The Phillipines
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<p>Have you guys seen what's happening in the Phillipines? A new president got voted in basically on the promise of being really fucking hard on crime. A former mayor who cleaned up his town by running death squads to straight up execute criminals, especially drug dealers.</p>
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<p>So he's the President, and he's taken his local method national. An estimated 600 drug dealers have been executed since May, many of them in the fucking street. He gives speeches where he pretty much straight up gives locals the green light to execute mother fuckers they think are drug dealers. </p>
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<p>If you are a drug user, guess what? Rehab is out the window. The new regime is you register in a mass "ceremony", get yourself locked away, and, well, what comes next is anyone's guess. Don't register, some motherfucker is going to shoot you in the street. </p>
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<p>Next up? Judges, politicians, and generals suspected of giving assistance to drug dealers. Again, it appears the message is, hand yourself in, confess, or get shot in the street. </p>
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<p>From the outside, this is some next-level shit. Doesn't appear to be getting the media coverage i would have thought it deserved either. </p> -
<p>It's not that often you get to see a social and political experiment play out. </p>
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<p>I have a mate who is married to a filipino girl and travels there regularly to surf</p>
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<p>He has been pretty vocal on Facebook about this whole thing.</p>
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<p>Everytime he posts anything (he's fully against this guy by the way) he gets a heap of really abusive replies from his fillipino acquaintances basically telling him to fuck off and stop trying to interfere in their country.</p>
<p>So apparently theres a few that actually agree with what is happening.</p>
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<p>Sounds fucked to me though</p> -
<p>I read that. </p>
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<p>Cracked.com of all places put me on to the story, and i have read updates since. </p> -
Hopefully his next target is the pricks that go over there looking for underage sex .<br><br>
They have previous form for voting in despots don't they? Marcos and his wife and son were appalling people , have a search online for stories about the Manila theatre collapse for a start. -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="mariner4life" data-cid="602918" data-time="1470273654">
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<p>Have you guys seen what's happening in the Phillipines? A new president got voted in basically on the promise of being really fucking hard on crime. A former mayor who cleaned up his town by running death squads to straight up execute criminals, especially drug dealers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So he's the President, and he's taken his local method national. An estimated 600 drug dealers have been executed since May, many of them in the fucking street. He gives speeches where he pretty much straight up gives locals the green light to execute mother fuckers they think are drug dealers. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>If you are a drug user, guess what? Rehab is out the window. The new regime is you register in a mass "ceremony", get yourself locked away, and, well, what comes next is anyone's guess. Don't register, some motherfucker is going to shoot you in the street. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Next up? Judges, politicians, and generals suspected of giving assistance to drug dealers. Again, it appears the message is, hand yourself in, confess, or get shot in the street. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>From the outside, this is some next-level shit. Doesn't appear to be getting the media coverage i would have thought it deserved either. </p>
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<p>Thailand did pretty much the same sort of thing a decade or so ago - reports were there were several thousand extra-judicial killings.</p>
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<p>It's highly dodgy stuff given the level of corruption in those police forces.</p> -
<p>Mate lives over there and is of a similar opinion to your friend SammyC. It's crazy that this guy has come into power on a platform of encouraging folks to kill 'drug dealers/users'. Already heaps of examples of bodies being left in the street with a note 'drug dealer' or similar. He's just got the highest trust rating they've ever had for a president which goes to show how batshit crazy life has been over there I guess.</p>
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<p>The guy is probably fucking himself up on a pile of coke every night, Scarface-style.</p>
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<p>Anyway I'm sure it fits the RWNJ narrative that seems to be running a lot of politics, but really, is it going to overcome the crippling poverty and other bullshit going on in some of those areas?</p> -
<p>one of my best mates is Filipino, and he went back in Jan/Feb this year (lived here since his teens) and I asked him about this guy a few months back and he didn't offer a lot other than he was really popular over there, esp form the city he was mayor and most of his family there thought he was great.</p>
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<p>Fuck 'em. They get what they deserve. And by they I mean Filipinos who voted this nutbag in. Because if anyone thinks extra-judicial killings are fine better be reminded that there's nothing to save them from the same fate.</p>
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Chris B." data-cid="602930" data-time="1470276056">
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<p>It's highly dodgy stuff given the level of corruption in those police forces.</p>
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<p>Very good and important point</p> -
Philippines - One L, Two P's [emoji846]<br><br>
The rise of vigilantes. It's what happened in Thailand when there were calls to stamp out the scourge of human trafficking<br><br><br>
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk -
<p>There is not here (New Zealand or Australia) however, just like here, they run their show their way for their reasons. Quite outrageous really. :think:</p>
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<p>They held an election, the bloke ran with this action as part of his platform and he got up. He has set about implementing what he said he would do and the people like it.</p> -
<p>You really can't ascribe any of our western examples of politicians on these guys in SEA</p>
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<p>From my experience the people in power (elected or not) are some of the most unconscinable humans you'll ever find. The money, power and methods these guys wield has to be seen to be believed.</p>
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<p>Any war on drugs is purely an exercise of taking out the opposition, i.e. eliminating those that don't pay the powers that be to turn a blind eye. Everyone of the high ups gets money in some form of another from those that make millions. The big dealers must pay "protection money" to the powers to turn a blind eye or do nothing if things get tight.</p>
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<p>Actually everyone doing business must pay money to get things done. It's that simple, that necessary, that ingrained and also that hard to definitively prove.</p>
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<p>Taksins war on drugs where 2500 people were killed injudiciously resulted in not one measurement of reduced drug availability. It just meant that 2500 people were identified as working for the wrong factions.</p>
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<p>In the Asian societies you'd be surprised at how much everyone knows each other's business and daily activity. Nothing is truly clandestine and money is your ticket out of every possible consequence.</p>
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<p>The prisons are filled with small time couriers (guys and solo mums re best) spend all day riding their motorbikes from house to house moving and selling. I know people that do this. One guy I know got caught with one pill. He went through court and got 30 years. For 1000 dollars that got changed to 6 years. The money was handed tot he lawyer an possibly the judge, but the lawyer took it first. Next time he got caught with a kilo of coke and was out in 2 hours (with a significant debt to the boss now)</p>
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<p>Never do they get a kingpin. If they go through the charade of a trial the guy gets off</p>
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<p>My point is, none of these leaders has any intention of stopping the drug trade. It's potentially worth 100 grand a month to him.</p>
<p>Ditto with slavery, human trafficking, prostitiution, bribery, animal smuggling. It's all fair game and it's all the politicians signed up for. Massive wealth and power and adoration.</p>
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<p>Why does it flourish? </p>
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<p>Well no one admits it's happening. No journalists can uncover it. There's a culture of leader knows best. You put your head above the parapet and say something, you disappear. The people have never ever lived under any other system.</p>
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<p>When you hear any action from any leader in the South East (Singapore excepted), picture Tony Soprano - nice and friendly and upstanding to those who don't know, but a ruthless profiteer who earned his stripes getting to where he is. It is normal</p>
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<p>They'd all be in jail in our countries, no question</p>
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<p>That's my unprofessional version as seen from the streets and knowing those at the butt end of the goings on. Others may know more but I reckon that's pretty close to how it all rolls</p>
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<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-10/top-thai-cop-seeks-political-asylum-in-australia-fears-for-life/7018018'>http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-10/top-thai-cop-seeks-political-asylum-in-australia-fears-for-life/7018018</a></p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Mick Gold Coast QLD" data-cid="603380" data-time="1470469279">
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<p>There is not here (New Zealand or Australia) however, just like here, they run their show their way for their reasons. Quite outrageous really.</p>
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<p>Spot on Mick</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="ACT Crusader" data-cid="603080" data-time="1470309201">
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<p>Philippines - One L, Two P's [emoji846]<br><br><strong>The rise of vigilantes. It's what happened in Thailand when there were calls to stamp out the scourge of human trafficking</strong><br><br><br>
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk</p>
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<p>Nah it didn't.</p>
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<p>It can't. </p>
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<p>As soon as someone (vigilante) started rocking the boat and upsetting the gravy train that guy would and his mates would be identified and neutralised.</p>
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<p>The only thing that'd work would be outside reporting and economic pressure, which is what Nestle and a few companies and EU did to stop slavery in the fishing game. Band aids were then applied to keep the trade</p>
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<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/feb/25/slavery-trafficking-thai-fishing-industry-environmental-justice-foundation'>https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/feb/25/slavery-trafficking-thai-fishing-industry-environmental-justice-foundation</a></p> -
<p>My (limited) knowledge of SE Asian communities is restricted to Indonesia but apocryphally it appears to apply to most SE countries and that is in all walks of life, money talks. Be it from the tipping of someone to hold the traffic while you exit onto a main highway or to park, to getting the right table at a restaurant and so on upwards. It would not surprise me in the slightest to see this magnified to a much higher degree. It just seems to me that backsheesh is ingrained at all levels.</p>
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<p>As Mick says, there is not here.</p>
