The oh-so-noble journalists are at it again, this time, with Duterte’s Hitler comment. I am no Duterte fanatic. I criticize him more scathingly than anyone when his mouth is out of line. But this time, Duterte really didn’t say anything wrong. The real culprits behind the fuss over his Hitler comment are Karen Lema and Manuel Mogato, two Filipino reporters of the Reuters news agency, who wrote this article: “ Philippines’ Duterte likens himself to Hitler, wants to kill millions of drug addicts ”. Lema and Mogato are Filipinos. There’s no way they could have misunderstood what Duterte really meant in his speech. I watched the video and this is what the President said: “Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. There are 3 million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them. At least, if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have ….. my victims, all criminals, to finish a problem of my country, and save the next generation.” (See for yourself here . The Hitler part is at 14:40....
I planned to vote for him before because of his no-nonsense approach and actions against crime and criminals in general, so he's the last person I'd expect to make a joke about thinking of committing a crime as barbaric and heinous as rape especially given the fact that he had long years of first hand experience seeing dead bodies of victims of such an act… I've seen the whole video of that speech and listened to the backstory. He had himself get taken hostage at knifepoint risking his life and limb, and he himself lead the offensive using his own Uzi firearm to eliminate the bad guys. Yes, I acknowledge that these are indeed heroic acts on his part worthy of recognition, but I still struggle to find a good explanation for that rape joke. So I've watched the full video of his apology. He told the whole story again and said a lot of things but I didn't get the answer I was hoping for. What he said was he wasn't making a joke, and it was just gutter language utt...
Not since Marcos have we as a people been so polarized. As far as our hearts and minds are concerned it's like we're in the edge of a civil war. We are forced to take a hard look at ourselves and what we value. Because of this, we are fighting friends in coffee houses, on the telephone, and on Facebook. We are a people whose lives have been upended. We don't know what to do to get things done right and right away. We lash out. We insult our leaders trying to get them to do a lot more than to pose for photo ops – of giving out relief goods on a one-by-one basis. We cry desperately for demonstrable government response – we get almost next to nothing. It is increasingly apparent that local media goes hand in hand with self-servicing MalacaƱang press releases which are more concerned with their showbiz image than confronting, accepting and dealing with the problem. What our leaders tell us is contradicted by the reports from international commentators who are understandably...
As someone whom invested heavily in the Philippines managing an IT company, I view your assumptions as narrow minded. I’ve given hundreds of Pinoys IQ tests as part of the selection process, the vast majority of these IT graduates ( the cream of the crap ) performed dismally. After two years operating we decided to close up and retain Singaporean Chinese staff and Brazilians. One staff member does the work of approximately 10 Pinoys. The biggest issue was a sheer lack of common sense, they can do black and white but seldom grey. Higher order thinking skills and abstract reasoning skills seemed to me missing, as they would perhaps with someone diagnosed with mild Asperger syndrome. As people I found them nice, but rarely kind. Big difference there, anyone can smile. ---------------------- This is a GRP Featured Comment. Join the discussion !
The idiot would probably sit on it and wonder why it hurts.
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