Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES Late in January, President Duterte suspended the police-led war on drugs in the wake of the gruesome abduction and murder of the Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo by police elements assigned to the Philippine National Police Anti-Illegal Drugs Group. What ostensibly prompted the suspension order was the realization that the war on drugs was being used … Read more
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and US President Donald Trump seem like twins in terms of political style. They appear to revel in their repeated breach of correct speech and behavioral codes, treating these as the hypocrisies of a detested political establishment. They have both been antagonistic toward the mainstream media, seeing them as complicit guardians … Read more
As a participant in and direct witness to the dramatic events that unfolded at Edsa on Feb. 22-25, 1986, I sometimes turn to written accounts of that period in order to refresh my recollection of those events. Almost always, I find myself flinching from these published narratives and, even more, from their interpretations of what … Read more
President Duterte and his controversial justice secretary, Vitaliano Aguirre II, are so confident the government has built foolproof cases against archcritic and incumbent senator Leila de Lima that they expect to see her locked up in jail any time soon. For the sake of the credibility of our justice system—or what remains of it—I hope … Read more
People are puzzled by President Duterte’s abrupt turnabout in his quest for an enduring peaceful resolution of the decades-old communist insurgency. I suspect that at some point he felt he was being taken for a fool, or shortchanged, by a movement whose friendship he had avidly cultivated, and whose aspirations he thought he shared. Since … Read more
The one thing, I think, President Duterte is learning in the seven months he has been in office is that the government will not instantaneously abide by everything he says whenever he speaks. His officials will increasingly insist that presidential instructions, particularly those that could be questioned on legal and constitutional grounds, be put in … Read more
The ratio is about 2:1. For every drug suspect killed in an acknowledged police operation, at least two others are killed by unknown assassins. Why this seeming preference for anonymous murder in a campaign that has been authorized by no less than the country’s president? Both types of killings are taking place mainly in the … Read more
The biggest beneficiaries of the current campaign against drugs are the rogue elements in the police force—particularly those “with an entrepreneurial affinity for proactive graft.” This type of police officers can turn every rebooted anticrime effort into an opportunity to shake down the vulnerable. They will not hesitate to use the exigencies of law enforcement … Read more
To be able to state what seems commonsensical without fear of being labeled immoral, or criminal, or uncivilized, or even crazy, has been one of President Duterte’s abiding rhetorical skills. It is what makes him a captivating speaker despite his penchant for longwinded and incoherent monologues. One never knows what he’s going to say, or … Read more
Over the holidays, one of my daughters chanced upon my mobile phone and was dismayed to see that I had 37,805 unread e-mails in my mailbox. “Why do you have so much unread mail, Papa?” she asked, half-amused and half-worried. “Because so much time is taken up just reading them, and even more to answer … Read more