Part 1: Hillary versus Da Donald: New critical realignment?

The American "post-electoral order" has turned elections into a personal, not a party affair, shifted the fight for power from the voting booth to the halls of Congress, the congressional investigating committees, and the activist judiciary. 

This new order took a turn for the worse when Newt Gingrich and his insurgent Republicans took over the House of Representatives. The journalist George Packer remembers how Gingrich did away with a long tradition of decorum in Congress by turning the debates into opportunities to smear opponents often without any foundation, turning institutional combat into a take-no-prisoners war. 

Political differences were now based on personality types and fascist-like labeling. Former Speaker Tip O’Neil who disagreed with Ronald Reagan without destroying their friendship was now a traitorous "socialist" who cannot be trusted. Gingrich's attacks on Bill Clinton included an unbelievable move to shut down the federal government. This was an act that no other country could imagine doing (except Spain in the recent months)​.

The House Speaker and congressional Republicans ​impeached Clinton, not because of policy differences, but to evict the President for his sexual dalliances – all the while Gingrich was having an affair with his soon-to-be second wife, while his first wife was battling cancer. 

The politics of slander found additional sustenance in the 24-hour cable network and talk radio. Politicians could now go over the heads of party bosses and address "the people" directly. In the Gingrich era, personal disparagement had displaced political analyses. Talk radio had now become a medium for calumny where the most outrageous of accusations are made against political leaders and previously despicable argot ("nigger​" or "b​itch") are introduced back to the political conversation.

The "debates" in networks like CNN and MSNBC have turned into occasions for protagonists to out-shout each other, using nasty sound bytes and repeating ad nauseum the "party line." Even acknowledged mistakes are spun into fake apologies to be followed by relentless counter-attacks. 

The apathetic voter now shares the limelight with two other figures – the zealot and the independent voter. Packer writes about how poor whites (including members of the Ku Klux Klan) have rallied around Donald Trump to oppose "Crooked Hillary" and her Latino, women, and immigrant supporters. This rage is not new, it could be traced back to the post-Civil War era when Jim Crow laws ensured that African-Americans were still treated as inferior and un-American, and the Chinese Exclusion Act to prevent the integration of the "Yellow Hordes" from Asia and of late, a growing Latino population.

A record 42% of Americans identify themselves as "independents." This means their voting preferences are determined by single issues (pro-life vs abortion; free trade vs closing the American economy, pro-immigration vs the anti-immigrant) and not anymore by a party's platform. 

Today's voter may write in a Republican as president, a Democrat as senator, an independent as congressman, a socialist for mayor, and a religious activist for the city council. This is a far cry from the days when voters put in the ballot all of their party's candidates. These independents are now the critical vote that can influence outcomes. No wonder a politician's propaganda and hand-shaking are directed at them.

Today the United States' "post-electoral order" has sunk deeper into the abyss. To personality-centered post-party politics, institutional combat, the politics of scandals and smears, were added to 3 dangerous weapons. The demonization of opponents ("Crooked Hillary"), the acceptance of the smut ("pussy" is now part of the debate) and the scam (Trump University), the normalization of the illicit (foreign money and the Clinton Foundation), and the consent to the illegal (Donald Trump, the mob, and Russia) are now regular rituals of American politics. 

Powerful agencies like the FBI are now being used for partisan purposes, not only by politicians but by personnel themselves. The professional status of bodies like the military has likewise been severely tarred by officers using their distinguished careers to support candidates. 

However, the most worrisome new feature is that of a segment of the American public believing a rigged national election and the ascension to power of an illegal president. 

One reason why Americans consider themselves exceptional is their pride in elections as a way of expressing the popular will and initiating regime change. Forget the fact that the Founding Fathers introduced the Electoral College to contain, even deny, the riffraff’s choice, or that women suffrage was granted in 1920 (144 years since the founding of the Republic), and the majority of African-Americans was able to register as voters only in 1965 (189 years since the Independence). 

The 2016 presidential (and legislative) elections can thus be described as another "critical realignment." It is, however, a sharp turn given that these may just signal the End of (American) History.

***

We Filipinos will notice a lot of familiar things in this grotesque mutation of this "post-electoral order," as its features do remind us of our own system: rigged elections, electoral smears ("Bayot!" or "Padak-anay na lang ta ug otin!"), cursing ("putang ina mo"), and extreme polarization (Dutertards vs Yellowtards). Even the state-sanctioned killings in both countries have these eerie similitudes in the sense that the targets are poor, weak, and powerless. 

Roles have also been oddly reversed. It's not the case anymore of "tutelary" Americans teaching Filipinos a thing or two about their democratic politics. The positions have reversed: this time it is the Filipino trapo of the former colony who is showing his American counterpart how to win and retain power. 

The former colonials have become the mentors of the colonizers. – Rappler.com 

Patricio N. Abinales had American Politics as his first minor in graduate school​.

In a few days, the United States will have a new president: either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Recent polls show, however, Clinton leading in a tight race and leaving a slight chance for Trump to overtake her. 

The election results matter not only for the US but for most of us in the world. After all, America is the world’s largest economy and is perceived to be the most powerful country, backed by the biggest military budget.

In Asia and Europe, the US has woven a vast security alliance that has underpinned relationships with allies. Of the 2 candidates, it is Trump of the Republican Party who has sent shock waves with his pronouncements on shaking up this infrastructure, taking up an isolationist position.

He has said that if he becomes president, he would be willing to withdraw US military forces from allied countries like Japan and Korea if they did not "significantly" increase their financial contributions. He also it was okay for these 2 countries to build their own nuclear weapons.

For the Philippines, the US functions as its largest ally, covered by the US-Japan security umbrella. If the US pulls out its military presence in the disputed waters of the South China Sea, the country will be vulnerable, leaving a vacuum once more. 

(In 1992, the Philippine government kicked out the US bases as it asserted its independence. Soon after, China started sending its vessels to the South China Sea and building military structures.)

Antonio Carpio, a Supreme Court justice who helped the country win its arbitration case versus China, has said that only the US can stop these encroachments of China.

Europe is also feeling unsettled. Trump questioned the usefulness of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) following the Brussels terror attacks in March 2016 that killed more than 30 people. He called the institution "obsolete."

A former NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said: "We don't know what will be the concrete policies of a Trump administration but if his statements were to be taken at face value it could be very dangerous for the world.”

On the economic front, analysts have pointed out that the Philippine economy "stands to lose the most" in Southeast Asia in a Trump presidency because of his extreme position on immigration.

"If US immigration policies tighten, leading to fewer migrant workers, this could impact remittances inflows back to the Philippines," according to the Business Insider.

How can we forget that Trump tagged the Philippines and other countries as terrorists? Separately, he called for a “mass deportation of the undocumented.”

In today's world, troubled by flash points from Syria to the South China Sea, we fervently hope the election results augur well for a more stable place. – Rappler.com

In December 2015, 196 countries signed the Paris Agreement, which was seen as a momentous event for the climate. After the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement is another attempt  by countries at stabilizing global greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and prevent further man-made climate change.

The Paris Agreement has entered into force last November 4, with 100 countries already having ratified it. This is much earlier than was predicted, which was originally thought to be in 2020. Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), called this a “historic moment for people everywhere.”

COP 22 has been called the “action COP,” which will deal more on the nitty-gritty details of the agreement and its implementation. Here are 4 things to watch at this year’s Conference of Parties:

1. Adaptation

Most of negotiations have largely concentrated on mitigation, or in lessening carbon emissions. However, developing countries have demanded for adaptation to be given as much importance as mitigation.

In the intercessional negotiations that happened in Bonn in May 2016, the negotiations were delayed for 5 days when developing countries thought the agenda to be lopsided and geared towards mitigation. Countries then called for “balance” of adaptation and mitigation in the discussion and implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Adaptation is crucial for countries like the Philippines who are vulnerable to climate change and are already experiencing climate change impacts. Adaptation also includes a discussion on adaptation finance. 

2. Finance

Speaking of climate finance, it has always been a major issue at the negotiations. During the 2009 COP 15 in Copenhagen, developed countries pledged $100 billion a year for climate finance by 2020. However, there has been no concrete plan on how developed countries will ensure that $100 billion will be available by 2020.

It was only in Paris last year where developed countries were asked for a concrete roadmap to the $100 billion. These funds are expected to be allocated 50% for mitigation and 50% for adaptation. In this COP, developed countries are expected to present this roadmap to $100 billion. 

3. Ambition

Countries have agreed to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.” However, with the current country pledges, the UNFCCC estimates that global temperature will be at 2.7 degrees celsius. Other worst case scenarios point to 3.5 to 4 degrees celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels.

To address this, countries must make better pledges in reducing emissions. In 2018, there will be a pre-stocktake to assess how countries are doing with their pledges, and this will be their chance to update their commitments. The good thing about it is that countries cannot backslide with their pledges and can only submit better commitments from now on.

While this process will be 2 years from now, it is important to make ambition, action, and support required for a 1.5 pathway as key parameters of the 2018 pre-stocktake. Countries are also expected to prepare before 2018 and have their new targets ready by 2018 pre-stocktake.

4. Land rights

Another key topic to look at in this COP will be land rights. Climate scientists such as Bill Hare have presented climate models on how to get to 1.5 degrees, and it includes negative emission technology such as Bio-energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). This has been controversial largely because of its implications on land.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) outlines scenarios requiring between 500 million and 6 billion hectares of land in order to implement this offsetting approach.

Human rights groups inside the negotiations have pointed out that this will mean finding land that will compete with food production and have called this a “false solution.”

While Paris was considered a success in finally creating an agreement among countries on how to solve the climate crisis, a lot still needs to be done. The Paris Agreement is only the start of a much bigger work that awaits every country.

COP 22 will be crucial in laying out a more concrete and detailed plan on how to implement what was agreed on in Paris. Now, the real work begins. – Rappler.com

He died in 1989. But he continues to haunt all of us.  

Soon Marcos will be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. His family after all cannot wait. But the story of his resurrection is just beginning.  

To blame the Supreme Court though is a mistake. Long before the magistrates made their decision, fundamental questions about what defines our soul had already become trivial. If the values cherished by a society constituted its soul, then ours has long been deeply divided. And early this year, a survey showed that 50% of respondents believed that Marcos "was worthy to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani." The other half rejected the idea.     

Misleading question

There could be no more opportune time than this to hijack heroism. Marcos in this light is alive again. Not just because of the legalists who invoked the silence of the law, but because many have decided they don't care anymore. Together they have drowned out the cry for justice among those who reject the heroic claim of the former dictator.  

There are thus three sides to the story of his resurrection: the legalists, the moralists, and those who are tired they don't care anymore.  

To then keep Marcos lying in state in Batac has been a very wise move for his family. They knew that this day would come, when people would no longer remember his crimes. They would recast him as the leader of the country's glorious past and pit him against the failures of the present.

Many ask what the decision's consequences are on our society. But that is a misleading question. We should instead be asking ourselves what brought us to where we are today: weak institutions, lingering distrust of the government, miseducation of the youth, and the neoliberal project that turns our people into laborers devoid of historical and political consciousness. 

Deeply divided

So where are we now? Our society is deeply divided and we are always looking for heroes. This is the space that has been hijacked.  

And it is clever. As a result, the once relentless call for justice has started to fade out. 

The criminal is now the hero.  

The legalists may continue to claim that the decision does not turn him into one. But why insist on it in the first place? Precisely because cemeteries are not neutral spaces where the dead are left to decay. They are commemorative spaces where kinship patterns linger and legacies are rehearsed time and again.  

He is not a hero but he will be buried among heroes. No other vindication will trump this honor in favor of the man who orchestrated the murder of hundreds, the silencing of his critics, and the looting of wealth much of which remains unreturned.  

At his resurrection, many are celebrating.  

But many too are weeping. Think about the coconut farmers. Think about the families of desaparecidos. Think of those who were tortured still reeling from trauma and pain. Think of those who gave up their dreams to fight for liberty and the rule of law. Think of those who lost their lives so we might live today.  

Alive again

Marcos is alive again. But perhaps he never died in the first place.

Those who supported his burial among heroes carry the heaviest burden. Explain to the rest of us how we are now to move on.

From this day forward, the wounds of injustice are open once again. The onus is back on those who fought hard for Marcos's burial. How can healing, as Bongbong Marcos claims, now proceed? How then shall we live?  

The answers they offer are all oblique, appealing to an imaginary future that looks bright. But unless the injustices of the past are rectified, hollow is the rhetoric of this claim. In this light, the world will soon see that the resurrected hero remains soulless.  

For those of us on the losing end, we admit that we are disheartened. But we must continue to stand for what is right. Even if unpopular. Even if we've lost all the courage to do so.– Rappler.com

Jayeel Serrano Cornelio, PhD is a sociologist and the director of the Development Studies Program.  He contributed to High Chair's most recent issue on historical revisionism.  Follow him on Twitter @jayeel_cornelio.

MANILA, Philippines – Several lawmakers called the Supreme Court's November 8 decision allowing a hero's burial for former President Ferdinand Marcos as shameful, horrible, and deplorable. 

Neophyte Senator Risa Hontiveros took a step further and delivered a privilege speech the same afternoon the ruling was promulgated. An activist in the 1980s, she has lately been going around, helping organize book readings for children to teach them about the evils of Martial Law. 

In her speech at the Senate, she said the ball is now in the hands of President Rodrigo Duterte, if he will stick to his original plan to allow the dictator to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes' Cemetery), or drop the plan altogether despite the High Court's decision. 

Below is the full text of Hontiveros' speech titled "Failing the test of history."

Mr President, I rise on a matter of personal and collective privilege.

I rise on behalf of Susan Quimpo, a prepubescent girl during the early years of Martial Law, who spent her weekends packing cooked rice for detainees at detention centers holding political prisoners. Five of her siblings were imprisoned during Martial law – all of them student activists belonging to the underground movement. Her brother Nathan was stripped naked and clubbed several times by his captors. Her brother Jan, and I quote from her book Subversive Lives, “had his head repeatedly immersed in a commode filled with urine, water was injected into his testicles, and his feet were doused then jabbed with live wire.” Jan Quimpo joined the ranks of the desaparecidos, and the last conversation Susan had with him was when he asked her to leave some dinner. Another brother, Jun, was shot in Nueva Ecija in 1981.

I rise on behalf of Sixto Carlos, now a jolly man in his 70s with ruddy cheeks and an easy laugh. He was arrested with no charges filed in 1978 and put under solitary confinement for two years. He was viciously beaten, had boiling water poured at him, and was hung from the ceiling from his handcuffed hands. In his own words, he said, “I was held on either arm by two men and the third man sat on my lap. The blindfold was removed and replaced by a towel on my face. They commenced to put water over the towel on my face. I had the sensation of drowning." This is what is known as waterboarding, an innocuous name for a torture technique so repulsive and dehumanizing.

I rise on behalf of Etta Rosales, former congresswoman and former chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights, who was repeatedly raped and tortured during Martial Law. She recounts her torture under the hands of her prison guards: “They tried to make me speak by burning me, pouring what felt like hot wax from a burning candle on my arms and legs. When that didn’t work, they tore off my clothes, pressed the barrel of a gun against my temple and played Russian roulette.” When she was elected congresswoman of Akbayan in 1998, she met one of her captors who had now become her colleague. “The last time I met you,” Etta said, with her trademark candor, “was in the military safehouse where I was tortured.”

I rise for them, and I rise for all the victims of Martial Law. Ako ay tumatayo sa harap ninyo ngayon alang-alang sa mga na-torture, mga pinatay, mga 'kinulong ng rehimeng Marcos. Ako ay tumatayo alang-alang sa kanilang mga mahal sa buhay – mga magulang, asawa, at anak na inulila ng diktadura. Para po sa kanila ang resolusyon na ihahain ko sa Senado ngayong hapon.

I rise to tell them, during this winter of anxiety and uncertainty, that there are many of us who still remember.

I want to tell them that there are mothers like myself, who tell their outspoken millennials that their freedoms in social media did not come for free and that their counterparts in the '70s were being thrown in prison for speaking their mind.

Gusto kong ikuwento sa kanila 'yung mga guro sa mga paaralan kung saan ako nag-donate ng librong Never Again na nagsasabing sa sarili nilang kusa at pagpupunyagi, 'binabahagi nila ang kahindik-hindik na mga pangyayari sa panahon ng diktadura sa kanilang mga estudyante.

I want to tell them about the many young people I have met – so far removed from the stereotype of the uncaring, self-absorbed millennial – who ask me what they can do to fight the forces of historical revisionism that are at work and who assure me that the struggle to preserve our collective memory is a struggle their generation shares with ours.

Hindi ko po panghihimasukan ang pasya ng Korte Suprema hinggil sa paglibing ng dating diktador sa Libingan ng mga Bayani. We cannot second-guess its wisdom, even as we cannot imagine how it must be for Sixto Carlos, Etta Rosales, and the Quimpo family, who will live with the reality that the architect of their torture and the torture and death of their kin, has now been designated a hero. Habang 'tinuturo natin sa ating mga kabataan ang karahasan ng Martial Law dahil 'yun ang nakalagay sa Republic Act Number 10368, ililibing naman natin sa Libingan ng mga Bayani ang siyang naghasik ng karahasan na ito. Habang tayo ay nagbabayad ng danyos sa mga biktima ng Martial Law at sa kanilang mga pamilya, ililibing natin sa Libingan ng mga Bayani ang dahilan ng pagbayad ng danyos.

But we also know that the decision to give the late dictator a heroes’ burial lies ultimately in the hands of President Rodrigo Duterte. I call on the President to respond to the challenge of history and reject with finality all plans to give Marcos a hero’s burial. The Libingan ng mga Bayani is the designated place for Filipino soldiers, war veterans, and citizens whose contributions to the nation render them fit to be called heroes.

Given the long history of the Filipino people with tyranny and oppression, the Libingan has been created to honor the memory of our brave countrymen who fought for freedom and liberty even in the face of superior force, so that the present generation may remember and emulate their legacy. It should be the final resting place of heroes – a symbolism that is not lost on the Marcos family, who has been lobbying feverishly for his burial and, if our President is correct, even funded his campaign to secure this concession.

Mr President, in Germany, Adolf Hitler’s grave is now a car park in Berlin. Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator notorious for maintaining torture chambers in Kampala, is not even buried in his own country. In Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic’s party pushed heavily for his burial in the Alley of the Greats, but was rebuffed. He is now buried in his hometown. In Haiti, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who brought Haiti to economic ruin, used voodoo legends to control his people and executed his political opponents, was denied a state funeral after his death. His grave in Port Au Prince is now in shambles. Pol Pot, known as The Butcher of Cambodia, was unceremoniously burned in a pile of rubbish. His cremation site in Anlong Veng is now a tourist destination and many Cambodians travel to the site to spit on it. Muammar Gadaffi’s body, after being displayed for 5 days by the new leaders of Libya, was laid to rest in a simple unmarked grave.

Ganito po tinatrato ang mga diktador sa ibang bansa, Mr President. Ang kanilang puntod ay hindi puntod ng parangal. Kung ito man ay bibigyan ng pansin, ito ay para magturo ng leksyon sa mga susunod na henerasyon. Ito ay para sabihin, “'Wag tularan.”  Habang dito sa Pilipinas, ang mga diktador ay tinuturing na bayani at binibigyan ng parangal. At ang biktima ng diktador ay pinagdududahan at isinasantabi.

But, Mr President, it is not only for the victims of Martial law that I rise, for the generation of my parents and for my generation who have lived with the enduring wounds of martial law. I also rise for our younger generations – those who will only get to listen to the stories of our wounds, and who we hope will see in these stories our deepest truths. I rise for our millennials who will probably never meet Susan and her siblings, or Sixto Carlos, or Etta Rosales, but who we hope will realize that the heroes of Martial Law were young persons like themselves. Ang nagpabagsak sa diktadura ay katulad lang din nila, katulad din ng aking mga anak: masayahin, palabarkada, palatawa, may pangarap sa buhay. Ngunit tumalima noong hinamon ng kasaysayan.

Mr President, nagpasya na ang Korte Suprema. But no tombstone, no grandiose cemetery can change the fact that Ferdinand Marcos was not a hero. He was a plunderer, torturer, and a thief with a family now seeking to rewrite history to serve their interests. He coopted institutions – this Senate included – in order to consolidate all power to himself.

It is our duty as senators, as Filipinos, as students of history, to stand against this travesty and say – as has been said before – never again. Only then can we look back to the past with pride, and to the future with hope. Let us not fail the test of history. – Rappler.com 

Do you agree with Senator Hontiveros' views about the a hero's burial for Marcos? What do you think of the Supreme Court's ruling? Leave your comments below, or write a blog on X. 

The following text is a transcript of an original Spoken Word piece by the author, first performed at Proyekto's "That Martial Law Thingy: A Public Lecture and Open Forum" last September 10, 2016 at Gateway Gallery.

Step 1:

You must always win. Top all your exams; marry the most beautiful woman from the south. Legends are winners who keep on winning, so by all means win.

Your name will ring into ascent, and soon, the whole world will become so instinctively attuned to your victory that they will never know of your defeat. 

Step 2:

Raise beautiful children. Instill upon them your ideals. They will keep your name blaring in the sound waves even long after you’re gone; your waxed corpse frozen by the cold-bloodedness of your legacy.

Step 3:

Run for the highest seat in the land. Your iron fist will fit that iron throne like an iron glove. Baby, you were born for this.

Step 4:

You are a great man with great plans and as all great things, you are bound to make enemies. Arm yourself with powerful friends. Bend the law to your will. Summon bullets and hand grenades to punish those who defy you, the way God summoned flood and thunder to punish the sinner and non-believer.

You are God, and this is your temple of worship. Make them kneel.

Step 5:

When a boy speaks to your daughter in a language that does not know worship; in a tongue that curls only to question, punish him, too. He is no enemy. Not of this land. But he holds in his mouth a voice that can make the pillars of your great castle shudder.

He must be silenced. He must be stopped.

Step 6:

The world will hear of your accomplishment, and who cares if you’re belligerent? For as long as you’re omnipotent, magnificent: you are magic. 

Let the world watch as you pluck your enemies one by one from the ground and make them all disappear. You are a magician! It’s been thirty years and we still couldn’t find the trap door.

Step 7:

You will fall at the hands of a woman in a yellow dress. Your high holiness will be banished from your kingdom. Use this time to pray that it rots in your absence.

Step 8:

Die in the most natural way.

Step 9:

Your children will grow up without you. They don’t have to be particularly bright, or talented, or kind, but they will carry your last name and honestly, what can anyone ever really ask for?

They will return in fleets and dragons ready to reclaim the kingdom that has long forgotten. Relish as they bring an entire nation and its history to its knees. Warped, mutated, and repackaged, your memory will resonate across a hundred million people begging to be hurt the way they were hurt in your reign.

Step 10:

Sit back and relax as they slowly sink your body six feet underneath the same graveyard that cradles the fallen; the brave men who once fought you and your kind – we called them heroes.

History takes full circle, and we saved only the best seat for a hero like you. – Rappler.com

I write a column for Rappler.

I have the right to speak too. But when I speak I check my facts and also back up my opinions with hard work that makes it a "well-thought opinion" or, in certain areas that I have studied and worked on for decades, "an expert opinion."

I also have the humility to know that very rarely when I speak can I invoke the right of "protection of dissent." That's usually when I am in the minority or when I am speaking against (not for) the government.

I don't troll and I can recognize the trolls who suppress ideas. I can make the distinction between mean putdowns and genuine disagreements. So I will not accept the argument that I should be brave enough to take online harassment just because I am vocal.

And believe me, those of us who criticize this administration get death threats far worse than when we criticized the previous one. So don't go making this argument against me. I have been ready. From the moment in grade school I began writing for my school paper. And if trolls and their defenders care to know, that type of meanness makes me EVEN MORE vocal. Do as you wish, but I will not yield one square inch of democratic space to you.

On the other hand,  I don't use the ugliness of the internet to excuse myself from being held accountable for my statements. 

This is why I disdain anonymous news/opinion sites. This is why I have a deep disdain for people who never apologize. That is not accountability. 

I  request for non-trolling and decency. 

I have an expectation that people put in the same hours in the library as I do for putting forward an opinion. I use my credentials properly (for example I don't use my being a professor to claim expertise on so many disparate issues from storms to foreign policy). 

I have a  basic ethical premise of claiming expertise only at what I am truly scholarly at. I have the humility to listen and defer to the experts in other fields when they speak. I also have the humility to know that going viral and having followers is partly you and partly well-paid social media machines.  

So I take this all with a grain of salt, and I suggest we all realize that popularity on social media these days may not be an expression of real connection with people.

This is what I call "disente" (decent) and I have seen this come from the rich but also from colleagues in the poor communities.

So if this kind of disente is to be used as an argument against me, so be it.

Disente ako. Presstitute ako. – Rappler.com

Donald Trump was a candidate the Republicans themselves were not sure they wanted. And he won. Rodrigo Duterte filed his certificate of candidacy last. He was very un-presidential, in his manners and in his speech. While every candidate wanted to appear and sound clean, Duterte simply did not care. And he won.

Ironies, that is what they are commonly called. But these phenomena occurring in the US and in the Philippines that, despite their many links, are dissimilar on almost every count, points in the direction of a controversial figure – Jacques Derrida – for whom the post-modern was a distinct epoch!  

No, Derrida campaigned neither for Duterte nor for Trump, but he is one of the most eloquent spokespersons of a movement that goes by many names, in large measure because it cannot identify itself by a single definite description. One of its signature moves is deconstruction – and that is, to me, what the victories of Duterte and Trump are: the maneuvers of différance! 

Trump was everything conventional politics held a president of the United States should not be. He promised to keep Mexico off by a wall, for which he would bill the Mexican government. He minced no words about his dislike of Muslims. He did not disguise his annoyance at the presence of so many migrants who have jobs that Americans should be having. He did not care to be nice. He presented, in other words, an “alternative reading” of American politics and of the presidency.  It was an alternative to the strait-jacket of political correctness.  

It was a departure from the polite language of politicians under public scrutiny. And when the Americans cast their vote today, they made it clear that they wanted to try out this alternate reading.  

Delight in a promise

Of course Trump is threatening. All deconstruction is threatening. It threatens those who have high stakes in the established order of things, in the definitions laid down by institutions of authority, in those who swear by canonized and sanctioned constructs.  

And probably it is right to be fearful, after all, it is not by happenstance that we have arrived at the established order, but by a painful process of trial and error, through the tedious and meandering ways of cultural evolution.

But Trump won because there is delight in the promise not only of what is different but from what diverges to a sweetly alarming degree from the way things have been. One can say: It is exasperation with what has been that makes what can be so exciting and so promising!

Politics is the text and Hilary Clinton (and Trump’s Republican rivals as well in the primaries) were bearers of the traditional reading of the text. Trump came along and offered a very unlikely if provocative reading – and the Americans, so bored at having the same tired lines repeated each time, thought that it was time to try the untried, perhaps even outlawed readings.  And that is why Trump won.  And that is why Duterte won.– Rappler.com

The author is dean, Graduate School of Law, San Beda College, and professor at Cagayan State University

It’s 7:03 am here in Amsterdam, and the sun has yet to rise.

The few beers last night notwithstanding, I didn’t sleep well, tormented by the knowledge that soon, a dictator will be buried as a hero in my home country. I grew up taking pride in the democracy that my people fought hard to defend, only to see the person who threatened it the most be honored by the people whose very futures he had ruined.

On the other side of the world, a bigot and a racist is on the verge of being elected the leader of a nation that once prided itself as the “land of the free," a man who has threatened the sense of belonging of many Americans in their homeland, and the sense of security many of us have for the future of the world and of the planet.

Here in Europe, the situation is no brighter. No longer at ease, many Europeans are beginning to close their hearts to the world; it is as if the fraternal and triumphant message of Beethoven's 9th is fading away. Amid concerns over terrorism and immigration, the rise of Marine le Pen of France, Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, and the Freedom Party of Austria speak of the return of far-right nationalism in Europe – one whose previous visitation brought conflict and unspeakable suffering.

~~~

Just a few years ago, when I started my graduate studies here, Europe felt like a safe haven.

The old world, which has withstood the passing of centuries, carried with it a stability that seemed as unshakable as the great cathedrals of France. And like the leaning tower of Pisa which looks precarious but whose underlying foundations are beyond question, all of Europe’s shakiness seemed to be superficial; there was optimism that whatever crisis faced would eventually be overcome – and the European project of integration will continue.

Just a few years ago, the idea that Ferdinand Marcos would be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani seemed unthinkable as Francisco Franco having a statue of honor in the Madrid’s Plaza Mayor. The fact that no law was made to ensure that Marcos will not be so honored by a future leadership speaks to our faith that no legislation was required to enforce our conscience and our memories.

Just a few years ago, the thought of Donald Trump becoming the US President – or even becoming a presidential nominee - was a joke just as funny as the man himself. How can someone who has openly incited racist distrust of the current president, someone whose business practices were as dubious as his morality, someone who denies the reality of climate change, be deemed worthy of the most powerful office in the world?

Even today, experts are beginning to strive for an explanation for what the world is going through. They speak of people’s anger at the “establishment” arising from feelings of being left behind by the forces of globalization - and of the nostalgia for dictatorships past as arising from people’s disillusionment over the failed promise of democracy.

The very idea of expert knowledge, however, has been thrown into question: how can everyone be so wrong? Virtually every pundit, and every single poll predicted the defeat of Brexit - and of Trump - except for the two polls that really mattered. It seems that for future elections, George Orwell – not Nate Silver – should be our guide.

As for me, I should have listened to the shuttle driver in Connecticut who told me that Trump was going to win. Having just watched the first presidential debate with my sister in Massachusetts the night before, I felt incredulous that someone with total ignorance of foreign affairs – beyond a few mantras – would still hold credibility among his supporters. But as the driver narrated his personal experiences and observations: of failed wars, of disappearing jobs, and of his perception of people of color being prioritized over “ordinary Americans” like him, I realized that I shouldn’t be dismissing him right away.

Perhaps by sincerely trying to understand the views of the Marcos loyalist, the Trump fan, the Brexiter, and the many other groups around the world with pent-up grievances – and how we can best communicate with them – we may yet avert far-worse catastrophes.

~~~

Safe in the warmth of one's bed, lost in a state of near-drowsiness, one can ward off those thoughts by slipping into realms of fantasy – or by entertaining the thought that everything was just a bad dream. But time is running out.

Very soon, I have to rise up and confront what lies ahead - and find reason to keep hoping that a tomorrow, no matter how distant, will be brighter.

Yesterday, Barack Obama said that the sun will rise in the morning. But why do I have a feeling that I woke up in a different world? – Rappler.com

Gideon Lasco is a physician, medical anthropologist, and commentator on culture and current events. His essays have been published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Singapore Straits Times, Korea Herald, China Post, and the Jakarta Post.

You wouldn’t know that you have this thing called courage until you are faced with a situation that calls for it. Courage lies somewhere deep in your reservoir of virtues – ready to be summoned when you need it. 

Like a plant, it grows cultivated in the soil of your convictions, beliefs and passions. It needs rain and sunshine, too. These are the outside influences, the events and personalities in your external environment that shape you, add vigor to your ideals or lead to paths not commonly taken.

All this I’ve learned in my more than 30 years in journalism. But this is not my scoop, it is not exclusive to my profession. 

It applies to many other callings, to accountants who, in their seeming mind-numbing work, muster the courage to say no when given an order to cook the books, risking their stable jobs. 

To students who challenge their teachers’ arguments with facts and rigorous questioning because, in their hyper-partisanship, these supposed beacons of enlightenment tailor data to suit their politics.

To policemen and women who stand their ground, staying within the confines of the law, despite a culture of impunity engulfing their institution.

To government officials who speak truth to power, swim against the tide of group think and utter “no” when “yes” is the easiest answer.

August 1983

Here's my story and it begins in the newsroom of Business Day newspaper, where I worked as a reporter.  

I didn’t start out in journalism thinking that this type of work would demand a kind of bold spirit. I never told myself that I was going to be brave, that I was going to write about conflict and the insurgency, corruption and wrongdoing in high places. 

It was simply the excitement of being there, chronicling history as it unfolded, and knowing that there was an audience out there I could connect to.

But something happened that gave my work so much meaning. It fueled a desire to contribute to a cause bigger than day-to-day reporting: to regain lost freedoms.

It was in August 1983 when the country was jolted by a murder that triggered the unraveling of the Marcos dictatorship. Under the searing afternoon sun, opposition leader Ninoy Aquino was shot as he was stepping down from the airplane. 

As my newspaper’s political reporter, I was assigned to cover the turbulence, from Left to Right. Thus, this tumultuous period leading to the first people power revolt in 1986 took me to the streets of Manila, where protest marches raged, to the lair of communist and Muslim rebels. Under the cover of night, we trekked to their camps, from Luzon to Mindanao. 

I remember, in our coverage of a New People’s Army camp in Samar, a military helicopter hovered over the area and our armed guides ordered us to hide in the bushes. We ran for our lives and took cover as the helicopter lingered above us. I was tempted to flail my arms and raise my press ID hoping that would make me invincible.

But I realized that we were so vulnerable. That was one moment that gave me dread. 

This period also took me to the forbidding offices of colonels and soldiers who were secretly planning a coup vs. President Marcos – as well as to the equally forbidding office of the Presidential Security Group in Malacañang. 

Sense of danger
To my surprise, I discovered I had little fear. My feeling of intimidation gave way to adrenaline coursing through my veins.  

How did it happen that my sense of danger was close to zero? It must have been the urgency of the circumstances, the consensus that the Marcos regime had to end, that we had to regain our democracy. I saw my reporting as a strand in this vast tapestry. 

After our country basked in its freedoms in 1986, this weak sense of peril held on as I continued my work, reporting on how our politics was a major force behind the denudation of our forests or how the Supreme Court justices breached ethics, doing the country an epic disservice as the final arbiter of conflict.

The bad news was: my sense of judgment didn’t please everybody. The reactions of powerful people ranged from libel suits to death threats. 

In the age before social media, we got threats via landline telephone calls and text messages. Even more scary, a colleague received a funeral wreath in her home. Unmarked vehicles parked outside our office (Newsbreak magazine) for long stretches were obviously meant to keep us under surveillance.

Newsrooms have protocols to cope with these challenges. Journalists go through sleepless nights but find their equanimity again, able to continue their reporting.
Today, threats are easily dished out in social media, not only to journalists, but to everyone else, because anonymity enables people to hide behind masks and false names. It makes cowards thrive. Anonymity has become the great enabler. 

But whatever form the threats take and in whatever environment – under a dictatorship or a polarized environment high on impunity – this virtue called courage remains. It’s a constant, ready for you to rouse. – Rappler.com

The international climate negotiations kicked off in Marrakech on November 7, with His Excellency Mr. Salaheddine Mezouar of the Kingdom of Morocco assuming the COP Presidency.

COP22, or the 22nd Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is considered a COP of action and solutions. For the next two weeks from November 7 to 18, 2016, countries will be meeting to agree on how global action to address climate change can be enhanced and to decide on specific mechanisms to implement the Paris Agreement. We will be participating in this work to pin down the detailed rules of the Paris Agreement, being both civil society advisers to the Philippine delegation representing our country here in Marrakech. Both of us were also in Paris, France last December 2015 when the lastest climate change agreement was adopted at the conclusion of COP 21.

From Paris to Marrakech, the Paris Agreement entered into force on November 4, 2016. It is the fastest global treaty to meet the ratification requirements to take it into effect. While the Philippines signed the Paris Agreement on April 22, 2016, the first day it was opened for signature, we are still going through the process of ratification so that we can formally become party to it. The Philippine Constitution requires the President to ratify the agreement, submit this instrument of ratification to the Senate for their concurrence, and at least 2/3 of the Senators must concur in the ratification. After this, our instrument of ratification must be deposited with the UN Secretary-General. 

While initially expressing reservations about the Paris Agreement, President Duterte announced, on the eve of the Marrakech conference, that he is now ready to ratify the agreement. This is welcome as ratification of the Paris Agreement will ensure that we have a vote in crucial decisions about how the world will henceforth act collectively to address climate change. Through the support mechanisms provided to Paris Agreement Parties, the Philippines will also be able to augment its means to transition to a clean energy system, conserve and enhance its forests, improve land use, make its urban areas more habitable, and support environmentally friendly industrialization.

In a press conference on Day 1 of COP22, Mr. Mezouar said that developing countries are expecting COP22 to provide clarification on how they can receive the support they need so they can implement the Paris Agreement in their home countries.

This support is by way of climate finance, capacity building, and technology development and transfer. Mr. Mezouar also said that the next two weeks will provide clarification on, among others, partnerships for the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are designed to facilitate and strengthen capacity building support from developed countries to developing countries. The NDCs contain the voluntary commitments of each country towards the global climate goal of keeping the average temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, the level scientists agree we must not exceed if we wish to keep our communities habitable. 

Climate change and development

Briefly, ownership of climate change action as a priority agenda enables the Philippines to climate-proof its economic and population growth.

This means that, in order to safeguard our economic and development gains and our growing population against climate-related setbacks, we must ensure that our development plans insulate our communities from the impacts of climate change as much as possible and allow our country to transition into a low-carbon pathway.

This requires rigorous and systematic policy planning and implementation across all sectors and at all levels of government. Among others, our development plans must contain policies that will achieve the following:

1. Increase the capacity of our communities to cope with climate change impacts that are already unavoidable
2. Lessen the resulting loss and damage that Filipino communities experience from both rapid-onset events like tropical cyclones, storm surges, flashfloods, and earthquakes, and slow-onset events such as droughts, desertification, and ocean acidification
3. Work towards reducing the amount of greenhouse gases we emit into the atmosphere. In climate parlance, these measures are called adaptation actions, risk transfer mechanisms, and mitigation actions, respectively. 

But, will pursuing these climate actions limit the Philippines’ ability to develop its economy? We think not.

On the contrary, if we do not do anything about climate change, we will be putting at risk many lives, livelihoods, homes, infrastructure, and investments – all of which, despite their having taken several years to build, could be wiped out in a matter of days by record-breaking events like Supertyphoons Yolanda in 2013 and Lawin just last month.

To put things in context, the World Bank estimated that Supertyphoon Yolanda cost the Philippines about Php 424 billion (3.7% of GDP) in damaged physical assets, approximately Php 571 billion (4.9% of GDP) in total loss and damage, and some Php 361 billion (3.1% of GDP) in reconstruction costs. Therefore, in the long term, it may cost the Philippines more to ignore climate change than to address it early on. 

Entry into force of Paris Agreement

The good news is that the world has been paying serious attention to the global climate crisis. This is evident from the early entry into force of the Paris Agreement, which occurred on November 4, 2016, despite initial expectations that it will take years for its effectivity to be triggered. To date, 101 countries accounting for 69.52% of total global GHG emissions have now ratified the Paris Agreement, demonstrating that the world is taking climate change very seriously. 

As we move to ratify the Paris Agreement, we must ensure that our country’s development plans are aligned with the global climate goals of keeping the temperature increase to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and pursuing measures to limit such increase to 1.5ºC. This, because we are among the most vulnerable countries to climate change. 

But this does not mean that we should abandon our goals of development and growth. Certainly, we must plan strategically and commit only to those actions that do not keep Filipinos in the vicious cycle of poverty or impede their access to reliable, affordable energy that is needed to support the country’s economic growth. It must be noted that climate action is not incompatible with economic development. In fact, that both the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, which are the most significant climate change accords today, recognize the social and economic development needs of developing countries like the Philippines. Thus, ratifying the Paris Agreement will not consign us to economic ruin.  

Climate change and Duterte’s 10-point agenda

Moreover, climate-proofing our economic development is not incompatible with – but in fact helps fulfill – President Duterte’s 10-point agenda.

The response to climate change can take many forms, such as the implementation of mitigation and adaptation actions and the minimization of loss and damage arising out of climate change impacts. Mitigation actions include shifting to renewable energy, sustainable transport systems, improved waste management, more efficient agricultural practices, enhanced forest conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks, and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. 

Adaptation actions include improvements in coastal flood defenses; bridge, road, and building repairs; climate-proofing infrastructure; and building on the resilience of socioeconomic and ecological systems, including through economic diversification and sustainable management of natural resources.  Minimization of loss and damage includes providing insurance for catastrophic events as well as slow-onset impacts like drought and sea-level rise.

Pursuing these and other climate actions can provide co-benefits that fulfill the following priorities laid out in President Duterte’s 10-point socioeconomic agenda:

• Improve social protection programs, including the government’s Conditional Cash Transfer program
• Promote science, technology, and the creative arts to enhance innovation and creative capacity.
• Promote rural and value chain development toward increasing agricultural and rural enterprise productivity and rural tourism. 
• Ensure security of land tenure to encourage investments, and address bottlenecks in land management and titling agencies. 
• Accelerate annual infrastructure spending to account for 5% of GDP, with Public-Private Partnerships playing a key role.
• Invest in human capital development, including health and education systems, and match skills and training.
• Increase competitiveness and the ease of doing business. 

If the Philippines decides to ratify the Paris Agreement, it must take important steps to implement it domestically. To implement the Paris Agreement, the Philippines must first determine how it intends to contribute to climate action (in a document called the nationally determined contribution or the NDC), and then create a roadmap to realize that NDC. 

What’s next after Marrakech?

Moving on from Marrakech, now that we will be ratifying the Paris Agreement, we must face the challenges the Philippines faces as it strives to grow its economy and improve the lives of Filipinos, while ensuring that this growth is not impeded by extreme weather events and other large-scale climate change impacts that the country is now perennially exposed to.

To ensure a greater chance of keeping our country livable, we must mainstream climate action. We will only be the architects of our destruction if we do not.

And to do this right, there is no other place to start but radically transforming our energy system. The next article of this series will look at the possibility of such a transformation. – Rappler.com

(Authors' note: This is the first of a three-part series on climate change and energy. The articles are based on policy briefs produced under the “Getting our Act Together,” project of the Ateneo School of Government in partnership with SSG Advisors. This projects was designed to contribute to the discourse on Philippine climate and energy policies as the country tries to balance its economic growth targets with the exigencies of sustainable development.)

 Both President Rodrigo Duterte and President-elect Donald Trump are very thin-skinned people. They do not forget slights and carry on a grudge even if it seems politically unwise to do so to others.

Thus Trump kept running feuds with different people during the campaign, like Megan Kelly of Fox News, with whom he had a run-in in the first Republican debate during which he made that horrible remark that "blood was coming out of her wherever."

Duterte's quarrel with the US has strong personal overtones since it began with people who voiced criticism of his war on drugs, one that escalated into a foreign policy crisis. While Duterte may continue to hold anti-US views, he probably would be much less antagonistic in his approach to Trump since the personal hurt is not there. Also being both authoritarian personalities who are used to acting as the boss, they probably have a deep understanding of each other's personalities and thus know where not to tread. 

Trump gets along well with Vladimir Putin of Russia because they have the same authoritarian, "boss" personality. I see him getting along well with Duterte. "Godfathers" understand each other, and can be quite friendly in their encounters because they know which buttons to push and which buttons not to push.  But will it ever come to Duterte singing," it's the Philippines, China, Russia, and the US against the world"? It depends on whether the chemistry is really good.

The triangle

I think that if Trump plays it right at the personal level, Duterte's antagonism towards the US will go down a several degrees, perhaps to the point that Duterte might stop uttering his threats of ending the treaties with the US.

But the relationship won't get as warm as during the Aquino days since Xi Jin Ping will be there, reminding Duterte of China's new “special relationship” with the Philippines. I think we might see a situation where Xi Jin Ping and Trump might vie for the affections of Duterte, though I think this triangular relationship won't get out of hand. If you notice, I am now talking in terms of personalities, not governments, because I think Xi Jin Ping knows he is dealing with two very "personalistic" people, who think and feel l’etat ces moi, that is, identify their personas with the state, and he has to play them at that level, though he himself is more in the impersonal bureaucratic mold of the Communist Party apparatchik.

Geopolitics

In terms of the geopolitical dimension, a lot depends on how Trump will deal with China. 

While China was one of his rhetorical targets during the campaign, Trump stirred fears in Japan and Europe that he is an isolationist who feels the US is overcommitted abroad and must refocus inward and rebuild itself, leaving more of the defense of Japan and Europe to these countries. 

My sense is that he is more interested in building a wall across the US-Mexico border than containing China militarily, so there's a very real prospect that he's going to junk Obama's “Pacific Pivot.” Also Trump's worry about China is at the level of trade relations, and China is not the only Asian country he worries about. He sees the East Asian countries as “unfair traders,” to be dealt with by raising US trade barriers to their goods, not by opening them up like the Clinton Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans want. That's the reason he wants to junk the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Add this all up, and he won't do much to contain Duterte's drift to China, though he will try to remain on a friendly basis with him.

Migration

Where there might be a potential for conflict might be on migration. 

While Trump worries mainly about Mexican migrants and Muslims, there will be a tightening of immigration policy overall that will cover even legal migration and visits to the US by Filipinos. This is, of course, to be deplored. The Filipino-American community is largely Democratic, so I expect that there will be an outcry from them, stemming both from economic and civil liberties' grounds.

Will Duterte respond to their concerns and lobby Trump to go easy on them? From his remarks, I think Duterte does not seem to think much of the Fil-Am community and, in fact, sees them largely as critics of his policy of extrajudicial execution (though he does have supporters among them who are also—surprise, surprise Trumpistas). So he'll probably not act.

Coming: the New Isolationism?

Overall, I think the combination of Trump's election and Duterte's new diplomacy might accelerate the Philippines' distancing from Washington amid a broader reconfiguration of the US's relations with East Asia. 

We are entering uncharted territory here since the last time isolationism was a dominant political current in the US was in the 1920's and 1930's.  Trump, I think, may be the cutting edge of the New Isolationism. 

I abhor and fear Trump’s racist and sexist politics and strongly oppose President Duterte’s disregard of due process and human rights. When it comes to foreign policy, however, I think that, overall, the current conjuncture might have possibilities since our relationship with Washington under the Liberal Containment Strategy that has been America’s Grand Strategy for most of the Post-World War II period had become a very unhealthy, debilitating one for our country. 

I’d much rather have an isolationist America than an interventionist one, though I continue to hope that progressive forces, the Bernie Sanders forces, may eventually come to the fore there rather than the right-wing populist forces that the Trump campaign has unleashed. – Rappler.com

A former congressman, Walden Bello has written extensively on US foreign policy.  His publications include Dilemmas of Domination: the Unmaking of the American Empire (New York: Henry Holt, 2005).

Many decades ago, I already knew I wanted to be a journalist. I wanted to write, capture in words critical, historic events, and describe as best I could important people who were making a difference, if not charting the future of the country.

I whizzed past the turbulent 70s with little understanding or appreciation of what was going on at the time. I remembered images on television of demonstrations that turned violent, recalled hearing words like Molotov cocktails, plackards, tear gas and truncheons associated with the helmet-clad Metrocom. But they were distant threats.

I didn’t grasp the reasons for the political upheaval then. But I felt a slight sense of unease – like how an unmet deadline or an unfinished story disturbs you and does not go away until you deal with it.

Maybe it wasn’t intense enough to rock me from my comfortable corner as a young student buried in books and the more mundane requirements of academic life. It wasn’t until the 1980s when I got a better handle on the nagging, undefined feeling of something not being all right.

The rallies came closer to home even as education sessions that helped make sense of social inequality and the nuanced political spectrum in the country nudged me from my perch. The earlier images from youth merged with the more current pictures of unrest, and wove a newfound understanding of what was wrong then and in the present.

I began to ask. Why do people disappear without a trace? Why are political dissenters imprisoned? Why are people tortured? Why are people senselessly killed? Why are some people poorer than others? What is political protest?

Activism and courage

Some say that activism begins with the question “why”, is fueled by a strong sense of purpose, and is cemented by courage.

Rage, idealism, and the desire to do what is right and just, fan the flames of activism.

Then I understood that activism and courage could be manifest not only in the streets and noisy rallies, but even in stories that can rouse anger, passion, and action. I became a journalist by choice.

Each and every day, journalists keep a close watch on those elected to public office – the powerful and the mighty who have all State resources to themselves. We keep watch day in and day out, keep our ears to the ground, persevere with the dreariness and predictability of routine.

We watch out for excesses and abuses that lull and entrench the powerful and make them forget about why they were chosen by the majority to lead. We alert about threats to personal freedoms and try our best to listen and lend a voice to those without one. We strive to report what is true and abhor propaganda and propagandists.

We do not always succeed because sometimes truth is as elusive as finding your shadow in the dark. You have to wait until enough light is cast to make out shapes – even in the dimmest of lights. Not everything is crystal clear each and every day but we strive to capture what we can in reports, narrations, stories, and analyses.

No two days are completely alike in our profession but we keep on trying to do better than the day before. Our age-old mantra: you are only as good as your last story.

Tempered rage

Some idealistic and upright journalists have been killed, if not harassed in the course of their work. They who bring honor to the craft and the profession, we salute and are infinitely proud of. They who bring shame and disgust, we would love to banish to the ends of the earth.

Not everyone understands the job of journalists. Even some of our family members don’t – when we spend hours hunched over our laptops and gadgets, miss meals, dates and holiday get-togethers, court danger and try to get by with a few hours’ sleep. It is difficult to explain for it does not always make sense.

But purpose, focus, and commitment to stay the course in journalism speak of a quiet but solid type of courage. It need not be boastful, outlandish, arrogant, condescending or even boisterous. It is tempered rage, inspired idealism, and a firm anchor that sustain journalists through the toughest and most trying of times.

Why choose journalism at a time when almost anyone can claim to be a journalist? Because authentic journalists will stubbornly outlive the fraudulent ones. – Rappler.com

Donald Trump is a subject that has nagged the Filipino consciousness from the moment he stood for his Republican Party’s nomination; as president, he’s bound to do that even more.

The reason is Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte is the Philippines’ own Trump – or Trump the United States’ own Duterte. That Duterte got his presidency ahead of Trump – in May – probably counts for something in comparative ascendancy. In any case, it should be tempting to put prognostications about the relationship between them, as well as between their countries, in the context largely of character; that is, after all, the main force that apparently drives them both.

Duterte and Trump are wont to flout universal norms of civility. It is to Trump’s credit, for instance, that the language and general conduct of US presidential campaigns have declined to levels never seen before. He freely threw baseless accusations of corruption and treason at his opponent and put sexist, homophobic, and racial slurs on women, gays, and immigrants.

Duterte may have spared his own rivals any of that, but, toward women and gays, he was similarly demeaning. His favorite cuss phrase, with which he likes to pepper his speech, debases mothers. If there’s one Duterte deviancy Trump could not top, it’s his cussing. The Pope himself got it for snarling up traffic in Manila during his visit and upsetting Duterte’s campaign schedule.

Duterte, to be sure, has had a head start on Trump. He has since cussed fellow presidents, too – Trump’s own predecessor, Barack Obama, for one – and other foreign dignitaries, mainly for reminding him to observe the rule of law in his war on drugs. He may have done nothing to Trump himself, but Trump cannot escape him.

The run-in between Duterte and Obama has led to a diplomatic falling-out that has driven Duterte into the arms of China and, possibly, Russia. Fancying himself a triumvir with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin “against the world,” he announced during his recent visit to China “my separation from the United States.” Before that he had called off military exercises between the Philippines and the US, pulled out his sailors from their joint patrols of critical Philippine waterways, and told all American soldiers to leave. All that may be mere utterances, and shall remain as such – mere words – until the applicable treaties are abrogated.

Washington has been generally careful not to provoke Duterte further, but the human rights issue arising from his war on drugs is not something the Obama government is apparently prepared to compromise on. In the 4 months since Duterte took office, about 3,000 drug dealers and addicts have been killed, and, realizing he has been running late on his promise to eliminate the scourge by the end of his first year, he threatens to add 20,000 to 30,000 to that in presumably as short a time as possible.

Pursuing the moral concern raised by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) about that dubious war, the State Department has stopped the sale of some 26,000 assault rifles to the Philippine police, but their commander-in-chief replies he’ll get them from China or Russia.

That is the Filipino counterpart Trump inherits, a bellicose quitter on America who has been lost to an opposite ideological club led by China and Russia. How he approaches him and his government will depend on where the Philippines falls in his hierarchy of priorities, especially in regard to its geopolitical importance in parts where a world power like China covets sway. By his campaign pronouncements, he does not appear to like China at all, resenting it in particular for the American jobs lost to it by outsourcing. Russia seems to have a better appeal.

Surely Trump, having yet to assume the presidency and show us more specific hints at where his foreign policy is going, deserves the benefit of the doubt for his pat words on victory night: “We will get along with nations willing to get along with us.”

Duterte, for his part, already has betrayed too much of himself to be able to inspire any hope in his own message to Trump on his election, a message that sounds formulaic and definitely not himself, and looks forward to a relationship “of mutual respect, mutual benefit, and a shared commitment to the democratic ideals and the rule of law.” The message was sent out from his presidential palace, in Manila.

Speaking later that night to an audience of Filipino expatriates in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on the first day of a state visit, he was more like himself – personal, unpredictable, bipolar: “I don’t want to quarrel anymore; Trump is already here.”

One never knows what Rodrigo Duterte and Donald Trump might see of themselves in each other that would ignite a mutual identification, which could only lead to either of two things: they hit it off or they hit each other. – Rappler.com

Donald Trump’s win has shocked the world, and the Philippines will inevitably feel the consequences one way or another.  

Of course, based on our own experience, election winners do not necessarily stick to their campaign promises. But drawing from Trump’s pronouncements thus far, there seems to be 5 key areas where Filipinos could be affected the most.

1) Immigration and remittances

Donald Trump espouses a protectionist worldview that runs across many of his policies, such as immigration. For instance, he has promised to “bring jobs back to the United States” and go after the 10 million or so undocumented immigrants who have “stolen” such jobs.

These statements are bound to rattle ethnic minorities in the US, including the nearly 4 million Filipinos currently living there, who account for about a third of all Filipinos abroad.

Although most of them are documented, racist attitudes coming from Trump himself could make daily life harder for Filipinos there in the form of discrimination and exclusion. (READ: Trump tags 9 countries, including PH, as ‘terrorist nations’)

OFWs seeking to enter the US to find job opportunities – even the highly skilled ones – may also have to look for alternative destinations once US immigration policies begin to tighten.

All these suggest that the flow of OFW remittances could be compromised. Donald Trump once proposed to “impound remittance payments derived from illegal wages”.

The inflow of OFW remittances has slowed down in recent years, and today they account for just around 10% of GDP (Figure 1). But as much as 43% of such remittances come from the US. Hence, if Trump’s immigration policies push through, the role of remittances in buoying up the Philippine economy could further diminish.

2) Investments

Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that Americans are “losing their jobs” to other countries, and promised to punish firms which will outsource their operations abroad.

This could spell disaster for the Philippines’ outsourcing industry, especially since around 70% of its earnings come from the US.

For the longest time the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry has served as one of the Philippine economy’s bright spots. It has created many high-paying jobs for our young professionals and earned dollars for the economy in a way that is even starting to overtake dollar earnings from remittances. But with Trump’s win, some economists claim that this industry “could suffer”.

Moreover, by saying that he would “start building…things in [the US] instead of in other countries”, Trump envisions an increasingly self-sufficient and isolationist America, preferring to keep investments in the US instead of out. A weaker outflow of long-term direct investments from the US, still the world’s largest economy, could stifle growth in the developing world.

3) Trade

Donald Trump views global trade as a “zero-sum game”: countries have to compete with each other since winners always win at the expense of losers. For instance, because of China’s alleged currency manipulation, Trump has vowed to impose a retaliatory 45% tariff on Chinese imports.

But such zero-sum thinking is completely at odds with one of the most basic lessons in economics: international trade can make every country in the world better off. Restricting trade – in the form of, say, prohibitive tariffs or quotas – generally reduces the welfare of people around the world.

Figure 2 shows that as much as 15.7% of Philippine exports of goods go to the US, but this share has, in fact, been decreasing for several years. Today more than half of our exports of goods go to East Asian countries. Still, it will be better for the Philippines to see more trade rather than less, regardless of the country destination.

Trade deals, both old and new, also seem to be in jeopardy. Trump’s rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership – although it admittedly has its flaws – could promote a general skepticism of trade deals and disrupt the integration efforts of countries like the Philippines.

Overall, a slowdown of US trading activity borne by Trump’s protectionist policies could derail global trade, which has already decelerated in recent years. One could only hope that Trump’s business acumen – if any– kicks in and makes him realize that a policy of “blanket protectionism” will prove unprofitable for a vast majority of American businesses in the long run.

4) West Philippine Sea

Trump’s win is also a veritable game-changer when it comes to the Philippines’ claims in the West Philippine Sea.

In contrast to Obama’s “rebalancing” strategy in Asia-Pacific, there is now doubt whether Donald Trump will show a similar degree of interest in the region. Hence, with less US “interference”, China could now flex its muscle more in the region.

With US support now uncertain, fellow claimants to the West Philippine Sea could decide to swing China’s way. In this sense, President Duterte’s recent pivot to China – although by no means is he a master strategist – almost seems like a prescient move that anticipated Donald Trump’s win. At the same time, it appears that President Duterte wants to repair ties with the US, and has recently expressed his willingness to work with Trump.

So could the Philippines cozy up to both the world’s economic superpowers? It’s hard to tell, but there’s no doubt that Trump’s win complicates our strategy when it comes to the West Philippine Sea.

5) Climate change

Finally, despite the global evidence and consensus, Donald Trump doesn’t believe in climate change, and even maintains that global warming is nothing but an “expensive hoax”.

No wonder people all over the world are wary that Trump’s win could spell climate disaster for the entire world. In particular, America’s lukewarm stance on climate change could set the tone for climate change initiatives worldwide and impede their momentum.

Numerous studies have shown that the Philippines is one of the countries most at risk and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The impacts range from more frequent extreme weather events, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and loss of biodiversity. Hence, the Philippines could easily find itself at the receiving end of Donald Trump’s dangerous and utterly misinformed stance on climate change.

Conclusion: Let’s brace ourselves

This past week – November 6 to 12, 2016 – has been especially rough for Filipinos all over the world.

What with the Supreme Court’s decision regarding Ferdinand Marcos’ burial and Donald Trump’s historic win, this week will be remembered as the week liberal and democratic values were tested to their limits and, unfortunately, beaten to a pulp.

But between these two recent issues, Donald Trump’s presidency sets the stage for future (and potentially lasting) economic hardships for Filipinos across the globe.

Perhaps now all we can do is to accept this new reality and brace ourselves for the uncertain 4 years ahead. Or, we can just hope that Trump magically forgets all the populist and protectionist statements he made during his campaign. – Rappler.com

The author is a PhD student and teaching fellow at the UP School of Economics. His views are independent of the views of his affiliations.

Undas is over, bazaars are everywhere, and reunions are filling up our calendar. The cold breeze is picking up too. Traffic in Manila is building up, which can only get worse before it gets better (if it ever does). Christmas is surely around the corner. 

Filipinos' anticipation of the season is unparalleled. It is, in fact, incomprehensible to foreigners, for whom decorations can only be put up a week or two before Christmas. To sing Jose Mari Chan's songs as early as September 1 is an abomination for them.  

But it doesn't matter to us. For many Filipinos Christmas trumps Easter in importance, even if the latter is considered most important in the Christian calendar.  Last year, 72% of adult Filipinos expected their Christmas to be happy. Only 7% expected otherwise.  

Christmas is most beautiful for many Filipinos because it is a festive season into which love, generosity, and acceptance are woven as timeless virtues. 77% of Filipinos agree that it is better to give than to receive. The songs we sing and the lessons we tell each other about Christmas all speak of these lessons.      

Above all, Christmas revolves around the family. For OFWs, being reunited with their families can wipe away the struggles of working abroad. Indeed, the celebrations could only be meaningful if done with the people we cherish.   

No doubt people are looking forward to the joys of Christmas: Simbang Gabi, reunions, gifts, and its songs. It will be merry and if experience has taught us anything, not even disasters can dampen our spirits. That is quite noble, a testament to the coping capacity of Filipinos. In sociology, coping mechanisms, alongside adaptive and transformative capacities, are key to the social resilience of a community.

Christmas, in this light, affords us a creative disruption to the tragedies of the year. 

There is, however, a backdrop to all these that compels us to pause and rethink the memories we are to create this Christmas. If the season were about joy and life, how can we square it with all the killings that now happen around us?

The numbers

The numbers keep changing on a daily basis. But recent reports show that more than 4,700 deaths linked to the war on drugs have been reported – 1,790 of which took place during police operations. According to the Philippine National Police, there are at least 2,766 unexplained killings. 

To be sure, the public willingly approves of the government's crackdown on illegal drugs as a whole.  Such acceptance is not surprising given that more than 750,000 around the country have surrendered and more than 33,000 arrested. These numbers are making an impact on the public for whom criminality and substance abuse are tangible concerns in their neighborhood. Given these figures, General Bato claims that people feel safer now.  

The numbers do not immediately include innocent individuals killed in the line of fire. These accidental deaths are readily dismissed as "collateral damage".     

And yet at the same time, at least 71% of Filipinos believe that it is "very important" that drug suspects are caught alive. Only 2% say it is not important at all.   

No public uproar

In this light, while many people approve of the war on drugs, not many are happy with the killings. But if this were the case, how come public uproar is not readily palpable? Even the response of the Catholic Church has been subdued and fragmented.  

Worse, people who fight for life and due process – we sometimes call them human rights activists – have been recast as enemies of peace and progress.    

Furthermore, the move to revive the death penalty is gaining traction. No less than House Speaker Alvarez has committed to accomplish it before Christmas. He does not care whether it is by hanging convicts or shooting them by firing squad.  

There is no public uproar over these killings because it's either people have accepted the promise of security as a fact or they are afraid of the backlash. But if the surveys were to be believed, people are not afraid. They have accepted the war on drugs as a necessary move to root out social evil. In so doing, they have given consent to the collateral damage in the name of social order.  

Christmas this year comes at a time of killing. One does not need to lose someone at Christmas to realize the difficulty of the experience. But those who have know how it crushes the soul. For them, no celebration can take away the pain and deep sadness.

But alas, it is not difficult to drown out cries of injustice in the midst of Yuletide chaos.  

Christmas is coming. And it continues to offer joy. Why not? Beneath the incarnational narrative is a message of hope by Emmanuel, the one who declares that God is with us.  

But the soul of our society is now up for grabs. The Lord's voice has become a joke. And life has become cheap. If this is what Christmas is now about, could it still be merry? – Rappler.com

Jayeel Serrano Cornelio, PhD, is a sociologist of religion and the director of the Development Studies Program at the Ateneo de Manila University. His book about Filipino Catholic youth was recently published by Routledge. Follow him on Twitter @jayeel_cornelio.

I doubt I’ve ever looked at courage with any seriousness, not even at the word itself. If I used it at all, chances are I did so infelicitously, and it may well be comeuppance that I am forced now to deal with the subject. 

Asked to set down something on it, I realize that, with my advanced age and my own pretensions to courage, I would feel rotten, not to mention cowardly, if I didn’t oblige. If I’ve never dwelt on it, surely it is for fear that what little courage I presume to possess myself may yet turn out inflated, if not altogether fraudulent. 

When I was nine, in Grade V, I was made to spread prostrate on an Industrial Arts worktable and take one off Mr. Pacris’s whipping-stick. Taking it quietly and tearlessly – as they say, “like a man” – I could only impress my peers (who had no idea I had had practice at home, courtesy of my father and his well-beaten-leather Hickok). 

When I was 11, I fell maybe 15 feet off a tamarind tree and broke an arm at the wrist, the bone piercing the skin. I was dry-eyed, but dry-eyed for shock, and I was asleep in surgery before real pain could set in.

And, when my youngest child, only two, caught a hand in the whirring blades of an electric fan, I grabbed her up, wrapped the bloodied hand in a shirt, drove racing to the hospital, just the two of us, one arm around her, the hand of the other at the wheel, leaving the rest of our household frozen-shocked. (My little Tracy grew up to become a national tennis champion herself, gripping the racket in a hand with two reconstructed fingers.)

But I should not be fooled; no one should be. What my case reveals is a poor relation to courage; it’s not even on the fringe of its class. Nothing arising out of pride or any other self-centered sense can be anything like courage. 

I’ve observed courage often defined as a state or quality of mind; that depreciates it still. Courage, to me, is a state of being. It constitutes a predisposition to do the right thing, no matter – especially no matter – if doing the right thing does not redound to one’s benefit or credit; if anything, courage entails risks to one’s well-being, and one becomes established in such a state over time, as one resolutely faces life’s tests and makes the moral choice – consistently. 

It’s precisely the act of facing, of confronting, of stepping up that makes for the essence embraced in the solemn phrase “courage of one’s convictions.” Courage is a command of conscience, an acting-out, a realization, of one’s convictions and, being thus a matter of conscience, it presupposes that everyone has the natural capacity and capability to acquire it; by the same token, it precludes any excuses for the converse case. 

The generational tests of courage are implicit in such questions, put by sons to fathers, as, What did you do during the war, Daddy? What did you do during Martial Law? Where were you during the EDSA People Power uprising? 

But how could the supply of courage run short in a mere generation since EDSA? And, if no life’s lessons were intended to be learned here, why should this happen, of all times, amid such moral scandal as we’ve never seen, one in which thousands of our fellow citizens are dying around us in a pogrom that targets three million others, all summarily condemned as having been rendered subhuman by drugs?

Like any virtue – or vice, for that matter – courage is acquired by self-buildup, reinforced and sustained by constant, conscientious practice; conversely, it erodes with every default. 

A formulation seems to apply here and to have worked in fact against us. Popular defaults on courage resulted in Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship stretching to 14 years and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s presidency, though assumed on a rigged vote, running through its full 6-year term. For the same defaults, the Marcoses managed to not only return from exile unbothered but re-entrench themselves in power. And to add supreme insult to the supreme injury caused the nation by their patriarch’s regime of torture, murder, and plunder, they may yet get a hero’s burial for him.

In fact, the Marcoses have been steadily gaining on us. Most dreadfully, they have found for their champion President Rodrigo Duterte himself – the same confessed “happy slaughterer” of drug dealers and addicts – who has virtually anointed Ferdinand Marcos Jr. his political heir.

From Marcos to Arroyo to Duterte, what we’ve had here is a moral war lost by default on courage. –Rappler.com

As Rappler enters its 5th year, we invite you all to reflect on what courage means to us as individuals and as a nation, from the personal to the national. 

We face vastly changing times and they are demanding more from us as citizens. Our history is being upended, our humanity is being challenged, and the new leader of a global power is casting shadows on the future of our country’s economy and security. Our responses to these challenges call for courage. 

When the Supreme Court allowed the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, students led protests in various parts of the country. They were unafraid to speak up against the 9 justices of the highest court of the land who chose to disregard the weight of history. 

Hardly had the sadness worn off when news of the victory of Donald Trumpswept the world.  What Trump stands for runs counter to values we hold dear, primarily tolerance, inclusion and diversity.

There’s more. A Trump presidency does not augur well for certain businesses in the country, remittances, our lifesaver, and our security, especially in the South China Sea.

All this is not lost on our readers. In a recent Twitter conversation, our readers gave thoughtful answers on rising to the occasion, painting various shades of courage. Here are a few:

• One says she chooses to “remain positive in light of what's happening in the world.”
• Another calls for “going against the current if you believe history is not what it seems.”
• Yet another chooses “hope and inspired action amidst all hate and desperation.”

Courage on the personal front is equally important. We invite you to share your stories, like this one, of a triathlete who, months after a near-death experience, competed in one of the world's most grueling races.

In journalism, we share our own hurdles as well, in the hope that we inspire others.

Let us nurture courage in our hearts and minds. This will help us ride out the storms coming our way. – Rappler.com

Why, nearly three decades after his death, have the Marcoses and their supporters adamantly refused to just bury the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos beside his mother in Batac, as he himself reportedly wished? Why have they never given up on getting a “heroes’ burial”?  Why in short do they refuse to “move on”?

The answer has become clearer now: They do not actually want to bury Marcos, they want to keep him alive.

They want to raise Marcos back from the dead – not as the vile, hated murderous kleptocrat that he really lived as, but as the beloved, glorious Father of the Nation that the Marcoses and their supporters have always projected him to be.

They want to reconstruct the Marcos brand to new and future generations of Filipinos in order to buttress the ever-strenthening political clout of the Marcoses.

They want to efface the sign of the beast stamped on the forehead of the Marcoses; to wash the blood off their hands; to remove the stench of murder that clings to the House of Marcos.

This, many have pointed out, is clearly about reclaiming Malacañang.

It is part of Bongbong Marcos’ early presidential campaign for 2022—and perhaps even Sandro Marcos’ campaign in the not-so-distant future.

The caravan of hundreds, if not thousands, that they will likely organize to accompany Marcos’ cortege from Batac to Taguig will be an early show of force, an advance miting de avance, announcing the younger Marcos’ bid for his father’s old post.

But it is also about much more than this.

Marcos, after all, was not simply a murderous, kleptocratic dictator. He was also a murderous, kleptocratic dictator of a particular stripe.

He was a dictator who, faced with fractious parasitic dynasties and resurgent communist and separatist movements, sought but failed to “modernize” Philippine capitalism by introducing and propagating his own fascist ideology: the idea that there are no conflicting classes in the Philippines, just one proud “nation,” and that all should just unite behind him and agree to be disciplined by the state in order to create the Bagong Lipunan.

Reviving fascism

Parading his body down from Ilocos to Taguig, burying him as a “hero” and rewriting the history books is also about resuscitating and re-propagating this once dominant ideology.

In short, it’s not just about rehabilitating the Marcos brand, it is also about reviving Marcos’ values and visions. It’s about reviving fascism.

Seen from this perspective, it becomes easier to understand why President Duterte has been so intent in granting the Marcoses’ requests.

Duterte wants to bury Marcos as a “hero,” not just because he wants to repay his campaign financers but because he too espouses Marcos’ values and visions.

After all, Duterte seeks to achieve very similar goals in the face of conditions very similar to those Marcos faced.

He too seeks to “modernize” a society that continues to be bled dry by dynastic, parasitic elite families; he too seeks to pacify active (if relatively weaker) resistance movements. So he too has been propagating an ideology very similar to what Marcos propagated: the need for class compromise, the importance of discipline and law and order, the vision of a Bagong Lipunan.

Marcos’ planned burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani is therefore not simply a ritual to achieve closure or pay off debts but one more moment in a concerted and protracted political mobilization to create the social and ideological preconditions for fascism. It is about “rewriting history” not to change the past but to rule out a more democratic future.

This is why those of us who oppose the Marcoses, who oppose dictatorship, and who oppose fascism have no choice but to fight back.

We can still stop Marcos and Duterte if enough of us organize and if enough of us are willing to put our bodies on the line, stand our ground – and possibly even risk arrest– in order to physically prevent Marcos’ body from touching the grounds of the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

In other words, we can still stop Marcos and Duterte if we engage in mass nonviolent civil disobedience actions on the day of Marcos’ burial.

“Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “is the true foundation of liberty.” Only massive civil disobedience can now compel Duterte and the Marcoses to retreat. Only massive civil disobedience can stop dictatorship in its tracks. Only massive civil disobedience can allow us to “move on” to a different, more democratic future. – Rappler.com

Herbert Docena is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. To take part in, or to support, the planned  mass nonviolent civil disobedience action to #BlockMarcos, email: haranginangdiktadurya@gmail.com.

Philippine President Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte took a break last week from his abusive “war on drugs” to invite human rights advocates to dinner – which I’ll accept as a personal invitation.

The invitation was vague – there’s no date set - but thankfully it didn’t include a threat to execute me in public like his May 2015 invitation to me to visit him in his hometown of Davao City.

It inaccurately described me and other critics of his abusive “war on drugs” as “bleeding hearts.” After all, it’s Filipinos – particularly the nearly 5,000 alleged drug users and drug dealers killed since he took office in June - who have been doing all the bleeding. Duterte’s invitation had one condition: that I come to dinner with a plan for how to stop this slaughter. He even promised cabinet posts for takers with good ideas, though I suspect that was another of his humorous asides – like when he supposedly wisecracked about emulating Hitler in enshrining mass murder as state policy or joshed about the gang rape and murder of an Australian nun.

So, here’s the plan I hope to share with Duterte over dinner at the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila.

First, stop the Philippine National Police killing spree of alleged criminal suspects. The police’s own figures indicate that they have killed at least 1,790 “suspected drug personalities” between July 1 and November 3. That’s more than twentyfold the 68 recorded between January 1 and June 15. Police have attributed the police killings to suspects who “resisted arrest and shot at police officers,” but have not provided further evidence that the police acted in self-defense. Victims include 4-year-old Althea Barbon whom police called “collateral damage” after fatally shooting her in an operation that also killed her father.

Mounting evidence that police are committing unlawful killings of suspects – including the apparent assassination last week of a town mayor while in police custody – make nonsense of that assertion and make Duterte’s intervention doubly-urgent.

Second, establish an immediate, impartial and thorough investigation of these killings. The Philippine National Police chief has rejected calls for any such investigation claiming it will hurt police morale. And Duterte frustrated efforts by Senator Leila de Lima and the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, which she chaired, to effectively investigate the killings and instead subjected her to a torrent of harassment and intimidation. But the thousands of deaths demand accountability, which the Duterte government is obligated to provide.

Third, Duterte should cease his hateful rhetoric, which has been tantamount to incitement for these killings. It’s true that his promises of mass extrajudicial killings were a centerpiece of his election campaign, and his campaign rally promise of mass killings of tens of thousands of “criminals” was chillingly prescient. But his exhortations of Filipinos to summarily execute suspected drug users and his questioning the humanity of drug users have apparently found a receptive audience.

The Philippine National Police say an additional 3,001 alleged drug users and drug dealers have been killed by unidentified gunmen since he took office. Victims include 5-year-old Danica May, a kindergarten pupil who died from a gunshot wound to the head after an unidentified gunman opened fire on her grandfather, an alleged drug user. Danica’s killers may have been responding to Duterte’s call in July for Filipinos who knew of any drug addicts to "go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful." It’s also possible that “death squads” – similar to those that operated with impunity in Davao City while Duterte was mayor there – are involved in these killings.

Fourth, Duterte should publicly acknowledge the false premise for his “war on drugs.” Duterte has sought to justify the slaughter as a justified government response to a looming national narco-state style drug emergency. But analysis of his government’s statistical claims in that regard reveal that “data on the total number of drug users, the number of users needing treatment, the types of drugs being consumed and the prevalence of drug-related crime is exaggerated, flawed or non-existent.” Thousands of Filipinos have died in a “war” against a non-existent crisis. Enough.

Finally, Duterte needs a good lawyer. He and some of his top government officials may be implicated in grave international crimes. The United Nations has already warned him that “incitement to violence and killing [is] a crime under international law.”

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has served notice to Duterte that “any person in the Philippines who incites or engages in acts of mass violence including by ordering, requesting, encouraging or contributing” is potentially liable for ICC prosecution.

Duterte took office with a promise to “be sensitive to the state’s obligations to promote, and protect, fulfill the human rights of our citizens.” This five-point plan echoes the spirit of a pledge that Duterte has so far chosen to steamroll.

I look forward to our inihaw na panga ng tuna dinner and durian ice cream for dessert. – Rappler.com

Phelim Kine is the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.