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dn 9 26

Ex-Philippines President Duterte Appears at ICC to Face Charges Over “War on Drugs” Killings | Democracy Now!

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Facebook Used the Philippines to Test Free Internet. Then a Dictator Was Elected

NO LNX

Facebook Used the Philippines to Test Free Internet. Then a Dictator Was Elected.

By Jake Swearingen

Sept. 4, 2018

A pool of blood remains at the gutter where an alleged drug user was killed by unidentified assailants in Manila, Philippines. Photo: Ezra Acayan/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In 2013, Facebook hit upon an idea to grow its user base: It would subsidize internet access to Facebook on mobile devices in countries where cellular data was pricey, physical internet infrastructure was poor, and the smartphone revolution meant many leapfrogged from having no internet access at all to using their smartphone as their only source to the web. It found the perfect country to test this out on, in the 100 million citizens of the Philippines, calling it “Free Facebook.”

If the idea sounds familiar, it’s because Facebook attempted to do a version of this in many more countries with its “Internet.org” plan, hoping to get basic internet access to billions of people living without it — access that would come thanks to subsidies from Facebook. Internet.org was largely a failure, thanks to pushback by local governments, telecom companies, and human-rights organizations. Meanwhile, Free Facebook remains wildly successful in the Philippines. As outlined by BuzzFeed News reporter Davey Alba, the company serves as the de facto ISP for many Filipinos:

Thanks to a social media–hungry populace and heavy subsidies that keep Facebook free to use on mobile phones, Facebook has completely saturated the country. And because using other data, like accessing a news website via a mobile web browser, is precious and expensive, for most Filipinos the only way online is through Facebook.

Roughly 69 million Filipinos have access to the internet today, of those nearly 100 percent have a Facebook account. In the U.S. and Canada, for comparison, 87 percent of people with internet access use Facebook. (Zuckerberg, when told by the CEO of Filipino website Rappler in April of 2017 that 97 of the population with internet access was on Facebook, reportedly asked, “What about the other 3 percent?”)

Two years after the launch of Free Facebook, Rodrigo Duterte mounted a presidential bid, casting himself as the tough-on-crime, anti-elite Everyman ready to bring back jobs and order. Posts about Duterte, full of memes, propaganda, and outright libel (one opponent, now in prison on a dubious drug charge, saw a fake sex tape circulate on Facebook with her in it) did extremely well on Facebook, as nearly any inflammatory content does. When Duterte said he would dump the bodies of executed drug dealers “into Manila Bay, and fatten all the fish there,” the post immediately went “viral, viral, viral,” bragged one of his two social-media directors.

:{:{He won handily, and his rule has been brutal. At least 12,000 people have been killed during Duterte’s crackdown on drugs, and hundreds of thousands of Filipinos have been jailed, many of them opponents of Duterte himself.}:

Meanwhile, his social-media team has actively worked to bring in social-media influencers to prop up Duterte’s regime (think Filipino versions of social-media creatures like Mike Cernovich, Laura Loomer, or Jack Posobiec) working closely with the Duterte administration — sometimes directly on the government payroll — to spread fake stories such as a deposed Supreme Court justice was caught attempting to flee the country. Meanwhile, news sources seen as unfriendly to the Duterte campaign have increasingly come under fire, including banning all reporters from an outlet from the presidential palace.}:

Look: Absent Facebook, Duterte almost assuredly would have assumed power and began his dictatorial rule over the Philippines. But Facebook’s News Feed algorithm, attenuated to surface anything that attracts attention, amplifies dictators and demagogues like Duterte. In one egregious example, a fake sex tape spread quickly through Facebook of one of Duterte’s opponents having sex with her chauffeur. “De Lima is not only screwing her driver, she is also screwing the nation,” quipped Duterte.

Facebook says it’s working to police the content in the Philippines better. “We know we were too idealistic about the nature of these connections and didn’t focus enough on preventing abuse or thinking through all the ways people could use the tools on the platform to do harm,” said a Facebook spokesperson to BuzzFeed News. “In the Philippines, this includes the roll-out of third-party fact-checking, better detection of bad content, improved enforcement of our policies, and deeper support for the country’s digital literacy efforts.” (Ironically, many of Facebook’s content moderators who would end up doing this work live in the Philippines.)

:{:{There’s a peculiar callousness in Facebook using entire countries as testing environments. Last year, the company wanted to know what happen if it split the News Feed into two separate streams: one only populated by posts created by friends, and one only for posts created by media publishers. Instead of testing this on a small percentage of American users, it simply flipped the switch in six countries: Bolivia, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Guatemala, and Cambodia. Media organizations suddenly saw their websites’ traffic plummet, fake news stories flourished, and Facebook shut down the experiment within weeks , apologizing in a post that the company “received feedback that we made it harder for people in the test countries to access important information.”}:

About 66 million people — roughly the population of Texas, Florida, and New York combined — live in those six countries. Each country has its own particular news ecosystems, cultural norms, and political challenges. For Facebook, the countries represented a handy way to try out some A/B testing. To be very cynical about it, it also probably affected Facebook’s decision that those six countries bring in significantly less advertising dollars than Texas, Florida, and New York.}:

In the Philippines, its Free Facebook program has become so successful that it’s hard to imagine how Facebook and the Philippines could ever untwine themselves from each other. (Indeed, the company partnered with Duterte’s government to build an undersea cable connecting the Philippines to the U.S. and Asian countries.) And even after Duterte leaves office, whenever that may be, the Philippines will still be a country where one website’s algorithm determines what 97 percent of internet users look at.

There are, of course, no parallels to be drawn between the Philippines and the United States.

Correction: An earlier version of this story cited that 97 percent of Filipinos with Internet access have a Facebook account. According to the data from WeAreSocial, that number is actually 100 percent; 97 percent of Filipinos with internet access were on Facebook in April 2017. The post has been updated to reflect that.

Sources How Duterte Used Facebook To Fuel the Philippine Drug War [Buzzfeed]

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DN 1 25

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Maria, could you say, specifically, I mean, in a place like the Philippines, there’s — almost 90% of the population in the Philippines is on Facebook. And how is Facebook used, not only in terms of posting information, but also as a means of communication, and the way in which misinformation has spread on Facebook in the past, not only, of course, in Myanmar, which is the example that you cited, but also in the Philippines and elsewhere?

MARIA RESSA: I mean, very specifically, our past president, Rodrigo Duterte, used the design of what was an advertising and marketing platform of Facebook to do information operations. I was getting an average of 90 — nine, zero — hate messages per hour, free speech used to stifle free speech. But beyond that, these networks of information warfare, networks of disinformation literally changed our history in front of our eyes, setting the stage for the election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the only son of our dictator who was in power for 21 years, Ferdinand Marcos. You’ll remember Imelda Marcos and her shoes. Her son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., won overwhelmingly in our presidential elections, because, literally, Filipinos were taught in information operations — YouTube, Meta and Facebook — that Marcos was not a dictator, in 1986 ousted in people power; instead, he was the greatest leader the Philippines has ever known.

AMY GOODMAN: In 2021, the Rohingya refugees actually sued Facebook’s parent company Meta over its failure to stop violent hate speech on its platform, which contributed to the bloody military crackdown of the Rohingya Muslim community by the military in 2017 in Burma, also known as Myanmar. Law firms in the U.S. and U.K. launched the legal effort on behalf of the Rohingya around the world, including in Bangladeshi refugee camps. Plaintiffs demanded over $150 billion in damages. The U.N. found as many as 10,000 Rohingya were killed by Burmese forces during the 2017 genocide, though some estimates put the death toll at twice that. Over another 730,000 people were forced to flee the country. I just want to go to a quick video, part of a video, produced by Amnesty, featuring a survivor of the Rohingya genocide.

SAWYEDDOLLAH: My name is Sawyeddollah. I am from Myanmar, but now I am living in Bangladesh, Cox’s Bazar, as a forcibly displaced Myanmar national. [translated] I personally experienced that online hate speech turned into offline hate for us. There were many different things on Facebook against us, which turned the people of Myanmar against us. I saw many different anti-Rohingya posts on Facebook. For example, I still remember a post that said, “The birth rate of these Bengali [Rohingya] people is very high. If it remains continuously like this, we will become their slaves. Now they are our slaves. Let’s go for action.” I knew about the option of reporting hate speech to Facebook. I already reported some hate speech to Facebook, but it only said, “Thank you for reporting. This post doesn’t go against our community standards.”

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Siva Vaidhyanathan into this conversation, author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy, a professor at the University of Virginia. And I wanted to go to this issue of hate and how deadly it can be, whether we’re talking about Burma, Myanmar, or whether we’re talking about the United States. I mean, you have, just giving a bunch of examples, roughly seven in 10 lesbian, gay, bisexual adults have encountered any harassment online. Fully 51% have been targeted for more severe forms of online abuse. You have roughly about a third of women under 35 may have been sexually harassed online. You have — a study of 51 countries reveals 38% of women had personally experienced online harassment. Professor Vaidhyanathan, if you can talk about the connection to hate and how that connects to, well, your headline of your Guardian piece, “Mark Zuckerberg has gone full Maga”?

SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN: Right. Well, let’s be clear about this change. And I’m really thrilled that you’ve started this conversation by going beyond the United States. What Mark Zuckerberg announced the other day clearly only applies to the United States in terms of its specificity. In the United States, since 2017, Meta has been trying to at least appear that it’s taking content moderation seriously. And let’s remember, the proper phrase to describe what we’re talking about is “content moderation.” Fact-checking was never part of the formula. It’s not about facts. It’s about protecting users. It’s about protecting people from things like harassment, for protecting groups of people from campaigns and movements, people like citizens of my town, Charlottesville, Virginia, who encountered a flood of violent right-wingers in the summer of 2017 through a movement that was largely organized through Facebook. So, the idea here — and why Zuckerberg has appeared before Congress multiple times swearing that he’s doing a good job — has all been about the United States.

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muy macho

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/philippines-president-pardons-us-marine-in-transgender/

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Rodrigo Duterte - Wikipedia

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Rodrigo Roa Duterte KGCR (English: /dəˈtɜːrteɪ/, Tagalog: [ɾɔˈdɾigɔ ˈɾɔwa dʊˈtɛɾtɛ] ^ⓘ; born March 28, 1945), also known as Digong, Rody,[6] and by the initials DU30 and PRRD,[7][8] is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He is the chairperson of PDP–Laban, the ruling political party in the Philippines during his presidency. Duterte is the first president of the Philippines to be from Mindanao,[9][10] and is the oldest person to assume office, beginning his term at age 71.[11]

Born in Maasin, Leyte (now in Southern Leyte), Duterte moved to Davao as a child where his father, Vicente Duterte, served as provincial governor. He studied political science at the Lyceum of the Philippines University, graduating in 1968, before obtaining a law degree from San Beda College of Law in 1972. He then worked as a lawyer and was a prosecutor for Davao City, before becoming vice mayor and, subsequently, mayor of the city in the wake of the 1986 People Power Revolution. Duterte won seven terms and served as mayor of Davao for over 22 years, during which the once crime-ridden city became peaceful and investor-friendly.[12][13]^

:{Duterte's 2016 presidential campaign led to his election victory. During his presidency, his domestic policy focused on combating the illegal drug trade by initiating the controversial war on drugs, fighting crime and corruption,[14][15][16] and intensified efforts against terrorism and communist insurgency. He launched a massive infrastructure plan,[17][18] initiated liberal economic reforms,[19] streamlined government processes,[20] and proposed a shift to a federal system of government which was ultimately unsuccessful.[21]

He also oversaw the controversial burial of Ferdinand Marcos,[22][23] the 2017 Battle of Marawi,[24] and the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[25] He declared the intention to pursue an "independent foreign policy", and strengthened relations with China and Russia.[26] He initially announced his candidacy for vice president in the 2022 election, but in October 2021, said he was retiring from politics; the next month, he filed his candidacy for senator but withdrew it on December 14.[27]}:

Duterte's political positions have been described as populist,[28][29][30] as well as nationalist.[31][32][33] His political success has been aided by his vocal support for the extrajudicial killing of drug users and other criminals.[34] His career has sparked numerous protests and attracted controversy, particularly over human rights issues and his controversial comments. Duterte has repeatedly confirmed to have personally killed criminal suspects during his term as mayor of Davao.[35][36]

Extrajudicial killings that were allegedly committed by the Davao Death Squad between 1998 and 2016 during Duterte's mayoralty have also been scrutinized by human-rights groups and the Office of the Ombudsman;[37][38] the victims were mainly alleged dr41] prompting Duterte to withdraw the Philippines from the body in response.^[42^] He is the only president in the history of the [Philippinesug users, alleged petty criminals, and street children.[39][40] The International Criminal Court opened a preliminary investigation into Duterte's drug war in 2018, not to declare his assets and liabilities.[43] Duterte's popularity and domestic approval rating remained relatively high throughout his presidency and by the end of his term, he was the most popular post-EDSA (1986 People Power Revolution) president.[44][45][46]^

2025

Duterte's political positions have been described as populist,[28][29][30] as well as nationalist.[31][32][33] His political success has been aided by his vocal support for the extrajudicial killing of drug users and criminals.[34] His career has sparked numerous protests and attracted controversy, particularly over human rights issues and his controversial comments. Duterte has repeatedly confirmed to have personally killed criminal suspects during his term as mayor of Davao.[35][36] Extrajudicial killings that were allegedly committed by the Davao Death Squad between 1998 and 2016 during Duterte's mayoralty have also been scrutinized by human-rights groups and the Office of the Ombudsman.[37][38] The victims were mainly alleged drug users, alleged petty criminals, and street children.[39][40] The International Criminal Court opened a preliminary investigation into Duterte's drug war in 2018,[41] prompting Duterte to withdraw the Philippines from that body in response.[42] He is the only president in the history of the Philippines not to declare his assets and liabilities.[43] Duterte's popularity and domestic approval rating remained relatively high throughout his presidency, and by the end of his term he was the most popular post-People Power Revolution president.[44][45][46]

The International Criminal Court's investigation led to Duterte's arrest and transfer to The Hague on March 11, 2025, making him the first Philippine president to face an international tribunal and the first Asian leader to face a trial before the ICC.[47][48]

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DN 7/6/20 new terror law --> authoritarian

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https://amti.csis.org/dutertes-pivot-to-russia/

by RICHARD JAVAD HEYDARIAN | OCTOBER 17, 2019

AMTI UPDATE

While Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial China policy has understandably attracted considerable attention, few have taken his strategic pivot to Russia seriously enough. Instead, even some senior Filipino officials view burgeoning ties with Moscow as nothing but a reflection of Duterte’s personal fascination with Russia and his famed “bromance” with Vladimir Putin.

But reaching out to Moscow carries potentially huge geostrategic implications. In the spirit of his so-called “independent foreign policy,” Duterte has single-handedly shattered the profound stigma surrounding defense cooperation with Russia, with far reaching consequences. The Philippines is now seriously exploring large-scale purchases of advanced Russian military hardware as well as offshore energy investments to strengthen its hand in the South China Sea amid Beijing’s rising assertiveness.

Strategic Diversification

To put things into perspective, Duterte is the only Filipino leader in recent memory to have visited Russia for an official mission. Throughout the Cold War, the Philippines, host to the United States’ largest overseas naval and air bases, largely shunned relations with Moscow. Thereafter, post-Soviet Russia had minimal strategic presence in Southeast Asia, reduced at best to an afterthought among Filipino leaders who actively prioritized bilateral relations with the United States and China.

An element of personal diplomacy and ideological alignment has driven this surprising turn in the historically lukewarm Philippine-Russia relationship. As an authoritarian-leaning populist, Duterte has repeatedly praised Putin, calling the Russian leader his “favorite hero” and citing his supposed personal decisiveness, iron-fist rule, and brazen defiance of the West. Outraged by international criticism of his brutal drug war, the Filipino leader is naturally drawn to the Russian notion of “sovereign democracy” (suverennaya demokratiya), which emphasizes national insulation from external, especially Western, influence.

But beyond the personal dynamics, there is a deeper strategic argument for Duterte’s pivot to Russia. As the Filipino leader made it clear during his high-profile speech at the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, with Putin and several Asian leaders in attendance, his goal is not to ditch the long-standing alliance with the United States, nor is he against liberal democratic values per se. Instead, he seeks to amend an “oversight of [huge] strategic proportion” in the Philippines’ traditional foreign policy, which relegated Russia to “the margins.” He clarified that he is primarily interested in “expand[ing] the horizon of Philippine diplomacy by deepening our engagement” with like-minded nations and non-western powers. In short, this is less about Putin and more about the need for the Philippines to find new partners.

Duterte’s recent five-day visit to Russia was not his first. In early-2017, the Filipino leader had to cut short his state visit to Moscow following the siege of Marawi by Islamic State-affiliated groups in the southern Philippines. Despite the disruption, the Philippine delegation, which included top defense and national security officials, signed a number of key agreements with the Eurasian power, including an Agreement on Defense Cooperation.

The upshot was the rapid emaciation of the U.S.-trained Philippine defense establishment’s stigma against cooperation with Russia.  As the battle of Marawi raged on, Russia seized on the opportunity to become a key source of counter-terrorism assistance. With a defense agreement in place, Moscow offered direct military assistance, including assault rifles and armored vehicles, in addition to intelligence on foreign IS fighters operating in the region.

Russia’s South China Sea Foray

Counter-terrorism cooperation quickly became a springboard for closer defense relations that have the potential to strengthen the Philippines’ position in the South China Sea. In recent years, Russian warships have made regular port calls in Manila as both sides began discussing joint naval exercises in Philippine waters, especially the country’s porous borders with Malaysia and Indonesia, which have served as entry points for transnational terrorists.

The Philippines is now set to acquire 16 Mi-17 medium-lift helicopters (worth $14.7 million), a symbolic purchase that may pave the way for more advanced and large-scale acquisitions. Amid a multi-billion-dollar military modernization program, with a focus on developing maritime security capabilities, the Philippine military is actively seeking alternative and more affordable arms suppliers.

According to Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, the Southeast Asian country is currently exploring the purchase of attack helicopters, multi-role fighter jets, and warships from Russia. He even hinted at a potential purchase of Kilo-class submarines, which could be deployed for defense of Philippine interests in the South China Sea. Like Vietnam and Malaysia, the Philippines is carefully examining large-scale purchases of (relatively affordable) advanced Russian weaponry to help keep external threats, particularly China, at bay.

Recognizing the vast potential in bilateral defense cooperation, Moscow recently deployed its first ever defense attaché to Manila, with one Russian diplomat boasting, “What we can assure you, if you are going to procure military equipment, for us, we are going to give you brand new ones and not second hand.” It was a thinly veiled reference to Duterte’s constant criticism of the United States for supposedly giving its Southeast Asian ally mostly hand-me-down military equipment.

During the Philippine-Russia Business Forum this month, Duterte also invited top Russian companies to invest in the country, particularly in the energy and infrastructure sector. He has reportedly sought offshore energy investments from Russian oil giant Rosneft.

The details are yet to be fully disclosed, but the two sides are likely exploring the possibility of Russian offshore investments in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea. After all, major Russian companies including Rosneft as well as Gazprom and Zarubezhneft are active in Vietnamese offshore oil and gas projects in the area.

The Philippines could take a page out of Vietnam’s playbook by leveraging Russian military technology and energy investments to ward off Chinese aggression in its waters. Despite its close relations with Beijing, Moscow has shown remarkable interest in expanding its strategic footprint in Southeast Asia, especially among China’s rivals in the South China Sea. Burgeoning Philippine-Russian relations represent, to use the tired Chinese diplomatic lexicon, a potential “win-win” cooperation for both sides.

About Richard Javad Heydarian

Richard Javad Heydarian is an Asia-based academic, currently a Research Fellow at National Chengchi University (Taiwan), and author of, among other works, The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy and The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China, and the New Struggle for Global Mastery.

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criminalization:

not sure he deserves whistleblower name, but aha transparency --> CRIME; also authoritarian dics eg duterte murders drug users

an 620

Trump threatens John Bolton with ‘criminal liability’ to keep him quiet

Jon Queally / Common Dreams

President Donald Trump on Monday claimed that any conversation between himself and former National Security Advisor John Bolton is “highly classified,” threatening his far-right former top advisor with “criminal liability”…

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420 shoot troublemakers

Japan’s Shinzo Abe to Declare Emergency; Filipino Police Kills Man Who Flouted Coronavirus Rules

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cf report (dl)

https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/defending-philippines/

...In  2018, 30 land and environmental defenders were killed in the Philippines, making it the country with the highest number of such killings in the world. As our new investigation shows, despite his election promises, Duterte’s administration is leaving defenders at the mercy of corporate greed.

Mining, agribusiness, logging and coal plants are driving attacks against environmental activists – with household brands such as Del Monte Philippines and Dole Philippines, and Filipino giants like San Miguel Corporation linked to local partners accused of attacks and murders of protestors.

Download the full investigation, Defending the Philippines** (PDF, 5.2MB)

Upon becoming President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte promised to safeguard the country’s rural and indigenous communities, tackle corruption, and protect the environment. Yet our research shows how Duterte has categorically failed to keep these promises, allowing business to continue as usual. And in the Philippines, this means business at all costs. Our report documents a trashing of indigenous rights, endemic corruption, and continued environmental damage – all with impunity

Furthermore, we show how internationally recognised firms including Del Monte Philippines, San Miguel Corporation, Standard Chartered, Dole Philippines, and the World Bank are connected to attacks against defenders through their business activities in the Philippines.

KEY FINDINGS

Violence against land and environmental defenders in the Philippines is a systemic problem, spanning many different regions of the country and many different industries, including:

In none of these cases has justice been done.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Duterte’s government must comply with international law and take action to prevent abuses of land rights and of the environment, protect defenders at risk, and hold the perpetrators of intimidation and violence to account.

Those doing business in the Philippines must also recognise their role in facilitating violence – whether through proactive strategies, turning a blind eye, or simply negligence – and clean up their acts or be held accountable.

Consumers can play a part too – by demanding that the fruit they buy or the hotel they stay in isn’t associated with bloodshed, and by demanding that their government take a stand to enable those defending their land and our environment to do so without fearing for their lives.

FIND OUT MORE

Ben Leather,Campaigner, Land and Environmental Rights Defenders

bleather@globalwitness.org

44 (0)7841 337 034

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no lnx

https://time.com/5638438/global-witness-environmental-activists-murdered/

Across the world calls to protect the planet are growing louder, yet standing up against the deleterious effects of mining, logging and agribusiness continues to be fatal, U.K.-based watchdog Global Witness said in a new report Tuesday.

By sheer number, the Philippines was found to be the deadliest country for environmental defenders in 2018, with 30 environmentalists murdered. But around the globe, more than three defenders were killed each week of last year, the group’s latest report Enemies of the State? says.

“These are ordinary people trying to protect their homes and livelihoods, and standing up for the health of our planet,” Global Witness said in a release.

While the total last year, 164 deaths, represents a drop from the 2017 peak of 201, the group notes that non-lethal means of quashing dissent are also rampant.

“Countless more people were threatened, arrested or thrown in jail for daring to oppose the governments or companies seeking to profit from their land,” it said. It is common for businesses and authorities to “use courts and legal systems to silence those who threaten their interests,” the report notes.

The report calls renewed international attention to the bloodshed that has occurred under President Rodrigo Duterte’s watch. Soon after coming to power in 2016, Duterte declared a deadly crackdown on drugs and his administration has been mired in accusations of human rights abuses and violence. In 2017, Global Witness said 48 environmental defenders were killed on the archipelagic nation, the highest ever recorded in an Asian country. In both 2017 and 2018, a large number of those deaths were linked to agribusiness.

[pix PI protest]

globally, mining was responsible for the largest number of killings—43 deaths—while conflicts over water projects surged at 17 deaths.

Across sectors, demand for consumer products—from food to jewelry to mobile phones—drives the persecution, the report says.

Global Witness warned that despite a dip in total deaths, the overall climate for environmental activists does not look to be improving. “Signs are worrying that the situation for environmental and land defenders will worsen,” it says. For example, Brazil’s strongman leader Jair Bolsonaro has pledged to open indigenous reserves for commercial development and in the U.S., President Donald Trump has sought to open more land to oil and gas companies.

And in the U.K., anti-fracking activists were targeted with terrorism related charges carrying potential life sentences, charges far more serious than are usually brought against protesters.

"This is a phenomenon seen around the world: land and environmental defenders are declared terrorists, locked up or hit with paralyzing legal attacks, for defending their rights, or simply for living on lands that are coveted by others,” Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, said in a statement.

Companies and governments must act to stop land and resource conflicts, the report says.

“As we hurtle towards climate breakdown, it has never been more important to stand with those who are trying to defend their land and our planet against the reckless destruction being meted out by the rich and powerful,” Alice Harrison, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, said.

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guk no lnx

Environmental activist murders double in 15 years

Death toll almost half that of US troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, data shows

Jonathan Watts

@jonathanwatts

Mon 5 Aug 2019 11.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 5 Aug 2019

Michelle Campos, whose father, grandfather and teacher were killed for opposing mining in Mindanao, the Philippines]

Michelle Campos, whose father, grandfather and teacher were killed in September 2015 for opposing mining in Mindanao, the Philippines. Photograph: Tulda Productions

Killings of environmental defenders have doubled over the past 15 years to reach levels usually associated with war zones, according to a study that reveals how murders of activists are concentrated in countries with the worst corruption and weakest laws.

At least 1,558 people in 50 states were killed between 2002 and 2017 while trying to protect their land, water or local wildlife, says the analysis, which calculates the death toll is almost half that of US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.

The rate of deaths in this period increased from two to four a week, which the authors attributed to rising environmental stress as the global demand for resources pushes mining, farming and other extractive industries into ever more remote regions.

The study, published in Nature Sustainability, attempts to identify the most important drivers for the murders of environmental and land defenders.

Philippines is deadliest country for defenders of environment

Read more]

The strongest correlation was with rule of law. Almost all of the killings occurred in the countries that scored lowest for corruption, fundamental rights, government powers, transparency and legal oversight. Most of these were in tropical and subtropical countries, particularly in Central and South America.

Only 10% of defender murders results in a conviction, compared with an average of 43% for all global homicides, says the paper.

“The toll is unbelievable,” said Nathalie Butt, the lead author and a researcher at the University of Queensland. “Conflict over resources is the issue, but it is corruption that is the problem.”

She said companies and consumers in wealthy countries in the northern hemisphere should take more responsibility for products sourced in the south. “We need to make ethics and transparency an important part of the supply chain. We need to ensure that there is no blood on our hands.”

The researchers say the tally is likely to be a conservative estimate because many deaths were unreported, particularly in authoritarian states where the media and NGOs are restricted.

The data is provided by the watchdog NGO Global Witness, which reported a fall in killings – closer to three a week – in its latest annual survey. But the authors say the long-term trend remains higher, particularly with regard to killings of indigenous people, who make up a disproportionately large proportion of the victims.

“We think attacks on indigenous people are likely to increase, particularly in Brazil where [president] Jair Bolsonarohas taken power with a promise that indigenous people must adapt to the majority or disappear. He is putting exploitation of the environment first,” warned the report’s co-author, Frances Lambrick, a co-founder and director of the Not1More NGO.

Such concerns increased last month with the killing of the indigenous leader Emyra Waiãpi in an area rife with illegal gold mining.

On Monday the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, called on the Brazilian authorities to investigate the incident and bolster efforts to halt illegal land seizures by miners, loggers and farmers.

“The Brazilian government’s proposed policy to open up more areas of the Amazon to mining could lead to incidents of violence, intimidation and killings of the type inflicted on the Waiãpi people last week,” Bachelete said.

“I call on the government of Brazil to reconsider its policies towards indigenous peoples and their lands, so Emrya Waiãpi’s murder does not herald a new wave of violence aimed at scaring people off their ancestral lands and enabling further destruction of the rainforest, with all the scientifically established ramifications that has for the exacerbation of climate change.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/exclusive-disinformation-is-catalyzing-the-global-spread-of-authoritarianism/

no lnx

Disinformation is catalyzing the spread of authoritarianism worldwide

This article was paid for with reader donations to Alternet 2020.

Written by Joshua Holland August 31, 2019

There’s a segment of the American left that believes we’re in no position to be outraged over Russia’s multifaceted campaign to swing the 2016 election to Trump because the U.S. has meddled in its share of elections in other countries. Setting aside the fact that this is a prime example of the tu quoque fallacy, it ignores the specific context of that intervention. The Kremlin didn’t help elect a generic Republican who is sympathetic to their interests–they worked on behalf of a clownish and corrupt narcissist who has no clue whatsoever about how to govern and has emboldened an ethno-nationalist movement that’s ripping the country apart.

But that argument also fails to grasp that this isn’t just about us. As I wrote for The Nation in 2017, long before Trump descended on that gaudy golden escalator to announce his candidacy with a rant about Mexico sending us their rapists, Russia had honed its tactics in Estonia, followed soon after by attempts, with varying degrees of success, to disrupt the domestic politics of Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Finland, Bosnia and Macedonia.

While those efforts were on behalf of politicians and parties that were seen as advancing the Kremlin’s interests, and weren’t strictly ideological, in most cases they resulted in support for far-right ethno-nationalists.

More recently, Russia appears to have assisted the Yes campaign leading up to the UK’s Brexit referendum and is alleged to have offered financial and other assistance to a whole string of far-right, anti-immigrant parties across Western Europe.

But just as this isn’t about the U.S. alone, it also isn’t about Russia. As The New York Times reported earlier this year, researchers have “discovered numerous copycats, particularly on the far right. Those groups often echo Kremlin talking points, making it difficult to discern the lines between Russian propaganda, far-right disinformation and genuine political debate.”

Last month, The Washington Post reported that,  “as reporters, propaganda experts, and government officials ponder where the next plot to manipulate an election using social media will emerge, one country on the map appears to be blinking red: the Philippines.”

If that comes as a surprise, consider that Filipinos spend on average 10 hours a day online, that almost everyone older than 13 uses social media, and that Facebook is accessible on smartphones without paying data charges. The Philippines is a place where troll armies duke it out across the country and where an increasingly sophisticated web of public relations firms and social media contractors is emerging.

The disinformation industry in the country got a jump start when President Rodrigo Duterte employed a so-called keyboard army of paid trolls and supportive volunteers to help pave his way to an election victory in 2016.

In Brazil, another clownish demagogue whom nobody thought would win, Jair Bolsonaro, has given his countrymen tacit permission to torch the Amazon. He, too, can probably thank disinformation campaigns on social media for his unlikely victory.

As Zack Beauchamp wrote for Vox shortly after Brazil’s election:

At the inauguration of Brazil’s new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, in early January, a crowd of his supporters began a surprising chant. They weren’t cheering for Bolsonaro or his running mate or their party; instead, they were reciting the names of social media platforms.

“Facebook, Facebook, Facebook!” the crowd yelled. “WhatsApp, WhatsApp, WhatsApp!”

They were crediting the platforms with their man’s victory, and they aren’t entirely wrong. During the campaign, a conservative pro-business interest groupfunded a massive disinformation campaign on WhatsApp (the popular messaging app owned by Facebook). False and damaging information about Bolsonaro’s left-wing opponent, including fake news mocked up to look like neutral fact-checks, spread like wildfire in the runup to the October 8 vote. This deluge, according to one Brazilian expert, played a role in Bolsonaro’s victory.

The glee Bolsonaro’s supporters exhibited points to a troubling development, one familiar to many Americans: Social media, once seen as a profoundly democratic technology, is increasingly serving the needs of authoritarians and their allies.

The reality is that the true agendas of far-right “populists” tend to be quite unpopular. Around the world, they seem to have grasped that in order to claim and then hold onto power, they have to not only demonize their political opponents, but also discredit democratic institutions–especially the independent press–and their best tool for doing so is with coordinated disinformation campaigns disseminated largely through social media.

In this, they have a structural advantage over those who remain invested in pluralistic democracy. It is anathema to most of them to fight fire with fire–to stoop to using similar tactics–and as we know, a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can put on its boots.

Unless this asymmetry is addressed in some fashion–and it’s not an easy nut to crack–historians may look back at the early 21st century and conclude that this was the time when it became apparent that liberal democracy is fundamentally incompatible with the internet and it’s free-wheeling information infrastructure.

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4/26/19 dn 30K kia 27k UN war on drugs

duterte said fish in manilla bay will be fat on dumped bodies

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In the Philippines, authorities have arrested award-winning journalist Maria Ressa in connection with a cyber libel case. Ressa is the founder of the independent news site Rappler and a vocal critic of the country’s president. The charges stem from a story published by Rappler in 2012 in which the paper detailed the alleged criminal ties of a businessman based on intelligence reports. This is Ressa speaking during her arrest earlier today.

Maria Ressa: “What I know is I have not gotten an official copy of the DOJ indictment. We would have the chance to file a motion for reconsideration—we should. The fact that an arrest warrant has been issued, well, really interesting. And I will follow. I’m just shocked that the rule of law has been broken to the point that I can’t see it.”

Rappler and Maria Ressa have been repeatedly targeted by Duterte’s government. In November, authorities indicted Ressa and the site on tax evasion charges, which are widely believed to be politically motivated. Click here to see our November interview with Maria Ressa.

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https://www.alternet.org/world/theres-growing-international-alliance-right-wing-demagogues

no lnx few

There’s a Growing International Alliance of Right-Wing Demagogues

From Brazil’s Bolsonaro to the Philippines’ Duterte to the leader of them all, Trump.

By Vijay Prashad / Independent Media Institute October 23, 2018, 12:06 PM GMT

Lula in His Cell

Lula da Silva—Brazil’s former president—is sitting in his prison in Curitiba, a small town southwest of São Paulo. He should not be there. Evidence of corruption against him hangs on the words of a felon. Lula should have been on the ballot. But the oligarchy refused to allow this most popular man to run for the presidency. Lula is visited by Pastor Anete Roese of the Evangelical Lutheran Confessional Church of Brazil. The pastor steps outside the prison and makes a statement. She says that Lula is concerned about the escalation of violence in Brazil. People are being murdered when they express their political support for the Workers’ Party candidate for president—Fernando Haddad. “The gates of violence are opening,” said Pastor Roese. The election—on October 28—will signal an “unprecedented avalanche of violence,” warned the pastor. Lula, sitting in his cell, unjustly incarcerated, worried with her. It is the poor who will suffer. It is always the poor who suffer.

Bolsonaro’s Fraud

Jair Bolsonaro, the candidate of the far-right who is now the candidate of the oligarchy, leads in the polls. He is nostalgic for Brazil’s military dictatorship(1964-1985) and wants to use unconstitutional force against those whom he sees are a problem for Brazil. His targets are the poor and the social minorities—Afro-Brazilians, Gays, Leftists. The oligarchy flooded the Bolsonaro camp with money. Democracy needs lubrication, and money does the trick. Some corporations used their money to create WhatsApp groups that carried fraudulent messages about Haddad, who is running against Bolsonaro. This is illegal. The hashtag #Caixa2doBolsonaro zipped across the internet. The whiff of fraud should have triggered an immediate investigation. It did not happen. It is Lula in prison. Bolsonaro hides his fangs behind his smile.

Bannon’s Fascist International

Steve Bannon said as he left the White House that the shackles were off his hands. He was no longer imprisoned by propriety. He wanted to be in the trenches, building his white supremacist, fascist international. Bannon calls his group The Movement. One of Bolsonaro’s sons said that Bannon has advised his father’s campaign, that Bannon—in sum—has drawn Bolsonaro into The Movement. Bolsonaro hastily denied this claim. To be linked to Bannon is not an advantage. Nor to Bannon’s fascist international directly. Nothing Bolsonaro says is varnished. He called people from the African continent, from Haiti and from the Arab-speaking world the “scum of humanity.” Bolsonaro’s moral geography mirrors that of Donald Trump, who called many of these places “shithole countries.” Of Afro-Brazilians, Bolsonaro called them lazy and obese, saying, “I don’t think they’re even good for procreation anymore.” Another member of the fascist international—Marine Le Pen of France—said that Bolsonaro’s comments are “extremely unpleasant.” Bolsonaro distressed her. This is Bannon country. Precise and clearly articulated hatred and venom.

Gunmen

Bolsonaro has been proud to say that he is “Brazil’s Trump.” But this is not a good comparison. It is clearer to say that Bolsonaro is Brazil’s Duterte.Rodrigo Duterte is the president of the Philippines. He came to office with a gun in his hand.Duterte was the mayor of Davao, where he empowered death squads to kill anyone deemed to be a criminal. “Kill them all,” he said in 2015 in reference to criminals. “Kill a drug dealer and I’ll give you a medal,” he said. He likes to be photographed with a gun in his hand, preferably a machine gun.Duterte would like to give out 42,000 guns to deepen the civil war in his society. Violence is the antidote to social problems. No policy of economic and social reform is sufficient. Gunfire is Duterte’s solvent. It is the glue of the Bolsonaro family. Jair Bolsonaro’s son—Eduardo—won re-election to the Federal Assembly on October 7 with a massive margin. In a video from last year, Eduardo holds a 50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle and says of the school shootings in the United States, “Thanks to you who support gun-free zones and this initiative to disarm people—you are responsible for these massacres.” Duterte also likes high-caliber sniper rifles, the M-4 Armalite being a favorite. These are men with guns, men who believe that guns make good policy.

Money and Monsters

In August, Steve Bannon told New York magazine that the rise of Trump—and the other neo-fascists (or monsters)—can be directly linked to the financial crisis of 2008. “The legacy of the financial crisis is Donald J. Trump,” Bannon said. “You know why the deplorables are angry? They’re rational human beings. We took away the risk for the wealthy.” Wall Street dislikes this analysis. They would like to maintain a firewall between their shenanigans and the rise of what they like to call “populists.” Bannon is both right and wrong. He is right that the neoliberal “moderates” drove a policy from the 1980s onward that allowed the rich to avoid paying taxes and to avoid investment, while the working people failed to earn their share from the gains of productivity and technology. High inequality rates around the world drained the legitimacy of the neoliberal “moderates.”

The neo-fascists that emerged with acid on their lips did speak clearly about the fraud of the system, the theft from ordinary people by the oligarchy. But they did not point their fingers at the oligarchy or at high finance. Instead, true to form, the neo-fascists pointed their guns at migrants and refugees, at the urban poor and the rural distressed. For them, social marginality is the crime. Under cover of the monsters’ corrosive rhetoric, the oligarchy and the bankers have continued their plunder. None of these neo-fascists wants to implement Basel-III, a framework to regulate banking by increasing capital holdings. Nor do they want to make sure that corporations bear the downside of risks, rather than take the profits and burden taxpayers with losses. None of these elementary reforms are on the lips of the neo-fascists. They are too busy oiling their guns.

Hunger and Illiteracy

Hunger hangs heavily over the Brazilian poor. In 1960, the Afro-Brazilian writer Carolina Maria de Jesus wrote in her diary, “What a surprising effect food has on our organisms. Before I ate, I saw the sky, the trees, the birds—all as yellow. But after I ate, everything became normal to my eyes.” Hunger is blistering. It is what Lula’s government focused upon with its Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) program. According to the UN, hunger was almost eradicated by Lula’s government. Haddad was Lula’s education minister. They used public funds to expand Brazil’s public university system. Food and reading were at the heart of the Workers’ Party agenda. Poverty was reduced by 55 percent, while extreme poverty was reduced by 65 percent. No guns were needed. Lula’s agenda was to expand democracy. Bolsonaro’s agenda is to deepen neo-fascism.

No Neutrality

Five hundred people of good sense—from Bernie Sanders to Angela Davis, from Noam Chomsky to Pablo Iglesias—signed a short document, an international declaration against fascism in Brazil. The document calls upon the Brazilian population to reject Bolsonaro, whose presidency would be a “threat to any free, tolerant and just society.” Brazilians will have to choose between “liberty and pluralism” on one side and “retrograde authoritarianism” on the other. “There can be no neutrality,” the signatories write, “in the choice between democracy and fascism.” This is a document. It might have a small impact. But it will not be able to compete with fake news and with hatred. Hatred is a more powerful emotion than love. It is what so easily undermines democracy. If Bolsonaro wins, asks the Portuguese political theorist Boaventura de Sousa Santos, will Brazil still be a democracy?

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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https://www.c-span.org/video/?447404-2/antisocial-media

JUNE 22, 2018

Antisocial Media

Professor Siva Vaidhyanathanargued that Facebook is undermining democracy.

UVa

FACEBOOK HAS MESSED WITH POLITICS AROUND THE WORLD. HOW FACEBOOK IS A SOURCE OF TREMENDOUS DISSENSION, HATRED AND OTHER SORTS OF PROBLEMS. HOW RUSSIA USE FACEBOOK TO TRY TO MIX WITH ESTONIA. A VERY STABLE DEMOCRACY. HOW THEY HAD, IN CONCERT WITH THEIR INVASION WITH CRIMEA FLOODED UKRAINE WITH PROPAGANDA. SO IT HAD THE STATE APPOINTS THAT I HAVE BEEN ACCUMULATED. I WAS JUST GOING TO PUT THEM IN ELECTRONIC FOLDERS. I HAVE MATERIAL ON WHAT FACEBOOK DOES WITH THEIR DATA AND I THOUGHT WE COULD STRING THIS TOGETHER I HAD A PROPOSAL AND SENT IT OUT AND GOT A STRONG RESPONSE. EVERYBODY ELSE IS COMING AROUND TO THE IDEA THAT FACEBOOK ACTUALLY PLAYED A CRUCIAL ROLE, NOT JUST IN AMERICAN POLITICS BUT IN HOW POLITICS WORK AROUND THE WORLD. WHAT HAVE WE SEEN SINCE? 

WE HAVE SEEN CLEAR EVIDENCE THAT THE VERY NATURE OF FACEBOOK CONTRIBUTES TO THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORST KINDS OF HATE SPEECH AND CALLS FOR GENOCIDE IN PLACE LIKE SRI LANKA AND ME[myanmar] AND MORE. THAT IT HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE ELECTION, A MAJOR DRIVER OF THE ELECTION IN THE PHILIPPINES. THAT, IT IS A PHENOMENON THAT LACKS GOVERNMENTS INTO POWER IN PLACES LIKE CAMBODIA. THAT IT PLAYS A HUGE ROLE IN THE ELECTIONS IN KENYA LAST YEAR. THAT IT PLAYED A HUGE ROLE IN THE BREXIT REFERENDUM BEFORE OUR ELECTIONS. THE OTHER THING IS THE EFFECT OF THE -- PARTY IN INDIA IN THE WAYS IT HAS USE FACEBOOK. TO DISTRIBUTE PROPAGANDA, TO CUT DOWN CRITICS AND'S SPREAD LIES. TO HARASS CRITICS AND INSTIGATE WIDESPREAD THREATS AGAINST ACADEMICS, LEADERS OF ORGANIZATIONS, JOURNALISTS AND OPPOSITION PARTY LEADERS. THAT'S BEEN GOING ON FOR ABOUT THREE YEARS AND THAT'S A FRIGHTENING SITUATION. PUTTING THAT TOGETHER HAVE TO CONCLUDE, THE U.S. GOT OFF PRETTY EASY, NOT ALL AMERICANS HAVE GOTTEN OFF EASY, THINGS ARE WORSE IN OTHER PLACES AND IN PLACES WHERE FACEBOOK MATTERS MORE. THEY HAPPEN TO BE THE PLACES WHERE FACEBOOK INSTIGATED A PHILANTHROPIC EFFORT TO SPREAD HEIST THE DATA CONNECTIONS TO THE POOREST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD.

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authoritarian playbook anti-social media; modi, duterte

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/1/a_threat_to_global_democracy_how

“Black Elevation.” “Mindful Being.” “Resisters.” “Aztlan Warriors.” Those are the names of some of the accounts removed from Facebook and Instagram Tuesday after Facebook uncovered a plot to covertly influence the midterm elections. The tech giant said 32 fake accounts and Facebook pages were involved in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

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 This announcement comes just days after the company suffered the biggest loss in stock market history: about $119 billion in a single day. This is just the latest in a string of controversies surrounding Facebook’s unprecedented influence on democracy in the United States and around the world, from its pivotal role in an explosion of hate speech inciting violence against Rohingya Muslims in Burma to its use by leaders such as Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in suppressing dissent. Facebook has 2.2 billion users worldwide, and that number is growing. We speak with Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of “Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy.” He is a professor of media studies and director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia.

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https://kpfa.org/episode/rising-up-with-sonali-july-25-2018/

On today’s show, first our daily headlines. Then, as the Philippines controversial President Rodrigo Duterte has given his third State of the Nation Address where he vowed to continue a brutal drug war that has killed thousands, we’ll turn to Aurora Victoria David, Secretary General of the National Alliance of Filipino Concerns for more. Then, the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has called out mainstream media for its uncritical coverage of Trumps wild MS-13 claims. FAIR staff writer Justin Anderson will share how MS-13 is in fact a phenomenon created in the US.

Hosted by Sonali Kolhatkar.

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omg

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/26/headlines/philippines_duterte_threatens_to_bomb_indigenous_filipino_school

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...During its last half-century of bloodstained elections, two populists, Ferdinand Marcos and Rodrigo Duterte, won exceptional power by combining the high politics of diplomacy with the low politics of performative violence, scattering corpses scarred by their signature brutality as if they were so many political pamphlets. A quick look at this history offers us an unsettling glimpse of America’s possible political future.

Populism in the Philippines: the Marcos Era

Although now remembered mainly as a “kleptocrat” who plundered his country and enriched himself with shameless abandon (epitomized by the discovery that his wife possessed 3,000 pairs of shoes), Ferdinand Marcos was, in fact, a brilliant populist, thoroughly skilled in the symbolic uses of violence.

As his legal term as president came to an end in 1972, Marcos -- who, like many populists, saw himself as chosen by destiny to save his people from perdition -- used the military to declare martial law.  He then jailed 50,000 opponents, including the senators who had blocked his favored legislation and the gossip columnists who had mocked his wife’s pretensions.

The first months of his dictatorship actually lacked any official violence. Then, just before dawn on January 15, 1973, Constabulary officers read a presidential execution order and strapped Lim Seng, an overseas Chinese heroin manufacturer, to a post at a Manila military camp. As a battery of press photographers stood by, an eight-man firing squad raised their rifles. Replayed endlessly on television and in movie theaters, the dramatic footage of bullets ripping open the victim’s chest was clearly meant to be a vivid display of the new dictator’s power, as well as an appeal to his country’s ingrained anti-Chinese racism. Lim Seng would be the only victim legally executed in the 14 years of the Marcos dictatorship. Extra-judicial killings were another matter, however.

Marcos made clever use of the massive U.S. military bases near Manila to win continuing support for his authoritarian (and increasingly bloody) rule from three successive American administrations, even effectively neutralizing President Jimmy Carter’s human rights policy. After a decade of dictatorship, however, the economy began to collapse from a too-heavy dose of “crony capitalism” and the political opposition started to challenge Marcos’s self-image as destiny’s chosen one.

To either sate or subdue an increasingly restive population, he soon resorted to escalating raw violence. His security squads conducted what were referred to as “salvagings,” more than 2,500 of them (or 77% of the 3,257 extrajudicial killings during his 14-year dictatorship).  Bodies scarred by torture were regularly abandoned in public plazas or at busy intersections so passers-by could read the transcript of terror in their stigmata. In the capital, Manila, with only 4,000 police for six million residents, the Marcos regime also deputized hundreds of “secret marshals” responsible for more than 30 shoot-on-sight fatalities during May 1985, the program’s first month, alone.

Yet the impact of Marcos’s version of populist violence proved mutable -- effective at the start of martial law when people yearned for order and counterproductive at its close when Filipinos again longed for freedom. That shift in sentiment soon led to his downfall in the first of the dramatic “people power” revolutions that would challenge autocratic regimes from Beijing to Berlin.

Populism in the Philippines: Duterte’s Violence

Rodrigo Duterte, the son of a provincial governor, initially pursued a career as the mayor of Davao City, a site of endemic violence that left a lasting imprint on his political persona.

In 1984, after the communist New People’s Army made Davao its testing ground for urban guerilla warfare, the city’s murders soared, doubling to 800, including the assassination of 150 policemen. To check the communists, who took over part of the city, the military mobilized criminals and ex-communists as death squad vigilantes in a lethal counterterror campaign. When I visited Davao in 1987 to investigate death squad killings, that remote southern city already had an unforgettable air of desolation and hopelessness.

It was in this context of rising national and local extrajudicial slaughter that the 33-year old Rodrigo Duterte launched his political career as the elected mayor of Davao City.  That was in 1988, the first of seven terms that would keep him in office, on and off, for another 21 years until he won the country’s presidency in 2016. His first campaign was hotly contested and he barely beat his rivals, taking only 26% of the vote.

Around 1996, he reportedly mobilized his own vigilante group, the Davao Death Squad.  It would be responsible for many of the city’s 814 extrajudicial killings over the next decade, as victims were dumped on city streets with faces wrapped bizarrely in packing tape. Duterte himself may have killed one or more of the squad’s victims.  Apart from liquidating criminals, the Davao Death Squad also conveniently eliminated the mayor’s political rivals.

Campaigning for president in 2016, Duterte would proudly point to the killings in Davao City and promise a drug war that would murder 100,000 Filipinos if necessary. In doing so, he was also drawing on historical resonances from the Marcos era that lent some political depth to his violent rhetoric. By specifically praising Marcos, promising to finally bury his body in the National Heroes Cemetery in Manila, and supporting Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for vice president, Duterte identified himself with a political lineage of populist strongmen epitomized by the old dictator at a time when desperate Filipinos were looking for new hope of a decent life.

On taking office, President Duterte promptly started his promised anti-drug campaign and dead bodies became commonplace sights on city streets nationwide, sometimes accompanied by a crude cardboard sign reading “I am a pusher,” or simply with their faces wrapped in the by-now trademark packing tape used by the Davao Death Squad. Although Human Rights Watch would declare his drug war a “calamity,” a resounding 85% of Filipinos surveyed were “satisfied,” apparently seeing each body sprawled on a city street as another testament to the president’s promise of order.

At the same time, like Marcos, Duterte deployed a new style of diplomacy as part of his populist reach for unrestrained power. Amid rising tensions in the South China Sea between Beijing and Washington, he improved his country’s bargaining position by distancing himself from the Philippines’ classic alliance with the United States. At the 2016 ASEAN conference, reacting to Barack Obama’s criticism of his drug war, he said bluntly of the American president, “Your mother’s a whore.”

A month later during a state visit to Beijing, Duterte publicly proclaimed “separation from the United States.’’ By setting aside his country’s recent slam-dunk win over China at the Court of Arbitration in the Hague in a legal dispute over rival claims in the South China Sea, Duterte came home with $24 billion in Chinese trade deals and a sense that he was helping establish a new world order.

In January, after his police tortured and killed a South Korean businessman on the pretext of a drug bust, he was forced to call a sudden halt to the nationwide killing spree. Like his role model Marcos, however, Duterte’s populism seems to contain an insatiable appetite for violence and so it was not long before bodies were once again being dumped on the streets of Manila, pushing the death toll past 8,000.

Success and the Strongman

The histories of these Filipino strongmen, past and present, reveal two overlooked aspects of the ill-defined phenomenon of global populism: the role of what might be termed performative violence in projecting domestic strength and a complementary need for diplomatic success to show international influence. How skillfully these critical poles of power are balanced may offer one gauge for speculating about the fate of populist strongmen in disparate parts of the globe

..

Turkey, Erdogan’s harsh repression of ethnic and political enemies has essentially sunk his bid for entry into the European Union, plunged him into an unwinnable war with Kurdish rebels, and complicated his alliance with the United States against Islamic fundamentalism -- all potential barriers to his successful bid for unchecked power.

In Indonesia, Prabowo Subianto failed in his critical first step: building a domestic base large enough to sweep him into the presidency, in part because his call for order resonated so discordantly with a public still capable of remembering his earlier bid for power through eerie violence that roiled Jakarta with hundreds of rapes, fires, and deaths.

Without the popular support generated by his local spectacle of violence, President Duterte’s de facto abrogation of his country’s claims to the South China Sea’s rich fishing grounds and oil reserves in his bid for Chinese support risks a popular backlash, a military coup, or both. For the time being, however, Duterte’s deft juxtaposition of international maneuvering and local bloodletting has made him a successful Philippine strongman with, as yet, few apparent checks on his power.

While the essential weakness of the Philippine military limits Duterte’s outlets for his populist violence to the police killings of poor street drug dealers, Donald Trump faces no such restraints. Should Congress and the courts check the virulence of his domestic attacks on Muslims, Mexicans, or other imagined enemies and should his presidency run into further setbacks like the recent repeal-Obamacare humiliation, he could readily resort to violent military adventures not only in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Libya, but even in Iran, not to speak of North Korea, in a bid to recover his populist aura of overweening power. In this way, unlike any other potential populist politician on the planet, he holds the fate of countless millions in his much-discussed hands.

If populism’s need for what scholar Michael Lee calls an “apocalyptic confrontation” and a “mythic battle” proves accurate, it might, in the end, lead the Trump administration’s “systemic revolutionaries” far beyond even their most extreme rhetoric into an endlessly escalating cycle of violence against foreign enemies, using whatever weapons are available, whether drones, special operations forces, fighter bombers, naval armadas, or even nuclear weapons.

Alfred W. McCoy,