Did Duterte deprive Filipinos of a "rational" choice by exploiting their frustrations in 2016?

By -

Did then presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte exploit Filipinos' "collective feelings of frustrations over PNoy's admin" during the campaign lead up to the 2016 elections? Did he take "advantage of that vulnerability and deprive [Filipinos] of being rational in choosing a leader"?

Even if he did, that still makes it inexcusable that the Liberal Party (a.k.a. the Yellowtatds), despite being in power at the time, enjoying three decades of control over the national political narrative, and having staunch allies in the Philippines' biggest corporate media firms squandered all that political capital and opened the doors for the entry of a dark knight from Mindanao into Imperial Manila politics.

In that sense the Yellowtards not only failed, they failed their constituents. They need to take personal accountability for that failure before they whine about any imagined sinister and exploitative forces at work.

But as far as I recall, Duterte exploited nothing. He was, like Aquino before him, a reluctant presidential candidate. He said things that came straight out of his experience as mayor of Davao City. As such, he was merely being himself. It just so happened that who he was came to be appealing to millions of Filipinos and what he had to say grew to resonate strongly with them.

In short, Filipinos were naturally drawn to him and his unprecedented messages. There was no exploitation -- only natural charisma. Elections are not normally won that way in the Philippines. But Duterte won it his way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular this week

Outrage over Leni Robredo's fraudulent Vice Presidency prevails among ordinary Filipinos!

By -
Image
To those who say Leni Robredo is the legally recognized VP, please think about this — legally recognized by whom? By the yellow officials who installed her through illicit means? By the dwindling band of yellow fanatics who turned up at Luneta last weekend? Go out to the streets. Talk to the jeepney drivers, taxi drivers, vendors, commuters, etc. Talk to the real people expressing their disgust and disbelief in forums, facebook, etc. The outrage is everywhere, expressed several times a day, everyday, in the Philippines and among the OFWs. Robredo can be sworn in a thousand times by Drilon and Belmonte, declared "winner" a million times by Andres Bautista, "legalized" a billion times by Sereno, and congratulated a trillion times by the US and other ambassadors, but majority of the Filipino people STILL won't believe she's legit. Also, think about this: had Escudero or Cayetano been declared winner for VP, do you think there would be this kind of outrage? No
Read more

Poor people in the Philippines seem to prefer poverty over aspiring to be not poor

By -
Image
Sadly, a MAJORITY of the poor people here are bad people. That is WHY they are poor. They disrespect others, they disrespect themselves, and they disrespect God’s creation. Exactly how do they think they’ll be rewarded for that? If you genuinely had empathy, you would be able to get inside their heads and understand why they do these things, and perhaps know how to fix it. However, you are confusing “empathy” with “sympathy”. I have yet to meet a poor person who actually WANTS to do the things necessary to escape poverty. The funny thing is, everyone can see that I’m more successful than they are. They think this is because I’m “rich”. I’m sure a lot of them are full of jealousy (as benign0 describes) and sit around thinking “ha, it’s not fair, that foreigner is so rich and I’m so poor. I guess it’s OK if I steal his stuff”. Which they do. Regularly. I grew up poor. I know how it feels to be hungry, all the time, every day. I decided I didn’t like feeling like that. I’m successf
Read more

Reporters Karen Lema and Manuel Mogato of @Reuters LIED about the Duterte "Hitler" quote

By -
Image
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.
Read more