[Philippines] “Stories behind the Autonomous Initiatives against War on Drugs”
By: Chung Bandido

In early 2016, the hype on presidential election was inevitable. Different parties, political personalities and celebrity are like gamblers playing for the seats in the government position. They put millions of pesos for political advertisement, to bribe communities, finding allies, playing that they care, buy air-time on media outlets and so on. Every day from January to May 2016 the news and stories are about election and politicians, most of the people are excited specially the ones who are working with the politician during his/her campaign and also for the people who will have a chance to work temporarily on election dates. The presidential race at that time composed of famous political clan and members of an oligarch families who also benefits in political dynasty like the Binay, the Roxas, and Duterte. The stunning one here and get a lot of support is Duterte from PDP-Laban Party and coming from the south Davao City Mindanao. A long-time mayor serving seven terms for the total of 22 years governing the fourth largest cities in the Philippines, the Davao City. The May 2016 election was a chance for the people from the south to be represented in the national political arena and through election 16 million voters favorably give way to Duterte regime. A man known to have a Davao Death Squad who made systematic practice of extrajudicial killings of drug users and other criminals committing petty crime from 1998 to 2016. Despite of this, millions of people supported him echoing the regional pride of being Bisaya that we’re before experienced different way of discrimination and miss-representation. I believe that this is one of the main factor why Duterte won, he got the sentiment of the marginalized region in the Philippines. Maybe this is also the reason why the mainstream authoritarian-left supported him in his campaign and somehow compromise themselves to be part of his government. 続きを読む →