
“National government officials must act now or step down from their positions. No compromises.”
It explains why it is abridging the people’s right to information: it is to prevent the citizenry from demanding that government truly address the roots of poverty by, among other means, curbing the dishonesty in public office that contributes to the hopelessness, hunger and despair that has led many Filipinos to take up the gun. His own regime is in that sense at cross-purposes with Mr. Duterte’s oft repeated promise to end corruption.
The group continues to demand justice for all victims of enforced disappearance and to hold into account the perpetrators. There are more than 1,000 who disappeared from Marcos dictatorship until the present administration, according to Desaparecidos.
Both reactions provoke further criticism and even outrage not only from ordinary citizens but even from their fellow officials themselves. No one can blame those who, as a result, end up concluding that regime bureaucrats focus on non-essentials because the administration they’re serving can’t even articulate its own policies and actions.
Several times in the last four years, whenever he talked about his “war on drugs” carried out by the Philippine National Police and the thousands of killings attributed to it, President Duterte insistently denied the killings were state-sponsored, or that they had been instigated by him. Last Monday night, however, addressing the people on state…