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Thread: NSFW - Philippines war on drugs - 6000 lives taken in five months

  1. #126
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    https://verafiles.org/articles/face-...g-duterte-bios

    Parre?o gives the context of the economic status of the Vicente-Soledad Duterte family, but leaves the rest to reader discretion. Neither of the couple came from elite families but from working class backgrounds. The cue to their economic rise appears to coincide with Vicente?s term as governor. Soledad retired as public school teacher in 1962 and established the Mindanao Institute for Radio Electronics, a technical school for radio mechanics. The capital did not come from her. On the third year, her business partners who infused the capital could no longer sustain supporting the school. Somehow, she was then able to shift to logging, a capital-intensive enterprise that involves trucks, machines, manpower, and a tugboat to haul the logs to port. She diversified into processing via a sawmill that produced 21,000 board feet of lumber per day, only a year after her radio school had floundered. When not hauling logs, the tugboat was used for deep-sea fishing. She also opened an ice plant.

    The family then bought a 400-square-meter residential property in Juna subdivision and a Chevrolet Impala to augment the trusty Willy?s Jeep that served as the family car for years before Vicente became governor. At this point, the reader is confronted with a curiosity: When was the young Rodrigo Duterte exposed to the politics of Vicente Duterte? Rodrigo relates to a former staffmember when he was vice mayor an incident with his father: ?We were together in a car with his bodyguards and boxes full of money? as they were driving to a municipality.

    The history of the family?s politics was anything but reformist. The tendency for dynastism was already there: Soledad herself ran for vice mayor in 1967 when her husband was in the Marcos cabinet, although she later withdrew her candidacy. And while she is sometimes credited today for the anti-Marcos Yellow Friday Movement in Davao city in the 1980s, she had later called for Cory Aquino?s resignation. This was a family with the typical run-of-the-mill turncoat politics. When Rodrigo first ran for city mayor in 1988, it was the local Marcos loyalists group of Almendras that propped up his candidacy. A decade later, during a reelection run, he would coalesce with Joseph Estrada?s Laban ng Masang Pilipino.

    The 2001 elections became even more complicated as the Duterte family fissures finally burst in full force before the Davao city public. Brother Emmanuel opposed him for city mayor. Sister Jocelyn ran for city councilor in a rival party. She would later announce to media that her brother Rodrigo had hidden wealth. Emmanuel, in his rallies, would regale the public with the annulment case of Rodrigo and Elizabeth Duterte. In 2001, after she had secured her annulment, Zimmerman ran as a candidate for city councilor in an opposing party. The open sibling fights, the election rivalries where they would all gang up on Rodrigo, which the national electorate did not know in 2016, indicated that this was a dysfunctional family. The book?s family tree also shows that, save for the eldest Eleanor who remained unmarried, all the rest of the four siblings had failed marriages.

    Miller had a more expressive description of the two sisters. In an interview at a chic caf? in Bonifacio Global City, Jocelyn and her two bodyguards left Miller to foot the bill for the food they gobbled up (after calling the Duterte brand the ?Calvin Klein of Davao city?). In his interview with Eleanor, the sister lashed out at the top of her lungs against De Lima and senator Antonio Trillanes, calling them embodiments of Satan, in ?typical Digong derisive fashion.?

    In his introduction, Parre?o replies to questions on whether the book is pro- or anti-Duterte. ?Be forewarned: it is neither,? and his thesis is immediately demolished by his own hand. He betrays that neutrality in the prologue when he relates how he and his group met Duterte after announcing his candidacy in late 2015 and they behaved like political supporters. Levito Baligod, the lawyer who had withdrawn as counsel for whistleblower Benhur Luy in the Janet Napoles pork barrel scam, was part of the group. Duterte told Baligod ? ?Sa akin ka, Atty. (You be in my senatorial slate).?

    Many of Parre?o?s accounts are not supported by sources. This line, for instance: ?The governor?s son sometimes discussed with mayors, barrio captains and other local officials strictly confidential matters at a time when Rodrigo was 18 years old in the 1963 elections.? References in the endnotes are so few and far between that one is left to wonder where he got his information.

    After the testimony of the psychologist who examined Rodrigo Duterte in the annulment case filed by Zimmermann, Parre?o saves the unfavorable quotes by ending with anecdotes from Zimmermann praising her former husband. Jarring. This is not the ?neither pro nor anti? presentation the author promised. Parre?o relates how Duterte buckled down to work as mayor by hiring contractual employees. The book was published in 2019, after the pre-2016 Commission on Audit report that red-flagged the Duterte city hall for 15,000 ghost employees. In fact, Matobato would testify in the Senate that he drew his salary as a ghost employee. Parre?o?s silence is palpable.

    One chapter is almost devoted entirely to Leoncio Evasco?s lionization of the so-called Duterte charisma, but with no opposing points of view. Meanwhile, Jose Calida was allowed to recount his legal prowess in arguing for the Marcos burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, the extensions of martial law in Mindanao, and the quo warranto case that removed Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, without a single contrasting interpretation. And yet Parre?o said he wanted to avoid ?the trimmings from publicists? to ?truthfully paint the man beyond what they read in the newspapers.?

    Parre?o?s problem is the failure of subjecting his sources to source criticism that could have saved him from simply accepting what they say hook, line and sinker. In today?s fake news lingo, source criticism is akin to fact checking. Does the source corroborate, contradict other sources? What was the historical context? For instance, Jesuit priests in the Soledad Duterte autobiography were named ?Bechman Cupin, Consunje,? in contrast to archival sources that identified them as ?Berchmans Cupin, Consunji.? Parre?o gives a detailed history of Soledad?s father, Eleno Fernandez, who had changed his name to Roa. But in one televised speech, Rodrigo Duterte said Soledad was not a Roa because her father was a naturalized Chinese surnamed Lam. In fact, the Chinese epitaphs for good fortune accompany the tombs of the grandparents in Davao city?s public Wireless Cemetery. Over the years, this writer and the American culture history scholar and Cebu history expert Michael Cullinane have pieced together the genealogy of the Roa clan of Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, and Manila, of which this writer serves as gatekeeper. Soledad Duterte?s father is not in the bloodline as he had used the name only for adoptive reasons. The author is therefore wrong to say (Cebu governor) Manuel Roa was ?said to be related to Eleno Roa.?

    Miller is equally deficient on the Roa ancestry that he claims wholesale as ?Maranao descended.? As the son of Roa cousins who had intermarried, I have the complete genealogy beginning from the 1700s and the origin of the family has been definitively established as Chinese based on numerous archival sources that Cullinane has pursued. Parre?o, indeed, quotes Cullinane on the Duterte origin in one footnote, and for which reason he should no longer have mentionedthat the name Duterte is ?French-descended? as Cullinane had established its Chinese roots.

    Source criticism could also have been applied when using sources from blogs, which could have been written from highly interpretive perspectives. Parre?o used blog sites for Alejandro Almendras?s aunt Matea. He also referenced a blog site statement of the anti-EJK fighter Redemptorist priest Amado Picardal. But the priest tells me Parre?o never interviewed him.

    The Holy Cross Academy of Digos was not operated by the Benedictine Brothers, but by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. Wrongly used were such places, names, and words as Cataluna (for Catalunan Grande), Bibong Medialdea (it is Bingbong), and Lex Taliones fraternity (it is Talionis, which means Law of Retaliation). I can concede to the possibility that these were typographical erros. But that is the problem with self-published books. It does not go through the rigors of scholarly publishing: perhaps no proof reading, if at all, no fact checking, no indexing (very important!). And worst is the absence of a blind referee system that subjects the work to a battery of questions, revisions, and more fact checks from independent scholars not known to the author.

    Reading the two bios makes a clean conclusion: Rodrigo Duterte, whom many had thought as an anti-corruption and good governance reformist, was voted in office for the wrong reasons. Miller proceeds from a framework: a curiosity at the collective Filipino insouciance over an iconoclastic dictator in the making and its emerging signs of distress on Philippine democracy. He does not discriminate among sources because he sieves the alt-facts from the real. Parre?o?s is written as a descriptive biography sans a critical lens. He posits it is up to the reader to make a verdict. That would have posed no problem had its sources been numerous, but the few sources it has are mostly sanitary. The effect on the reader is exactly how his blogger friend reviews the book: sympathy for Duterte. Parre?o falls under the category of a hagiography.

  2. #127
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    https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/137340...te-of-killings

    Two senators on the opposite sides of the political fence each called on the government to restore law and order as they sought a legislative inquiry into the series of extrajudicial killings and disappearances in the country, including that of a red-tagged health officer and her spouse who were slain in Negros Oriental province, and recent cases involving judges and lawyers.
    Opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Thursday filed Senate Resolution No. 599 seeking justice for Dr. Mary Rose Sancelan, the municipal health officer of Guihulgan City in Negros Oriental, and her husband Edwin, who were gunned down in the city on Dec. 15, a year after an anti-communist vigilante group accused the physician of having ties with the New People’s Army (NPA).

    Hontiveros, the chair of the Senate women and children committee, sounded an alarm on the spate of summary executions of activists and government critics, many of whom were unfairly identified by government forces as enemies of the state.

    “This attack is only one of the many horrific killings in the country, legitimized by an administration that has distorted the meaning of human rights,” Hontiveros said of the murder of the Sancelans.

    “At a time of the biggest health crisis the country has ever seen, I am alarmed that this anti-communist agenda reigned over the literal health and survival of the Filipino people,” the Akbayan senator said.

    Hontiveros’ resolution was signed by Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, and Senators Richard Gordon, Nancy Binay, Joel Villanueva, Francis Pangilinan, and Leila de Lima.


    Marcos’ resolution
    On Dec. 14, Sen. Imee Marcos filed Senate Resolution No. 593 seeking an investigation into the “alarming deaths and disappearances of members of the legal community.”

    She said it was important to look at possible links between and among the killings and disappearances, adding “there is a need to look at the common threads that make one interconnected with the others, as these involve individuals who are tasked with the administration of justice and in upholding the rule of law.”

    The Oct. 20 ambush against Camarines Sur province’s Judge Jeaneth Gaminde San Joaquin, who survived the attack, and the deaths of Manila Judge Maria Teresa Abadilla on Nov. 11, and of lawyers Eric Jay Magcamit in Palawan on Nov. 17 and Joey Luis Wee in Cebu on Nov. 21 “shocked not only the legal community but the whole country,” said Marcos.

    On Jan. 9, lawyer and former Batangas Rep. Edgar Mendoza, together with his driver and bodyguard, was found lifeless in a burned vehicle in Tiaong, Quezon, Marcos recalled.

    She also noted the disappearance of former Court of Appeals Judge Normandie Pizarro and lawyer Ryan Oliva, who remained missing up to this time.


    Culture of violence
    Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman blamed the killings of the Sancelan couple and the others before them on the “culture of violence” created by the Duterte administration.

    “No less than the President himself, in many recorded utterances, has encouraged and condoned extrajudicial killings. Violence by example and tolerance has mocked due process and the rule of law,” Lagman said in a statement on Friday.

    The murder of the physician came in the wake of the International Criminal Court’s preliminary findings that there is “reasonable basis” to believe that the Duterte administration committed crimes against humanity in its much-criticized war on illegal drugs.

    Impartial probe
    Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos City in Negros Oriental, in an interview with ANC on Friday, asked the government to start an “impartial and serious” investigation in the continuing bloodbath on Negros Island.

    Alminaza said there should be an investigation not only on the death of the Sancelans but on all deaths on the island since 2017.

    “I think it’s important that now we seriously look into this problem because we can’t wait anymore for many other people to be killed before we take action on this,” Alminaza said.

    Bishop Patricio Buzon of Bacolod City in Negros Occidental also denounced the killing of the Sancelans.

    “The Diocese of Bacolod denounces all forms of extrajudicial killings. It decries indiscriminate red-tagging, and it deplores the apparent impunity among the perpetrators and enablers of this escalating violence, not just in Guihulngan City, but also in other parts of Negros Island,” the prelate said.

    Guihulngan Mayor Carlo Jorge Joan Reyes has offered a cash reward of P500,000 for anyone who could give authorities any information that would lead to the arrest of the persons behind the murder of the Sancelan couple.

    Negros Oriental Gov. Roel Degamo ordered the provincial police acting director, Police Col. Bryant Demot, to bring the perpetrators to justice.

    Brig. Gen. Ronnie Montejo, director of the Central Visayas police, said they were “doing our best to solve this crime.”

    Also on Friday, human rights groups led by Karapatan and health organizations protested in front of the Department of Health in Manila to condemn the killing the Sancelan couple.

    “Their killing reveals that the threats of tagging individuals as part of the New People’s Army are real and certainly not contrived,” said Karapatan secretary-general Cristina Palabay.

    Offensives
    In a statement, the NPA’s Leonardo Panaligan Command (LPC) operating in central Negros vowed to stage more offensives against state troops and their allies in response to the killing of “innocent” persons on the island.

    “We are asking all our units to launch an offensive in an attempt to attain justice for Dr. Sancelan and other victims of alleged military abuses in the province,” said the group spokesperson, Ka JB Regalado.

    The physician had previously been tagged by the vigilante group Kawsa Guihulnganon Batok Komunista (or loosely translated as Concerned Guihulnganons against the Communists) as Ka JB Regalado, a claim denied by the rebel group. —WITH REPORTS FROM JODEE A. AGONCILLO, JULIE M. AURELIO, RAFFY CABRISTANTE, CARLA GOMEZ AND NESTLE SEMILLA



    Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/137340...#ixzz6h25ODIDR
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    Folks we have to wait for the 2022 Presidential elections in the Philippines to remove Duterte now that the Duterte Administration is being accused of killing two lawyers.

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  5. #130
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    https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/25/asia/...cli/index.html

    . CNN)Two police officers in the Philippines were killed in a shootout with other federal agents during a botched undercover drug bust, according to official state media Philippine News Agency (PNA).

    The two officers, from the Philippine National Police (PNP), faced off against agents from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in Quezon City on Wednesday evening. Three PDEA agents were also wounded in the confrontation and hospitalized.
    Police from the Quezon City Police District special operations unit had been conducting a drug buy-bust operation in a fast-food chain parking lot when they found out they were transacting with PDEA agents. The shootout took place shortly after; the exact circumstances of the shooting are not yet clear.
    Authorities have launched parallel investigations through both a joint PNP-PDEA inquiry and a probe by the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation.

    As of now, what is clear ... the PDEA Special Enforcement Services was in the area on a legitimation operation," said PDEA spokesperson Derrick Carreon, PNA reported.
    "We will leave it to the Joint Board of Inquiry. We will see the documents tomorrow. For now, our priority is to attend to our wounded personnel," Carreon said.
    PNP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ildebrandi Usana told PNA that the incident, "while serious, will in no way affect the continuing operational relationship and coordination they have long firmed up in the fight against illegal drugs."
    "In the interest of determining the truth behind the incident, a joint PNP-PDEA Board of Inquiry will be formed to determine what transpired and who should be held liable," Usana said.
    Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has led a "war on drugs" in the country since coming to power in 2016 by encouraging a severe crackdown on drug dealers and addicts. The often violent campaign has left thousands dead, according to police reports and human rights groups.

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