they have a government sanctioned ‘you can kill any drug user with impunity’ law

If nothing else, I can understand why the government and society moved in this (entirely incorrect) direction. There are also plenty of countries waging active war against domestic communists as well… India and Peru come to mind for starters. If anything, while Duterte was a seriously mixed bag, at least he seemed willing to chart a different course for the country outside of being the US’ lackey.

Unless we’re including west Asia- in which case the obvious answer is Israel- I think it’s the Philippines though, agreed. Between Spanish, and then even worse (and certainly more mentally corrupting in the Philippines’ case) American imperialism, perhaps they didn’t stand a chance. The mental colonization seems to be the worst in all of Asia, and that they brought their former US-backed dictator’s son into power is a perfect example of it. It’s not like Marcos can be considered to have done anything for his country even- I can understand, if not at all agree with Japanese ultranationalism for instance- but all that family stands for is throwing the country into tens of billions of dollars of debt, all sorts of atrocities and deprivation while being the US’ lackey, and fleeing with billions to Hawaii.

I get along well with Filipinos, but the culture and prevailing mentality seems to be so colonized, it would make Japanese, south (occupied) Koreans, and even many rogue Taiwanese blush.