Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, the presidential front runner, makes Trump look positively quaint.
This is a man who –
* Publicly announced that what angered him the most during a stand off as Mayor of Davao city, was that an Australian missionary was raped and killed before he could have a go on her.
* Set up death squads in Davao city to fight crime and corruption (I don’t even know where to start trying to explain why death squads actually increase corruption). His policy of killing every criminal and his dog didn’t actually reduce crime in Davao.
* Has promised a revolutionary government if he doesn’t get elected.
* Has promised to kill hundreds of thousands of people and criminals and throw them into Manila Bay.
* Has promised to tear up the Philippine constitution.
* Would kill his own children if they took drugs – and has accused his daughter of being a drama queen after she was raped.
So in the Philippines, people think that the way of dealing with corruption is by voting in a Machiavellian “pretend communist” monster who will cynically take more power once he has it – and likely horde wealth like Marcos did. What makes me laugh, is that on a day to day basis, the country is corrupt to the core. No one there has respect for even the smallest law, rules are there to be broken and if you get caught you bribe your way out. Need a driving license? Bribe the official at the office. Etc etc. Yet, instead of improving their behaviour from the ground up – let’s all vote for a psychotic strongman to free us of the burden of responsibility.
All I have to worry about here is David Cameron maybe slightly **** me financially, not getting dragged out of my house in the middle of the night by revolutionary death squads.
