Trump’s reign of fear and loathing extends to the Philippines
Support for Philippine death squads reveals the depth of Trump’s contempt for human rights
by Jeff Conant, senior international forests program manager
From his megalomaniac Twitter habit to his virulent bigotry, tacit racism and his autocratic dictates to do away with environmental regulations and social safety nets, there is no doubt that a Trump presidency represents a clear and present danger to civil liberties and basic democratic governance in the United States. But the threat extends far beyond U.S. borders — not just in the frightening-to-us-all ways like his vague support for Russia’s warmongering or his inept triggering of Chinese nuclear saber-rattling, but also, and more generally, in his vocal support for violent autocrats in countries where he has business interests.
A case in point is the Philippines, where President Rodrigo Duterte has been leading a campaign that aggressively encourages the police and others to kill people they suspect of using or selling drugs — or just don’t like the looks of. Since he took office in June, the New York Times reports that more than 2,000 people have been killed by the police, and several hundred more by vigilantes. The Times published a photo essay on the brutal killings in December, titled, “They are slaughtering us like animals,” and a second piece in the January 10th NY Times Magazine called “Duterte’s List.”
As the Times notes, Duterte has called both Barack Obama and the pope “sons of whores,” labeled the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights “an idiot,” and attacked Human Rights Watch for documenting Duterte’s enthusiastic killing sprees. When Duterte was mayor of the Philippine city of Davao, Human Rights Watch reports, a death squad operated by the city government killed about 1,000 people, including suspected criminals, drug dealers, leftists, and street children.
Duterte’s foul mouth and authoritarian bent earned him the name “the Trump of the Philippines.” And it is clear that the two are made for each other: in a gesture that neatly ties the bow linking the two regimes, Duterte picked Trump’s closest Philippine business partner as his envoy to Washington.
On a December 2 call, Trump reportedly wished Duterte success in his campaign of terror.
“I could sense a good rapport, an animated President-elect Trump,” Mr. Duterte told the New York Times after the call. “And he was wishing me success in my campaign against the drug problem.”
The arbitrary and extrajudicial killing of alleged drug users is bad enough, but, as in Duterte’s previous death squad days, the killing spree uses the “anti-drug” campaign as cover for attacks on human rights defenders, environmental activists and other civil society voices. In the interest of getting out the Philippine civil society perspective, we reproduce below, in its entirety, an article written by Friends of the Earth Philippines activist Romel De Vera:
Killings, Impunity and Erosion of the Rule of Law in the Philippines
by Romel De Vera (Originally published at www.lrcksk.org on January 5, 2017.)
Buried under six thousand names in the 2016 six months kill list of President Duterte’s War Against Drugs, are those of civil society leaders like anti-mining activist Jimmy Saypan and environmental youth activist Joselito Pasaporte who were killed in separate incidents in Compostela Valley; anti-crime crusader Zenaida Luz killed by two policemen in Mindoro Oriental; and tricycle transport organisation leader Joel Lising who was shot dead in Tondo, Manila during Human Rights Week in December 2016.
Killings of political activists and rights defenders continue in the Philippines but are now virtually concealed amidst the widespread and systematic killings in police operations and vigilante attacks against suspected drug offenders. This further erosion of the rule of law and the dismantling of human rights standards have led to insecurity in the homes and streets in mostly impoverished communities and provided a new excuse for harassing and silencing political, environmental and community rights defenders.
Duterte won the presidency by a plurality of 39% of electoral votes by championing populist campaign promises such as the annihilation of suspected drug pushers and addicts as well as the end of traditional politics and elite rule. His campaign team exploited the image he created for himself as a ‘man of the masses’ which hid the fact that Duterte comes from a traditional political clan, and that 89% of his P334.8 million (USD$6.72 million) campaign fund came from only 13 big donors with an additional 8% from just a group of 18 campaign fund donors.
The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) reported that within six months of the elections, half a dozen of these donors and their relatives — who represent companies that do business with the government or engage in utilities, mining, and the exploitation of natural resources — had been appointed to Government Cabinet and other positions. Furthermore, upon winning the presidency, Duterte’s economic team has declared that they will continue the neoliberal economic paradigm of the previous administrations and will even work to reform laws and amend the constitution to allow more foreign business and investments into the economy.
Activists and rights defenders will continue to struggle against the threat of political, economic and cultural disintegration of communities and environmental destruction of ecosystems from the continuous drive for resource plunder and labour exploitation by global corporations and the local elite. They will have to seek justice for victims of human rights violations perpetrated against their members and society at large, even as they defend themselves from the brutal coercive apparatus of the state. They will now do this in the context of blatant impunity for killings supported by the president’s War Against Drugs, the impending reimposition of Death Penalty, and authoritarian and neoliberal amendments to the Philippine Constitution. The struggle for survival has become frighteningly literal.
Like Duterte, Trump won the presidency by an overwhelming minority of the popular vote; like Duterte, Trump clearly neither knows nor cares to understand the Constitution of his country; and, like Duterte, he clearly plans to govern through a politics of fear, beginning with the incendiary statement at the heart of his inaugural address last Friday: “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”
Clearly, the carnage is just beginning.
