I’m a Marxist-Leninist born and grew up in the US-occupied Republic of the Philippines who firmly believes in AES, and a staunch Duterte supporter. And no, I do not support the CPP-NPA, they are Trotskyite pieces of s**t larping as Maoist revolutionaries.
Everyday I have to deal with lib bullshit from from my mother, she keeps asking me why I keep barking negative about the United States. Especially when talking about the elections. She supports Leni Robredo, our own Manchurian Candidate being rigged by US influence to win, so they can dethrone Duterte and enslave us again to Raytheon’s whims for their sweet arms profits at our expense.
I don’t know what correct words to say, it always felt like a trap question everytime she asks why I stan China. I know what to say, I am convinced of my beliefs, its just, I dont know how to explain them without damning myself into their trap.
I kept talking about how chaotic the USA is with all the civil disobedience from both MAGAts and California libs, especially the BLM protests, Freedom Convoy, J6, anti-vaxxer protests, and the riots and shit. All they just said to me? “Its part of the process of healthy democracy.” Riots? Healthy Democracy? Are they fucking kidding me? They think being a dumpster fire for having a clown and later a sleepy old man for presidents is a healthy democracy?
I’m losing brain cells.
me:
you
stop reading the nytimes.
The drug war is an overwhelmingly popular policy in the Philippines. There is a dishonest attempt by western media to portray the drug war in the Philippines as situation similar to the US’s drug war, where poor segments of the population are singled out and targeted for possession of drugs like marijuana or crack and simply killed. This is not what’s happening, and this attempt is being spearheaded at the interests of Pharmaceutical capital, who rightfully see Duterte as a threat to their control over the Philippine market and in particular, their system of profit-by-opium-addiction.
First, it’s important to remember the drugs we’re talking about are not “soft” drugs like marijuana that are plaguing Philippine society, but specifically opiates and methamphetamines. In the course of the drug war, nearly ₱60 billion of drugs have been seized, of which almost ₱50 billion is Shabu (meth). The criticism of the Philippine Police’s lack of drug classifications and therefor treatment of marijuana as being equal to meth or heroin is one which has not only been levelled by many Filipinos, but by Duterte himself – however, he retracted his bid for the legalization of marijuana for reasons I feel aren’t important enough to go into detail here.
So, that being said, when the question “Why is Duterte’s war on drugs so bloody?” comes up, it must be understood that the addicts being dealt with – who are often armed – are not marijuana users, but users of harmful narcotics like meth. If you have ever encountered someone on meth or heroin in real life, you will immediately understand why this would pose a massive problem to society should addiction begin to take hold in large quantities. Whereas yes, 3,050 people have died in the course of the anti-drug operations, this must be juxtaposed with a resounding 1.2 million drug users admitted to rehabilitation facilities.
Most of the brutality of the drug war here are from asshole cops on the ground, not orders from the top. Why do you think Duterte is doing purges on the police force against the so-called "scalawag’ cops?
This context also makes things much more clearer. Thank you for the additional nuance
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Wait they have rehab facilities? I remember doing a project for school like 2 years ago I think and I couldn’t find any mention of rehab facilities. I could only find reports and articles(all western btw I was still a lib back then) talking about the “extra-judicial police murders”. Western propaganda is a removed.
I mean I never said there weren’t any positives to it? There are lots of reactionary things that have a net positive effect on society, like jailing violent criminals for life in a shitty prison or even executing them instead of trying to rehabilitate them
3k people dying in drug ops is a lot lol
And being imprisoned for possession is reactionary
I know the anti-drug policies has done a lot to quell the flow
And my comment implied that I think positively of Duterte overall come on :(
I understand it’s unfair to negatively judge developing countries to not be as socially progressive but I don’t think it’s wrong to acknowledge their shortcomings which is all I did
I think Comrade Deku’s addition above also helped paint a better picture
I do agree with your overall sentiment btw that we can’t just socially reactionary policies in extremely exploited and misfortunate countries. I definitely know very little about the Philippines though as evidence in this thread
Heroin addicts arent “dangerous and armed”, i used to be a heroin addict and never committed any crime, much less attacked anyone or carried arms. Fuck you, fuck you, you are ignorant and a piece of shit insensitive fuck.
Thank you for the information