New President

[earthdome]

4 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

In regards to the new President. If it's shown on TV with his mouth synchronised with his words would it be reasonable to assume that he is actually saying it more so if many tv news reporters were filming at the same time.  

The latest one is where he tells the public to shoot and kill drug dealers. This could get out of hand and easy to set up a killing of your enemies. Then comes the police shooting suspects, that was the word he was surposinging using at one time and if so a suspect is not a proven fact and with all this shooting going on innocent victims will at time be caught in the crossfire.  

If he said it, he said it. I was referring to the disputed reports regarding the new president's finances.

[robert k]

On the other hand, maybe we are seeing something virtually unheard of in elected politicians in the modern day? Actually implementing the policy that was one of his campaign promises? A major plank of the platform that led the people to elect him. Extraordinary!

Shocking! A politician who does what he said he would do?

[Methersgate]

I just want to make a general point.

"The Devil is in the Detail"

My worries about the incoming Administration are that has promised a lot, but what we get may be rather different.

Here  are some small examples from the  Department of Education - but this story can be duplicated for any department:

The President-elect said that he will scrap school uniforms. His appointee as head of the Department of Education says she won't, as school uniforms are cheaper and have practical advantages:

http://interaksyon.com/article/128723/uniforms-more-practical-economical-incoming-education-head-briones-says

Professor Briones, in turn, said before she took up her post that she opposed the "K to 12" plan to give all Filipinos 12 years of education. Now, she supports it. 

http://interaksyon.com/article/128692/liling-briones-to-continue-k-to-12

She herself has said something without thinking it through - she has said that "interns" should be paid, which is a problem shared across the world now, but it has been pointed out that many students need an internship to complete their courses and graduate, and if employers are required to pay them then fewer interns will be taken on...  

http://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/06/06/16/next-deped-chief-ojt-students-should-be-paid

And of course her department needs more money, which is certainly true:

 http://www.malaya.com.ph/business-news/news/deped-needs-additional-p45b-budget-briones

Whether she will get this, and whether teacher's salaries will be doubled, as also promised by the President- elect, remains to be seen. 

I am not criticising Professor Briones or President Duterte, here - just pointing out how difficult it is to put election campaign statements into practice.  

[robert k]

And this is different from any other election promises, how? I didn't realize that Professor Briones was elected president?

[Methersgate]

20 minutes ago, robert k said:

And this is different from any other election promises, how? I didn't realize that Professor Briones was elected president?

Afraid you lost me there.

Professor Briones has accepted President-elect Duterte's offer of the post of Secretary for Education. I don't think I suggested that she was elected President (she actually is Chancellor of Siliman University in Dumaguete)

 

 

  

[robert k]

39 minutes ago, Methersgate said:

Afraid you lost me there.

Professor Briones has accepted President-elect Duterte's offer of the post of Secretary for Education. I don't think I suggested that she was elected President (she actually is Chancellor of Siliman University in Dumaguete)

 

 

  

To just blanketly say you are worried about campaign promises being kept, I mean do you say the same thing after every election in every country?

Not every appointee agrees totally with the person who appointed them, in fact, I would say that condition was extremely rare. One must either appoint who one thinks is the best qualified person to the job or ones cronies. Are you saying Briones is unqualified? I somehow get the feeling that the president couldn't have made a right choice, no matter who they picked.

Edited June 7, 2016 by robert k

[Methersgate]

Professor Briones is  a Professor of Public Administration and has held office before, as Treasurer of the Philippines, 1998-2001, iirc.  She obviously is a "technocrat" but she is not an education specialist. That's not necessarily a problem. No, I am not suggesting that she is not appropriate for the post, but she does need to think carefully about what she says. Her comment about internships was not thought through, and if implemented would certainly trigger the most powerful law in the Philippines, which is the Law of Un-Intended Consequences.

My point was not about "election promises being dropped"; it was about the difficulty of putting stated positions into practice. I was not setting out to be contentious. I doubt if President Duterte was aware that school uniforms are cheaper than jeans, etc when he made his remark; his children are grown up, and he is wealthy.

I do think that Duterte has "over- promised" compared to earlier Presidents. I have just looked at one relatively non- controversial department, here. He has also promised to end crime and drugs in six months, to raise Police salaries and teacher's salaries by rather large amounts,  to close the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Inland revenue, and much more - to reform the Constitution and bring in a Federal system and a Parliamentary system. My point is that he really cannot hope to do these things, I think that people will be disappointed when they find out that he cannot do them.

       

Edited June 7, 2016 by Methersgate
spelling mistake

[Benington]

The latest organisation in the President elect's sights is the UN. Their two human rights monitor's criticism was on his Journalist statements. He says they got him wrong, but more interesting was his attack on the UN's record in Africa and the Middle East reported on ABS-CBN yesterday. Yes, there's its major failure in Rwanda, maybe in Iraq too...and he could have included Europe and the genocide at Srebenica..But my feeling is that people here, as opposed to quite a few in the West, have a reasonably high opinion of the UN. UN day is fully celebrated in schools. And I think they're proud here of the Philippine's role in its many peace keeping and refugee operations. The UN has development projects here with a good number in Mindanao.

It's not going to resonate with many here, compared with eg his views on the Roman Catholic Church.. but it's just another organisation that commands widespread respect here being targeted. Is there a worldwide trend of electors ignoring the broad range of a candidate's opinions and just voting on single issues where they promise dramatic improvement eg drugs and crime? Can anybody win on a balanced, steady progress platform any more?

[mogo51]

 

IMO, Duterte was elected more by default.  Filipinos just like many citizens of other countries, are sick and tired of the rhetoric and lip service paid to real issues such as poverty, social inequality and the growing rich/poor gap, to name but a few, they are looking for someone to do something about it.

So they look for someone offering something different and in Duterte, they have most definately found it.

[Benington]

The journalist killing issue now commented on by the UN Secretary General, though only on his website, according to ABS-CBN.

The Philippines doesn't normally get into the Western media except for disasters and the S China Sea issue, but this may be changing. If it does some countries may think twice about aid projects here and the only governments who will offer help will be those with debatable human rights records themselves.