Ram’s Tale: Let Filipinos Decide

Everytime Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gets in the news, I have an internal battle about how to feel about him.

As a native-born Filipino and an American citizen, I am torn by the polarizing new leader of my birthplace, as well as by my fellow Americans’ knee-jerk condemnation of his actions.

On one hand, most westerners condemn Duterte’s brashness, extreme policies and threats to cut ties with the U.S. because they ultimately hurt Filipinos and Americans.

Still, westerners who condemn Duterte, may be doing so in a vacuum. They have not lived there nor experienced the extreme poverty and the lawlessness of the drug-stricken country.

Duterte has exceeded his power and should be stopped for his drug war and judicial killings. He is constantly described as the “Donald Trump of the Philippines” or even worse, “Hitler.”

These outsiders do a disservice to the people Duterte was elected to serve.  

First of all, the Philippines is not the U.S. The drug problem in the United States is not at all comparable to the drug problem there.

Poverty, drugs and the government are all tied together  and it is very difficult to distinguish one from the other. Where the U.S. can manage to have a drug problem because of a stable government, the Philippines’ government is rather prone to corruption.

Corruption is one of the leading causes of the drug problem there, according to the 2016 International Narcotics Strategy Report by the U.S. Department of State. Many of the offenses involve officials and police accepting bribes.
25 million Filipinos of its population live in poverty.

Selling and doing drugs is an escape from poverty, and with no police force stopping them,the population is stuck and too drugged out to move to economic prosperity. Without the safety nets of western countries, the drug problem between the west and developing countries, it is uncomparable.

The special interest America has in the Philippines is our history with “our little brown brothers.” Ever since the Philippines became independent from being a colony of the U.S., their “white big brothers” have loomed over them for their foothold in Asia.

Now that Duterte is talking of cutting U.S. ties and making deals with China and Russia, now suddenly the U.S. seems very stern about the new unscrupulous leader of the Philippines.

That is why the U.S. cares about the Philippines so much. Not because of the human rights concerns of its people or to economically support the Philippines, it’s because they are concerned about possibly losing a former colony to China and/or Russia.

And this imperialistic view of the Philippines still runs straight through the comments of any Duterte article you come across. They show the arrogant and somewhat-racist taunts of letting Duterte have his way and watch the Philippines crumble.

Yes, people who live a very privileged life in America know what is best for people in a different country. Even though by the latest reports, Duterte has had “very good” ratings from Filipinos, with only 11 percent dissatisfied” with his term.

This is not a defense of Duterte. This is a defense of Philippine sovereignty. What would the West have them do?

The perceived U.S. superiority is seen in the comment of Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel who told the Associated Press that “it would be a serious mistake in a democratic country like the Philippines to underestimate the power of the public’s affinity for the U.S. That’s people power.”

People power?

If the population of the country overwhelmingly vote to elect a candidate, isn’t that people power? So again the U.S. is questioning whether this third world country would stick with their own leader or overthrow him, with U.S. support of course. This does create the impression that the Filipino people cannot even be trusted to elect their own leaders.

If Duterte is as dangerous as “Hitler”, maybe we should intervene. But that really worked out well in our intervention of South America throughout the past. Or should we just ignore all of it, as we have with all the other troubled third world nations, or maybe even sanction an embargo like Cuba.

The U.S. itself helped create the Philippine government, and now that it has resulted in Duterte as the president, the U.S. is suddenly not OK with that because this president doesn’t want to play nice with its “big white brother.”

At the end of the day, the best course of action would be to just let the Philippines be. Let them be their own country. I am proud to be a Filipino. I’m proud that the Filipino people decided that there was need for a huge change.  And it saddens me that people are making out the issues out there to be so simplistic and painting Duterte as a pure villain.

The people who live in the Philippines now know too well how life is like over there and if they decided Duterte is the person they want to lead their country, let it be. If they decide that they aren’t good for their country, that will be their decision made by the Filipino people. And if they decide to stick with Duterte then it is not our place to judge.
Mabuhay Kababayan!