Philippines

Dutertes Image as a friend of the people

The Philippine President is Duterte abroad because of the many dead in its Anti-drug fight criticized. His verbal attacks against foreign politicians. At home, he is very popular.

31. In August, a group of 128 Filipino workers from Saudi Arabia has flown back home. Your employer in the falling Oil prices battered the country, had filed for bankruptcy. The workers had to see, where they remained without work, without salary, and without the possibilities for the journey home.

According to estimates, the 12,000 Filipino workers by the economic crisis in the Saudi Kingdom are affected. Around 60 percent took part in the repatriation program. At the airport of Manila, the 128 of President Duterte welcomed, and promised them further assistance. (Article image) He said that he had immediately been ready to fly personally to Saudi Arabia and the workers back, as if he had heard of their precarious situation.

“I think the voters Duterte as think was worthy, and honestly, you were surprised by his kind of pleasant,” says Pia Ranada Robles, who was allowed to observe the election campaign Dutertes in journalism from close. “Duterte spoke as the common people, he cursed, made jokes, flirted with the women. This all came as a very spontaneous, he was not as human as you and I, you had the feeling, that it was just a election Scam,” says Robles.

Consent, in spite of sorrow for the man who was shot alleged drug criminals

Popular with the rich and the poor

Duterte won by 16 million votes, his nearest rival Manuel Roxas, a leading candidate of the previously governing liberal party. This came to just under ten million votes. Dutertes Image as a leader with an iron fist but a soft heart, starting with the promise to change things, and in the richer as in the poorer Parts of the population.

“The more prosperous layers of the felt of his promise attracted, to maintain order in the chaotic everyday life of the cities, a principal of urban middle-class concerns. The poor, in turn, were given by his empathy for him, through his promise to care for them, to fight for you,” explains journalist Robles.

About a quarter of the population is considered poor. In spite of the impressive growth of the Philippines in the past few years, about 4,000 Filipinos are leaving on average every day, the country, in search of a better life abroad.

Use for Overseas workers

Around ten million of them work in all over the world as a workforce, the most in the Middle East. In the Philippines, the abbreviation for these migrant workers OFW (overseas Filipino worker). They are often employed in the service and the low – wage sector, with poor working conditions. Reports of blatant exploitation and abuse are as common as about the Suffering of the year long live in Isolation and away from the family. However, many of this life before the one in the home, because in Saudi Arabia you can earn as a housekeeper with 400 dollars more than what you could get in the Philippines.

Election poster of the Slum of Manila. There is no trust in state institutions

These “OFWs” to apply in the home as a something of a modern hero, praising her personal sacrifice and contribution of approximately eight per cent of the economic performance of the Philippines, because their remittances amount to about 25 billion US dollars in the year.

Nevertheless, many of these people feel that the government has left them in hard times. The representation of the interests of the Filipino Overseas workers, Migrante International had already been informed in 2014, the government in Manila about the difficult situation of these people. She praises the can-do kind of Dutertes. “The previous government has responded with Sit out, as we informed you about the crisis of the OFWs. Quite different is the government Duterte, who called immediately for an inter-Ministerial meeting, a high-level Delegation to Saudi Arabia on the way sent, and the matter as a humanitarian crisis is found,” says Garry Martinez, Chairman of Migrante International.

Solidarity for bombing victims

Dutertes use for the workers Overseas is just one example of his manner, to gain trust among the population. Shortly before he left to Laos for the ASEAN summit and other foods had been given a sample of his verbal power diplomacy, this time against President Obama directed, came in a bomb explosion in the Dutertes home to Davao city, Philippines, 14 people were killed, many more were injured.

Within hours, photos of Duterte made the rounds in the media, as he spoke at the site of the attack with the families of the victims and even Killed a kiss as a last greeting. Patti Malay was touched by the photos. But Duterte, your judgment is ambivalent. “No one will doubt that he beats his heart for the people. But his policies are not convinced yet.”

Dutertes predecessor, Benigno Aquino (r) had no convincing answers to the urgent problems of the country – including drug-related crime

No trust in institutions

The Manager in the advertising industry does not believe that the Dutertes policy will bring to the impulsive decisions and the implementation of the Philippines the much-needed reforms. Not least of the judiciary, which, according to experts such as Phelim Kine of Human Rights Watch, “broken”. “If people see that you can buy personal protection from the police or from re-enactments by the judicial free-buy is a growing feeling that the government and the judiciary are the Problem and not the solution,” as Kine to the “New York Times”.

Thus, the criticism in Germany of extra-legal killings in the Dutertes fight against drug-related crime is so far low. And also, the government sees no reason to change their “strategy”, as the response from chief of police Ronald dela Rosas on the question of the Deutsche Welle, when the killings will end, makes it clear: “If the Philippines are drug free, and if we have rehabilitated all addicts.”