The Might 9, 2022 Philippines presidential election outcomes are in and for progressives around the globe, it is extremely, very disappointing.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the late former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, gained by a landslide. He achieved a substantial margin of victory, profitable roughly 59 % of the vote—greater than twice that of his fundamental competitor, Vice President Leni Robredo, who gained roughly 28 % of the full.
To know the deep disappointment of progressives around the globe, we should return in time to 1965 when Ferdinand Marcos was elected president. Seven years later, after considerably increasing the dimensions of the Philippine army, he positioned the Philippines underneath martial regulation.
Throughout his complete 21-year reign, he dominated this impoverished nation with an iron fist.
His regime turned recognized for its poor financial efficiency, due in no small half to the rise of crony capitalism. He at all times put the curiosity of the handful of households that owned nearly all of the land forward of the pursuits of the thousands and thousands of labourers who toiled on that land.
He enriched himself and his household within the course of, together with reportedly stealing US$5 billion to US$10 billion from the Central Financial institution of the Philippines. His spouse, Imelda, was stated to have collected 3,000 pairs of sneakers.
His human rights file was atrocious. Though the complete numbers are inconceivable to know, Amnesty Worldwide has reported that 70,000 have been imprisoned, 34,000 tortured, and three,240 documented as killed. Many extra merely disappeared.
Washington backed Marcos all the best way.
It was no shock that this excessive poverty gave start to the New Individuals’s Military. These heroic guerillas have been preventing for social justice to this present day.
Filmmaker Steven De Castro has documented this wrestle within the award-winning movie Revolution Selfie: The Crimson Battalion. Taking his cellphone deep into New Individuals’s Military territory, he interviewed the altruistic men and women who’re devoting their lives to bringing a few simply Philippines.
I’m reminded of Mahatma Gandhi’s very well-known quote “Poverty is the worst type of violence.”
Lastly in 1986, a mass rebellion often called the Individuals Energy Revolution pressured Ferdinand Marcos from workplace.
What adopted was a succession of sham elections during which the candidates supported by Washington and the Philippine media gained each time.
In 2016, Rodrigo Duterte got here to energy and the repression turned even worse. He bragged about the truth that he would experience a bike late at night time into the poor barrios and summarily execute people who have been suspected of drug dealing. It isn’t a shock that, and not using a trial, many harmless individuals fell sufferer to his brutality.
Considered one of Duterte’s most outstanding critics has been Philippines journalist Maria Ressa. Throughout a profession that has included reporting for CNN and the Wall Avenue Journal, and instructing journalism on the College of the Philippines, Ressa has remained dedicated to exposing pretend information and human rights abuses, significantly underneath the Duterte regime.
She is greatest often called a cofounder of the net information website Rappler, one of many first multimedia information web sites within the Philippines. For her continued assist of press freedom, the Duterte authorities has frequently harassed Ressa and has laid quite a few modifications in opposition to her, together with tax evasion and “cyberlibel”, for which she was lately convicted. She now faces six months to 6 years in jail.
In recognition of her excellent work in selling freedom of expression, Maria Ressa, together with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
With the Duterte time period lastly coming to an finish, two fundamental contenders emerged to succeed him. One of many two, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., claimed that the information reporting in regards to the horrible atrocities dedicated by his father was pretend information. He shortly confirmed that he was within the mould of his father and Duterte.
The opposite fundamental contender, Leni Robredo, ran on a platform of wealth redistribution, gender equality, and a daring proposal to scale back greenhouse gasoline emissions. Just some days previous to the election, she held a rally within the capital of Manila which was attended by over 80,000 supporters.
Sadly, with the identical previous assist by Washington and the Philippine media, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. gained by a landslide.
If there’s to be any hope for financial justice within the Philippines, it would come about because of the heroic efforts of the New Individuals’s Military.
Day by day atmospheric CO2[Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Newest each day complete (Might 12, 2022): 421.87ppm
One yr in the past (Might 11, 2021): 418.51 pm
