We have just arrived home from our annual visit to the beautiful Philippine Islands.\u00a0 Breakfast of mangoes every morning and perpetual sunny skies.\u00a0 Envious or what?\u00a0 Of course that is not the whole story \u2013 leave the gated communities of the wealthy and witness the poverty suffered by so many of these lovely people.\u00a0 Children beg at traffic light stops, they sleep on the streets. The \u201clucky\u201d ones live in make-shift homes lining every highway. Such absolute poverty seems pitiable and disgraceful to the Western eye.\u00a0 Beyond giving a few pesos to the beggars there seems little that can be done by the tourist. Feelings of helplessness and anger consume me on these occasions! The Philippines face massive problems caused, in part, by the endemic corruption at all levels of Society, the lack of infrastructure, and by the power exercised by the Catholic Church, whose teachings seem light years away from the modernising views of Pope Francis.<\/p>\n
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Since our last visit a new President has been elected \u2013 Rodrigo Duterte.\u00a0 He is already notorious for his War on Drugs policy \u2013 which is definitely far removed from the \u201djust say no\u201d approach of other Governments!\u00a0 Duterte was barely in office last June when he declared his own peculiar take on retribution for drug dealers.\u00a0 He, in effect, has authorized citizens to act as vigilantes and shoot to kill anyone they suspect of being involved in the drug trade!\u00a0 As of December last year official figures show that there have been 5,600 drug-related deaths, 1,950 at the hands of the Police \u2013 the result of shoot-outs during drug bust operations.\u00a0 There have been 3,650 vigilante-style killings, usually performed by masked men on motor cycles. Where all this will end no-one can tell, but certainly the reign of terror in the poor communities shows no sign of ending.\u00a0 Duterte has just announced a further 6 month extension of this policy!<\/p>\n
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There are however some small glimmers of hope that Duterte, who describes himself as a \u201cSocialist\u201d, may be addressing the real problems.\u00a0 In an attempt to ease the traffic grid-lock, particularly in Manila, he has declared a 40% tax on new cars and announced intentions to invest in large rail, road and airport infrastructure projects. \u00a0He is giving land to tenant farmers. He has tripled the wages of low ranking police in an attempt to discourage the bribery that is a way of life, particularly among the traffic police.\u00a0 I have witnessed this first hand.\u00a0 When stopped for a speeding or parking offence, there is no such thing as getting a \u201cticket\u201d.\u00a0 What you do is negotiate a \u201cprice\u201d with the traffic cop, pay him, and go on your way!\u00a0 This may ease corruption at the bottom of society, but it is the corruption at the top that has to be dealt with!<\/p>\n
Duterte would also appear to be challenging the power of the Catholic Church.\u00a0 He has just declared a 3 child policy and the distribution of free contraception among the Poor.\u00a0 To say that the Bishops are unhappy, is putting it mildly.\u00a0 However the population growth in the Philippines must be addressed as a major step in Poverty reduction.<\/p>\n
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So it\u2019s great to be back home to the world of western politics?\u00a0 Er no!\u00a0 Trump has declared his own particular brand of \u201cwar\u201d \u2013 the ban on Muslims!\u00a0 In effect this has given the green light to immigration officers (Homeland Security) to inflict their particular brand of pain on foreigners entering the US \u2013 be they Muslim or just foreign!\u00a0 As someone who has experienced these people at immigration over a number of years, I have been appalled at their rudeness and bullying attitudes.\u00a0 Mind you, when asked accusingly,\u201d You have been married to a US citizen for 40 years, why are you not a US citizen?\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps\u00a0 – \u201cit has never appealed to me!\u201d was the wrong answer.\u00a0 More seriously, some years ago (pre-Trump), I experienced a friend of mine being taken from our company and put in a detention room.\u00a0 She was told to sit down and wait for an officer to question her.\u00a0 When her husband and I tried to intervene we too were threatened with detention.\u00a0 After over and hour she was released.\u00a0 Her crime \u2013 a smudged thumb print!!\u00a0 The lady will never return to the States after her treatment that day.\u00a0 In my view the problem is, that American immigration personnel have been, since the days of Ellis Island, indoctrinated with the idea that America is the \u201ckingdom of heaven\u201d and they are the \u201ckeepers at the gate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s policies have validated their position. They now feel they have carte blanche, and indeed, Presidential sanction, to treat foreigners with contempt and distrust.\u00a0 Look out for the tourist figures plummeting \u2013 and not just from Muslim countries!<\/p>\n
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Of course here in the UK we have much the same attitude to foreigners.\u00a0 EU citizens are left in a state of limbo, while the Home Office tries to rid the country of pesky non-EU foreigners who have made their homes, raised their families and paid their taxes in these nations for decades.\u00a0 Saint Theresa, the vicar\u2019s daughter, must have been absent from Sunday School the day they spoke of Christian compassion!\u00a0 Theresa is straight out of the Trump play book \u2013 but I don\u2019t think even Trump is slashing Disability benefits. She came up to the Tory Party Conference at the weekend and threatened us with the power of Westminster. In effect, she said, Scotland will just \u201cdae as it is telt\u201d by our masters in London!<\/p>\n
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Duterte, Trump and May have at least one thing in common, they are all bullies!\u00a0 We are forever being told that the best way to treat a bully is to stand up to them.\u00a0 Scotland can do just that \u2013 It\u2019s time to stop being the victim!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have just arrived home from our annual visit to the beautiful Philippine Islands.\u00a0 Breakfast of mangoes every morning and perpetual sunny skies.\u00a0 Envious or what?\u00a0 Of course that is not the whole story \u2013 leave the gated communities of the wealthy and witness the poverty suffered by so many of these lovely people.\u00a0 Children beg at traffic light stops, they sleep on the streets. The \u201clucky\u201d ones live in make-shift homes lining every highway. Such absolute poverty seems pitiable and disgraceful to the Western eye.\u00a0 Beyond giving a few pesos to the beggars there seems little that can be done by the tourist. FeelingsRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1670"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1675,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions\/1675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}