This is my answer to a derogatory post about President Duterte. In spite of the rather misleading and misplaced comments I was so intrigued by the author's sophisticated writing style that I could not help paraphrasing it and in some instances directly quoting the article in my response. No intent to plagiarize although I will admit to irony and satire. This is the link to the original article to acknowledge the source and so the reader may compare and properly attribute:
https://steemit.com/politics/@collennes/duterte-iron-fist
It seems that the author was a bit confused. I think this may be what was really meant to be said:
Some species are in the business of drawing income from accusing others of what their masters are even more guilty of. Like the lines that were drawn in Panatag by China after Trillanes' duplicitous secret backdoor negotiations even as an unenforceable judgement was being pursued elsewhere. Even more so when the mountains of Zambales were flattened to provide soil for the supposedly contested islands China was building.
There are also lies in time . We have crossed out a few and are crossing out the rest. There was the election, signaling an incontestable victory by Duterte despite the brazen acts of cheating by the Aquino administration. The coming one is when COMELEC Commissioner Andres Bautista is impeached and will be made fully accountable for his deeds. During the elections, he never imagined he could be held accountable. He was an exaggeration, bigger than life, full of pithy denials of misdeeds and statements claiming integrity and clean elections whose results hardly anyone could believe.
The funniest thing in the world, cynically speaking, is to see the paid Yellow social media army turn apoplectic after the election. The election line moved them from offensive propaganda to defensive speculation, as clearly as that half-court line in basketball establishes a team’s game play. The yellow pot is blacker than the blackest kettle these days. Obnoxious thugs have now become obnoxious paid trolls. Amusing, no?
Well, I try not to use those labels, and I am confident that, among the 16 or more probably 21 million people who put President Duterte in office, a great many are rational and good of heart. So we need to keep the yellow thugs and trolls in perspective. They are not like Duterte’s patriotic support base. They are the yellow front line mercenaries. I’m more interested in what the miniscule yellow hides might be wanting out of this deal.
Do the Yellows want to get back into power, do you suppose? Or is that just a pipe dream, a slogan, a feel-nice slice of apple pie that Trillanes, Hontiveros and Robredo have been throwing out for the benefit of their benefactors since right after the election? Their words and deeds always seem so hypocritical. They have recruited priests and journalists and women of dubious decency and even innocent dead murder victims! They have coddled rapist priests, drug pushers and ISIS and a guy named Parojinog. While condemning a President named Duterte as he is truly a threat to their ill-gotten resources.
The past Administration attempted to build a narco-state by dividing the nation up into shabu sales territories. Is it just my mind that sees a criminal conspiracy here?
It’s perplexing.
The founders of the nation certainly had unity in mind, which we can readily observe with a few cuts from the Constitution:
Preamble . . . to secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace . . .
Justice. Love. Equality. Peace. One does not achieve those ends by dividing the country up into narco-fiefdoms enslaving the people. Or making addicts out of them them. Or allowing addicts to rape and kill them.
Section 4. The prime duty of the Government is to serve and protect the people. . . .
It does not say the criminals preying on the people.
Section 5. The maintenance of peace and order, the protection of life, liberty, and property, and promotion of the general welfare are essential for the enjoyment by all the people of the blessings of democracy.
Well, there it is, in black and white. The word “all”. All of the people are promised the blessings of democracy through peace and order and qualities of life that we all cherish.
Unity is mandated by the Constitution, or if there are natural divisions, such as man and woman, the members of each group are assured equality of protection of life, liberty and property. Even journalists. Even blind yellow followers. Except for criminals killed in the pursuit of maintenance of law and order and the protection of life, liberty and property of the law abiding of course.
So unity is a Constitutional mandate in that we, the law-abiding citizens, are ALL granted the blessings of democracy under the sovereign state. We have to be concerned, though, about how the Yellows hope to undermine this unity and sovereign togetherness. They seem to have so many people in their employ. Can they still afford them?
I tend to think there are two ways of assuring unity:
One way is to demand their prosecution, the other to incarcerate them.
The demanding version would be that used by every successful government since the beginning of time. Enforce laws that preserve society and punish those who go outside the rules. Support the truth on public information resist efforts to re-define the truth.
The Yellows are good at this. Their minions want the world to believe that the President is the bad guy in the struggle for human rights. The Yellows, those conniving, cheating dogs, are trying to take something from the Filipino people. The Yellows are insulting the Filipino people by being disrespectful in attempting to file an ICC court case, and the Filipino President, by damn, is wholly within his rights to use the military and police powers of the State to right this egregious wrong done to the Filipino people.
Scary, isn’t it? That the Yellows think the Filipino people can always be so easily manipulated, just because they were so easily manipulated in the past.
Well, it is a choice, is it not? Whether or not the Yellows will try to redefine our context, our principles, our beliefs, our moral judgments, our rules and our deeds so that we all line up in a unified way behind them.
Or else suffer chaos.
That’s rather a force fed unity wholly at odds with the democratic principles we prize, of honor and truth and transparency, of freedom to speak and worship get educated so we can compete for jobs; of non-discrimination; of trial before honest judges, of freedom from the scourge of addiction and narco-politics.
The inspiring way would be that used by great democratic leaders throughout the ages. Service minded rather than control minded. Rational decision making based on information and open debate. Respect for minorities and people of faith. Opportunity, o’sweet opportunity, available for the hard working and earnest. Something miserably lacking for the past 30 years and even longer.
The people who voted for Mr. Duterte know that the Philippines needs an iron fist against corruption, drugs and criminality.
They have never experienced anything but the yellow kind of control from above, always being told what to do for the past three decades and more. They have finally found inspiration in the Philippines. Inspiration, after all, makes people WANT accountability and to be disciplined, rather than shoving it off onto others.
I do fear that we have a bit of culture warp. The 82% want the iron fist to make them whole. Most of the 84 million, I’d guess, want inspiration. They want to be served, and helped by government, so they can stand up on their own.
Mayor Duterte cares about unity. If we listen to the Yellows, what kind of unity are we in for?
The kind that 4 million want, because they know no different?
Or the kind that over 84 million want, because there is opportunity attached? And hope. And inspiration.
There is even a chance that self-fulfillment will be attached. And inspiration.
There is even a chance that self-fulfillment will be attached. And discipline