"I do not envy the President for his job."
"I do not envy the President for his job."
The government is deploying more policemen and soldiers to places tagged as election hot spots. Mayors, vice mayors and other local officials have been killed in ambushes in the last quarter of the year leading to the run-up of the mid-term elections in May 2019.
President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to deploy more men to Samar, Negros Oriental and the Bicol region where pre-poll violence has been reported. Concerned citizens, however, voiced apprehension that this move could lead to a piecemeal placement of the entire country under martial law.
Mindanao rocked by terrorist attacks highlighted by the ISIS siege of Marawi last year has been placed under martial law. This has been extended three times.
But what is the President to do when the exercise of free election is endangered by private armies with the communist New People’s Army also doing their share of violence to ensure that friendly local politicians win? With the President’s hands already full in his relentless war on illegal drugs trafficking, throwing more manpower to protect the election process would spread thin law enforcement. And then he’s also harnessing the military to stop corruption in the Bureau of Customs.
I do not envy the job of this President. He has his hands full, not only with keeping the elections orderly and peaceful, but also ensuring that Customs does not allow the smuggling of shabu. In between these concerns, President Duterte is also confronted with illegal Chinese workers who are displacing Filipinos in the job market. These illegal Chinese, police raid showed, are also involved in the operation of Shabu laboratories in the country. This is an illegal operation that is a threat to national security as it destroys our youth who are supposed to be the country’s future leaders.
Meanwhile, Duterte is also being accused of falling into the Chinese debt trap/ China is pouring in billions of funds in grants and loan to bankroll Philippine infrastructure projects roads, bridges, and railways. But why should we worry? That to me seems more the problem of the lender than the borrower, The United States alone owes China trillions of dollars in debt accumulated by previous presidents before Trump.
China’s own people are concerned that their country is spreading its resources thin with loans to Africa and South American countries. This, with its gargantuan military expenditure to advance its aggressive ambition in the region, could sap China’s strength.
China’s manpower and resources could suffer a setback if the United States in protecting the freedom of navigation, finally challenges China’s military buildup in the CSC. Already, the US and China are locked in a trade war following President Donald Trump’s “America first” policy which imposes higher tariff on Chinese products. It is not remote for the European Union to follow the lead of their American cousins across the Atlantic.
Without the US and the EU, the Chinese market will be confined to the African and South American countries China has been assisting with huge loans through these years. But unless Africa and South America can really grow themselves into a large consumer market, it would not make sense to flood these countries with no money to spend for with Chinese goods This, as anyone knows, is the law of supply and demand.