#2024 Philippines election

[shelivesingalaxies]

If it is too difficult to strengthen and make sure our Philippines coast guards are not bullied, can you at least ensure that they and their families are well provided for with proper healthcare and insurance?

May God have mercy on our country - the Philippines, our citizens - the Filipinos, the old and elderlies who cannot afford good healthcare and have to work because they need to eat despite being weak, the breadwinners (the widows and widowers and those who are children and singles too but had to take over when their father died) still paying lots of taxes and supporting their families even if it means forgetting their original dreams, the children and young adults who could barely eat three times a day, much less attend school and focus on education, our bullied Philippine Coast Guard, our teachers who have to pay for resources with their own money for good teaching materials, the students who need to limit their study hours because they have to share rooms, our commuters who are mostly employees who come to work, already exhausted because our transportation systems are too poor and in dire need of improvement, and everyone else. Everyone else. Every single Filipino.

Please. Please treat us well. Stop the corruption. Raise our moral. Dear government, you are there to serve. And we are here to support. But please treat us well and prioritize us. Do not waste our taxes on your own propaganda and on elevating yourselves. The real ones who need help are everywhere. The real ones who need our funds are everywhere. Do you feel their pain? Do you see us? We have been enduring for far too long. Do not hire people who are incapable and have their own motives. Do not waste money on poor materials and poor planning. Hire loyal and competent ones. Let them sign contracts that call for accountability. Let there be an audit team consisting of concerned and talented workers with a true heart to help ensure the work is properly done and the Filipinos are blessed with improvement. Let there be transparency in your spending to ensure every cent is accounted for and used for the right cause. Please treat OUR country and OUR people right. Respect OUR rights and OUR welfare, not another country's.

Pretty please. Do it well.

Please HELP our country beloved - the Philippines.

[hedgehog-png]

[tomorrowusa]

Philippine Nobel laureate Maria Ressa literally wrote the book on standing up to dictators.

How to Stand Up to a Dictator

She spoke to Ali Velshi about what she has been calling the "Philippinization of America".

Ms. Ressa says that given the Philippine example with President Duterte, six months is all Trump needs to consolidate power in his hands.

Trump appointments are something we should be especially wary of. And we should begin now by opposing his wildly unqualified cabinet nominees. If you live in a state with GOP senators in Washington, you have a special responsibility to lobby them to oppose the pervy and corrupt people Trump wants to place in government.

Contacting U.S. Senators

Don't think it can't happen here. It already has.

@dnlfelix

[toxinoire]

To the Americans that see this post:

Omg election disappointment twin (I'm Filipino and some similar bullshit happened in our elections back un 2022).

I'm so sorry dude

[araneol]

why would u let a felon run for president

[ricisidro]

U. S. Election 2024 and the Philippines:

A Kamala Harris win would likely continue current multilateral alliances and support for a rules-based approach in the region, strengthening military and economic partnerships.

A second Trump administration could shift to a more bilateral relationship and maintain trade, investment, and development aid.

#Election2024 #ElectionDay #ForeignAffairs #ForeignPolicy #EconomicRelations #EconomicPartnership

#foreigninvestment #ForeignAid #MilitaryAid #MilitaryPartnership #multlateralrelations #bilateralrelations

[textsearchaccessgooglemicrosoft]

CARTER

[aeternallis]

one of the things most frustrating to think about as someone who did go through the immigration system in the US is the fact that there seems to be a genuine belief by a significant portion of the populace in this country that the immigration system is a simple, straightforward process, when it most certainly is not.

for one thing, the applications to gain some form of legal status themselves are confusing af to actually read through. most of the applications uses confusing language and can be upwards of about 15-20 pages worth of documents you gotta spend time actually pouring through.

for example, currently the i-485 form (application for green card) sits at about 24 pages, and requires a couple of hours to fill out. for most immigrants who know little to no english, either they would have to sit with an english-speaking paralegal to help them, or one of their relatives who knows english would need to be the one to help them out.

the i-130 form (application for alien relatives) is about 12 pages, and just as hella confusing to go through.

the i-589 (application for asylum) and i-765 (application for worker's permit) aren't too bad in comparison, at about 7-8 pages, but even so, the legal language is still a hassle to try and understand.

(yes, I have helped both my parents fill out all these forms)

oh, and did i mention that every one of these forms cost money to file and submit to uscis for processing? this is not counting the typical immigration lawyer's fees immigrants have to fork up in order to get some decent representation, most immigrants still need to make a living one way or another, or how else are they to provide for their families and give their children a better future? (and ya know, afford the fees to try and actually go through the process of gaining legal status here???)

not only that, answering any of the questions wrong on any of these forms could be enough for uscis to reject the filing or outright deny it. and no, ofc there's no refunds on the application fees.

for a country that has a horrendous literacy crisis, i would so love to see the rest of y'all try to take a gander at these forms and see if you don't lose your goddamn mind.

have i mentioned how fucking terrifying it is when uscis officers grill you during the interview process???? because yes, there is an interview component to most of these forms. as if their questions are literally designed for you to fail???!!

this is just a few aspect of the immigration process that's so broken right now, it might as well be a 10k puzzle piece scattered in a room.

the strenuous waiting time between processing of applications, the anxiety of the elections every goddamn year because politicians cannot fucking make up their minds with how immigration ought to be tackled in this country, all the while immigrants also have to deal with the stress of everyday life and whatever challenges that brings.

uscis is still working through a backlog of applications from decades ago, and some people in this country really have the goddamn audacity to think, "they have to get here legally and go through the process that way"???!

a fucking luxury (ignorant af though, mind you) for some of y'all to say, indeed, especially if all it took back then for your family to get here was through ellis fucking island.

my aunt petitioned my dad with the i-589 form over 38 years ago when he was still living in the philippines, and mind you, the visa number from that filing was only granted and mailed to my dad's old house last year in december 2024, when we went home to visit relatives for the holidays and long after he's already become a US citizen.

i'm not asking for people to change their minds about immigration or that this country ought to let everyone in, i knowwwwww the system is broken and terrible.

but what i am asking is for people to educate themselves and to be open-minded, to not dismiss the struggles of immigrants, because those who think that the immigration process in this country is easy are hella ignorant and will never understand the sort of anxiety illegal immigrants go through, for the sake of trying to provide a better future for their children.

[catdotjpeg]

LOOK: Multisectoral groups marched along Commonwealth Avenue earlier today as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivered his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasang Pambansa to assail his failed promise of a Bagong Pilipinas [trans. New Philippines]. For the groups, Marcos’s Bagong Pilipinas is a grand sham. Amid promises of better living conditions, 46 percent of Filipinos rated their families as food poor—the highest since 2008—according to the latest survey of Social Weather Stations. “[H]inaharap [ng ating mga kababayan] ang realidad na mataas ang presyo ng mga bilihin, lalo na ng pagkain—lalo’t higit, ng bigas,” said Marcos in his speech earlier, affirming bleak realities on the ground. On top of a cost of living crisis are poverty wages that fail to meet the family living wage of P1,190, as estimated by economic think tank IBON Foundation, the P35 wage hike in the National Capital Region (NCR) enacted last week was dismissed as an “insult to minimum wage workers” by Leticia Castillo of human rights alliance Defend NCR. Such wage hike is far from the P150 raise being lobbied in Congress by labor groups under the National Wage Coalition. Castillo also decried the persistence of red-tagging and vilification of activists perpetrated by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict. From July 2022 to June 2024, 3,419,044 cases of threat, harassment, and intimidation were recorded by human rights group Karapatan. The number of political prisoners also climbed to 755 as of last month. These human rights violations run contrary to Marcos’s establishment of a Special Committee on Human Rights, which was labeled “toothless” by Human Rights Watch. Marcos’s claim of a bloodless drug war is also inconsistent with the 359 drug-related killings—34.3 percent of which were committed by state agents—recorded during his second year in office by research project Dahas. Moreover, despite claims of an independent foreign policy, the Philippines under Marcos remains dependent on the US and its unequal treaties, said Liza Maza of MAKABAYAN. Last year, Marcos announced the creation of four new US military bases in the country under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the US. Such treaties with the US have been criticized for intensifying tensions with China and the broader Indo-Pacific region. Clarice Palce of Gabriela and Ronnel Arambulo of Pamalakaya raised their worries of the Philippines being dragged into a stand off between two global superpowers which will only worsen the poor living conditions of Filipinos. The program ended with a symbolic destruction of the effigies of Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte. The broken UniTeam will be challenged by the Makabayan Coalition which will field a complete senatorial slate including ACT Teachers Party-list Representative France Castro and Gabriela Women’s Party Representative Arlene Brosas in the 2025 midterm elections. Photos by AJ Dela Cruz, Marcus Azcarraga, Audrey Sanchez, and Sarah Gates

-- Philippine Collegian, 22 Jul 2024 9:45pm PHT

[binomech]

The door is the central image of Conclave (2024) to me: What's outside the room, what's inside the room, and the threshold itself.

Lawrence is the Dean of the Cardinals, a lifelong job with the only ways out being death or resignation. He asks the late Pope to resign and he denies his request, so he leaves and ponders the remaining way out. Is suicide that bad a deal for a cardinal that is no longer certain of God? He leaves the Vatican and is dragged back into it in through the death of the man that wanted to keep him in it, through the death Lawrence was seeking himself. His Pope name would be John, the Apostle who could never leave.

Lawrence decides, then, that he will see the conclave through. That he will remain a neutral figure and then request his resignation to the newly elected pope. Seclusion starts with a closed door: Here's the Church, there is the outside, and until you make a choice you will not come out. Lawrence, in his alleged neutrality, seals the late Pope's door in blood red wax, looks at the closing blinds and the locking gates and refuses to acknowledge he chose a side.

Thresholds, of course, are relevant numerically when it comes to the actual vote (happening directly under a painting of the gates of Heaven): This is the number that tips the scale. Your win or loss is the only thing that can reach the outside through the column. I don't feel it's a coincidence then that the moment of understanding for Adeyemi, Tremblay and Bellini when they are not viable candidates, gatekept out of heaven, happens around doors. Lawrence goes into Adeyemi's room to tell him he knows Sister Shanumi, and decides to stay to pray with him. Lawrence meets Tremblay in the halls to tell him he knows about the transfer and when Tremblay leaves he stays alone, on the other side, shaking with understanding that he cannot un-know the information he knows, that he cannot be neutral. Lawrence breaks the seal and finds Bellini's name in the bribes and they sit in an awning, contemplating a life of being strangers unto themselves. There is an inside (the bedroom, the pews, the cloister halls) and an outside (the hallway, the apse of St. Peter, the courtyard) and whether you leave or you stay is choosing.

Lawrence's speech is about doubt, about certainty being the enemy of faith: Faith is a choice, an uncertain bet, and its value comes from not knowing the outcome. He doesn't consider himself faithful and his speech is meant as an encouragement, but it's his praise of the threshold and not the sides of the door that puts him up as a viable candidate. Lawrence is terrified of the threshold, and inhabits it reluctantly, agonizing. He thinks he can remain neutral with every piece of intel O'Malley gives him, and when he understands he can't, he begs to be kept in the dark (but [this conversation] happened). This is a war and you have to pick a side, Bellini tells him.

Benítez is also a man of the threshold, but unlike Lawrence, he remains in the threshold voluntarily. The Philippines, overtaken by the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the US, Japan, with its population living and thriving and building even as they existed in a border dispute. Afghanistan, wrecked by the Soviets, the Americans, the Taliban. Benítez, Filipino, archbishop of Kabul, chooses to cancel the hysterectomy and rejoices in the liminal.

The moment the apparent candidates left are just Lawrence, Tedesco and Benítez, Lawrence votes for himself because he is still convinced his choices will not place him on either side. And as he casts his vote, a veritable non-choice, a suicide bomber blows up the boarded up windows of the Chapel and the outside is violent and inescapable, and the pretense of neutrality is shattered for Lawrence. The outside is there and the wind shakes your ballot and you cannot escape the world.

The sides of presence and absence: The emptiness around the rejected candidates, just human men, defeated. Benítez talking from the shadows of the auditorium, the light blinding to Lawrence near the stage. The nuns who handle the paperwork, the public relations, the cooking, the room service, absent in the decision taken in a in a theatre where the empty seats are the same color as their habits.

Benítez is elected pope. He calls himself Innocent and looks at Lawrence, who is anything but, with his inaction leaving a trail of 52 bodies in the streets of Rome.

Lawrence makes his choice then. A turtle, who can survive on the ground, returned to the fountain - the door of the garden is open, but he stays. The window of his cell opens, but he doesn't jump. He watches the nuns leave their offices, laughing, and doesn't know if they'll come back. He chooses to stay inside, even as the what if of the outside haunts him.

He chooses to serve Benítez, aware of the likely possibility that his intersexuality might be found out and destroy the Vatican. But like the faith in his speech, its value is in the uncertainty. He chooses to believe, not in God or in man, but in doubt. He believes in choosing the threshold.

[tomorrowusa]

Just in time for the US elections, Philippines authoritarian former president Rodrigo Duterte freely admits he employed a death squad.

The 79-year-old, making his first public appearance on Monday since his term ended in 2022, said he offered “no apologies, no excuses” for his presidency, during which as many as 30,000 people were killed in a “war on drugs”. “My mandate as president of the republic was to protect the country and the Filipino people. Do not question my policies, because I offer no apologies, no excuses. I did what I had to do, and whether you believe it or not, I did it for my country,” he said. Duterte had entered the hearing walking with a stick and was defiant throughout, often cursing as he addressed senators.

None of what he's proud of doing had anything to do with Philippines law or international standards of human rights.

“I can make the confession now if you want,” Duterte said. “I had a death squad of seven, but they were not policemen, they were also gangsters.” “I’ll ask a gangster to kill somebody,” Duterte said. “If you will not kill [that person], I will kill you now.” When asked by senators for further details of the death squad, he said he would give more information at the next hearing. Duterte also said that he ordered officers to encourage criminals to fight back and resist arrest, so that police could then justify killing them. “What I said is this, let’s be frank, I said encourage the criminal to fight, encourage them to draw their guns. That was my instruction, encourage them to fight, and if they fight, then kill them so my problem in my city is done,” he said, in comments reported by Rappler, an independent news outlets.

When voters fail to keep lowlifes like Duterte, Putin, or Trump out of power they get lawless gangsterism and corruption.

If some shithead claims "only I can solve the country's problems" then it's probable that this person is one of the country's problems.

[arkipelagic]

[long post] finally watched the kingdom (2024), here are my thoughts:

1. as i expected, it had very weak worldbuilding.

the point of divergence from real world history to their fictional history was the three paramount rulers of luzon: rajah matanda, rajah sulayman, and lakan dula existed. the current dynasty is descended from lakan dula and the seat of power for the kingdom of kalayaan is in manila. therefore, the characters are tagalog (and kapampangan?) descent — yet they utilize aspects of classical visayan culture for an inexplicable reason: the tattooing culture, the employment of babaylans rather than catalonans, and the bakunawa motif.

despite the oft-times awkward placement of exposition throughout the film, there is none provided to explain how it is that spanish and other european & american powers failed to colonize the archipelago. was it a coalition of asian powers (e.g. filipino-chinese-japanese) against european ones? or were europeans already weakened at the time of the would-be conquest? was it a matter of manpower or technology? diplomacy and collaboration with foreigners in exchange for nominal freedom?

in addition, there’s no explanation for why the modern tagalog culture resembles classical visayan ones more than their own. if rajahs matanda and sulayman & lakan dula existed and resisted colonization, then it only makes sense the current population would only be muslim as these rulers were increasingly islamized. rajah matanda is famously related to bruneian royalty. tagalog elites ceased growing their hair long, ceased eating pork, and ceased tattooing by the time the spaniards came. the general population was still animist-polytheistic, but realistically they would come to accept islam just as their rulers did without the implementation of catholicism by spanish proselytizing.

i think the people behind this film were either too attached to the visayan image of a precolonial philippines or too scared to alienate their majority christian viewers by portraying a muslim-majority alternate philippines. they even forego using malaysia and indonesia as cultural inspirations and relied on the monarchal thailand instead.

also, again there is no explanation as to how the kingdom of kalayaan includes visayas and mindanao — nor why they are still called that. (“mindanao” came from the corruption of “maguindanao” after the maguindanao sultanate which, at the time of the colonial writers describing the land, ruled majority of the island. if there were no colonization though, then it must be called something else OR the maguindanao sultanate somehow encompassed the whole of the island at its fictional peak.) classical visayans rejected islam whereas mindanao was split between muslims and animists. it makes no sense to have disparate ethnoreligious groups in all three major islands to unite under the same manila-based animist monarchy.

there is, however, some interesting and casual shows of culture and customs. for example, igorot men wearing their traditional attires without humiliation from non-igorot characters living in the cordilleras; the prince being served alcohol by a servant who presents it with two hands while bowing; and the elevation of sabong as a hybridized boxing-wrestling sport.

2. the beginning scene (i.e., native fishermen being illegally apprehended by a foreign navy; a thinly veiled allusion to chinese harassment of filipinos in the west philippine sea) is too on-the-nose, as with other scenes in the film.

in the beginning, for example, we see villagers discussing who they wish to succeed the king. the camera pans to merchandise worn on their bodies, e.g., rubber bracelets announcing their “team.” very reminiscent of the previous election.

3. it’s an action-heavy production but the camera work, direction, choreo, and/or editing amount to very stilted scenes. regardless, the acting — especially from cristine reyes and piolo pascual — were believable.

4. little time to explore the deeper motivations and backgrounds of the antagonists. there is a separatist movement but it ends before the film does; we meet only the leader of the otherwise faceless movement. there is then a plot twist and a post-credit scene involving a different antagonist.

the themes as well! towards the end the writers introduce the concept of the fallibility of memory, which unfortunately amounted to little emotional impact due to restricted time and no hints leading up to its reveal.

tl;dr: this could have been better if the worldbuilding were different and if it were a limited series instead of a film.

[mariacallous]

Americans on November 5 will be electing a wartime president. This isn’t a prediction. It’s reality.

Neither candidate has yet spoken plainly enough to the American people about the perils represented by the growing geopolitical and defense industrial collaboration among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. This axis of aggressors may be unprecedented in the potential peril it represents.

Neither candidate has outlined the sort of generational strategy that will be required by the United States to address this challenge. Irrespective of whether former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris is elected, this will be the unavoidable context of their presidency. One will become commander-in-chief at the most perilous geopolitical moment since the Cold War—and perhaps since World War II.

In that spirit, Washington Post columnist George F. Will this week compared the 2024 US elections to the 1940 US elections, when the United States hadn’t yet formally declared war on Imperial Japan, Hitler’s Germany, or Mussolini’s Italy.

What was different then was that one of the two candidates, incumbent President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, sensed he was about to become a wartime president and was acting like it. FDR, wrote Will, “was nudging a mostly isolationist nation toward involvement in a global conflict” with his 1937 “quarantine speech” on aggressor nations and through his subsequent military buildup.

FDR’s opponent was Republican businessman Wendell Willkie, who like FDR was more internationalist than isolationist, in the tradition of his party’s elites of that time. “In three weeks,” Will writes, “Americans will not have a comparably reassuring choice when they select the president who will determine the nation’s conduct during World War III, which has begun.”

The point is that just as World War II began with “a cascade of crises,” initiated by the coalescing axis of Japan, Germany, and Italy, so today there is a similar axis—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Will reckons our current global crisis began no later than Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea.

This isn’t the first time that I have quoted diplomat-historian Philip Zelikow in this column. Writing in Texas National Security Review this summer, Zelikow reckoned that the next president has a 20-30 percent chance of being involved in worldwide warfare, which he differentiates from a world war in that not all parties will be involved in every aspect or region.

Zelikow, who recently expanded on these ideas among experts at the Atlantic Council, reckons that the next three years mark a moment of maximum danger. Should the United States navigate this period successfully, alongside global allies and partners, the underlying strengths of the American economy, defense industry, tech, and society should kick in and show their edge over those of the authoritarians.

The problem in the short term is that the United States is facing challengers in Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who may see a window of opportunity in the United States’ domestic distractions, a defense sector not yet adequate for emerging challenges, and an electorate that questions the value and necessity of US international engagement. Both leaders might calculate that acting more forcefully against Ukraine and Taiwan now could produce a greater chance of success than a few years in the future.

Wrote George Will: “From Russia’s western border to the waters where China is aggressively encroaching on Philippine sovereignty, the theater of today’s wars and almost-war episodes spans six of the globe’s 24 time zones.” He says this is what “the gathering storm” of world war looks like, borrowing the title of the first volume of Winston Churchill’s World War II memoirs.

Will charges the two presidential candidates with “reckless disregard” for failing to provide voters “any evidence of awareness, let alone serious thinking about, the growing global conflagration.”

If that sounds like hyperbole to you, it’s worth reading FDR’s third inaugural address in January 1941, almost a year before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which prompted Congress to declare war on Japan the following day.

“To us there has come a time,” said Roosevelt, “in the midst of swift happenings, to pause for a moment and take stock—to recall what our place in history has been, and to rediscover what we are and what we may be. If we do not, we risk the real peril of isolation, the real peril of inaction. Lives of nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit.”

War isn’t inevitable now any more than it was then. When disregarded, however, gathering storms of the sort we’re navigating gain strength.

“In the face of great perils never before encountered,” Roosevelt concluded, “our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of democracy. For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America.”

[jangillman]

Worth the Read – Be an Informed Voter in 2024

Understand the web of political and media connections shaping our landscape:

Political and Media Connections

• Michigan’s Governor: Formerly employed by George Soros.

• California Governor Gavin Newsom: Nephew of Nancy Pelosi.

• Adam Schiff’s Sister: Married to George Soros’ son.

• John Kerry’s Daughter: Married to the son of an Iranian mullah.

• Chelsea Clinton: Married to George Soros’ nephew.

• ABC News Executive Ian Cameron: Married to Susan Rice, Obama’s former National Security Adviser.

• CBS President David Rhodes: Brother of Ben Rhodes, Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser.

• ABC Correspondent Claire Shipman: Married to Jay Carney, Obama’s Press Secretary.

• Reporter Matthew Jaffe (ABC/Univision): Married to Katie Hogan, Obama’s Deputy Press Secretary.

• ABC President Ben Sherwood: Brother of Elizabeth Sherwood, Obama’s Special Adviser.

• CNN VP Virginia Moseley: Married to Tom Nides, former Deputy Secretary for Hillary Clinton.

These connections reveal a “stacked deck” between politics and media. If you’ve ever suspected bias, this might explain why some stories get buried.

Investigations and Conflicts of Interest

• James Comey: Led investigations into the Clinton email scandal and Foundation but recommended no prosecution.

• Peter Comey (James Comey’s brother): Held an executive role at DLA Piper, the law firm auditing the Clinton Foundation, which donated $50,000 to $100,000 to the Foundation.

• Douglas Emhoff: Former DLA Piper executive, now taking leave—husband of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Voting Machines and Influence

• Dominion Voting Systems: Serves 40% of U.S. voters, operating in 30 states. Texas rejected it.

• Admiral Peter Neffenger: Biden transition team member and former Smartmatic board president.

• Smartmatic: Partnered with Dominion in 2009 and has been linked to election controversies in Venezuela and the Philippines.

• Lord Mark Malloch Brown: Longtime Soros ally, chairs Smartmatic and the Open Society Foundation.

Financial Ties and Influence

• Blum Capital Partners: Dominion investor, tied to Richard Blum—husband of Dianne Feinstein.

• Paul Pelosi: Another major investor.

• Nadeam Elshami: Former Pelosi aide, now with Dominion Voting Systems.

Dominion has also donated between $25,000 and $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation, suggesting deeper financial and political interconnections.

This web of relationships shows how deep political and corporate interests intertwine. Stay informed as you approach the 2024 elections.

DRAIN THE SWAMP! MAGA 2024 🇺🇲

[stele3]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/deadliest-israeli-strike-yet-central-beirut-leaves-gruesome-scenes-2024-11-25/