The country’s 16th
President is a recognized and well respected leader among his peers.
He has found a masterful way of being
in between China and Japan in terms of the number of dollars in their
investments in the country, and still we are not counting the tangible donations
these countries are giving the Philippines which benefits the country as a
whole.
Political analyst have been having a
hard time in interpreting who is this master strategist who hails from
Mindanao.
 |
| President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (photo credit to owner) |
Its like watching a grandmaster of
chess, who knows what to do for the appropriate situation that is in front of
him.
Geo-political expert Mr. Adam Garrie
took notice of Duterte again so much so that he has called our President as the
“World’s Most Honest Leader” as he has written in the Eurasia Feature website.
“Rodrigo Duterte has brought a great deal of global attention to his
nation due to his ability to speak plainly and in an off the cuff manner. Yet
in spite of Duterte’s refreshingly casual style, he has proved to not only be a
diligent public servant, but also a committed reformist and a tireless promoter
of investment into The Philippines among wealthy foreign nations including
China, Japan and Korea. On the domestic front, Duterte has been keenly aware of
how his political opponents have inflicted decades of suffering on the people.”
We have fully quoted the said article
for purposes of public information written by Mr. Garrie, that was published
last June 1st of this year in the Eurasiafuture website.
Duterte
is The World’s Most Honest Leader
Yet in
spite of Duterte’s refreshingly casual style, he has proved to not only be a
diligent public servant, but also a committed reformist and a tireless promoter
of investment into The Philippines among wealthy foreign nations including
China, Japan and Korea. On the domestic front, Duterte has been keenly aware of
how his political opponents have inflicted decades of suffering on the people.
One of the
institutions that had been allowed to get away with every element of
malfeasance in The Philippines prior to Duterte’s 2016 election was the Roman
Catholic Church in The Philippines. In spite of The Philippines being a
traditionally devout and overwhelmingly Catholic nation, the people have for
decades been aware of multiple scandals emanating form the Roman Catholic
Church in The Philippines. Such scandals include the monopolisation of wealth
in a developing country with highly impoverished regions, countless scandals
involving the sexual molestation of children, the economic fleecing of the poor
for services such as baptisms, weddings and funerals, the total disregard of
the legal separation of church and state and an ultra-controlling social ethos
that has led to divorce remaining illegal in the country whilst the welfare of
LGBT Filipinos had been ignored for decades.
Duterte
has stood up to the Roman Catholic Church in The Philippines on multiple
occasions. One of the many areas in which he has challenged clerical authority
is in Duterte’s defences of LGBT rights. It was Duterte who in 2012 prohibited
discrimination against LGBT people in his home city of Davao and after becoming
President in 2016, he spoke of being in favour of legalising same-sex
marriages. Although recently, Duterte has made the case that the traditionally
Catholic society is not yet ready to be the first country in ASEAN to legalise
same-sex marriage, Duterte has continually pledged to uphold the civil rights
of LGBT Filipinos. As such, it is fair to say that Duterte is the country’s
most LGBT friendly president in history.
It is
therefore shameful that many are reporting on his recent remarks mocking his
hysterical “opponent” Antonio Trillanes without properly contextualising the
remarks. Duterte made the following statements alleging that Trillanes is gay
whilst also alluding to his own gay identity:
In his statement, Duterte has yet again done what he so frequently does
when making seemingly outlandish remarks. In a country whose Catholic history
has made many subjects ranging from divorce, atheism and homosexuality taboo,
Duterte has become an expert at shattering these taboos by turning them into a
large public conversation. Duterte has also realised that by employing dark
humour, subjects that many were too shy to face become the topics of mainstream
conservation.
His latest
remarks about Trillanes further serve to normalise discussions about same-sex
relations in the once ultra-religious country. The rhetorical tool that Duterte
has employed is to associate homosexual experiences with both himself and a man
he clearly hates (and who clearly hates him). Therefore, if someone can define
part of the identity of two otherwise completely different people as the same,
it must necessarily be a phenomenon that transcends ideology and personal
views.
Beyond
this, whilst Duterte’s policy positions on same-sex marriage have vacillated on
occasion, by stating that he once identified as gay, not only is Duterte
helping to ease the country into a wider discussion about LGBT rights, but he
is also helping many Filipinos to understand that when sexually abused by a
priest as Duterte was as a child, it often makes one confused about one’s own
sexual identity in adulthood. In this sense, Duterte’s seemingly silly remarks
are actually very instructive for Philippine society as they continue to
shatter taboos whilst breaking importance proverbial ice.
Duterte’s
private life remains his, but by promoting LGBT rights as a matter of policy
and discussing his own apparent past gay identity, Duterte is helping to
further weaken clerical power over a nation that would benefit greatly from a
total separation of religion from state.
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Report from Eurasia Future
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