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posted by martyb on Monday July 31 2017, @07:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the drugs-are-dangerous dept.

The mayor of Ozamiz in the province of Misamis Occidental, Philippines has been killed in a drug raid:

A mayor who had been accused by President Rodrigo Duterte of involvement in drug trafficking was killed along with his wife and 10 other people in coordinated police raids early Sunday, the authorities said.

Reynaldo Parojinog, mayor of the city of Ozamiz in the southern Philippines, died in a firefight at his home after his security personnel shot at drug enforcement officers, who had come to arrest him and three members of his family, according to the Philippine National Police.

His wife, Susan Parojinog, and five other people were also killed, and a second raid at another house owned by the family left five more people dead, the police said. Mr. Parojinog's daughter, Nova Princess Parojinog-Echavez, the deputy mayor of Ozamiz, was among "scores" of people arrested, according to Ernesto Abella, a spokesman for Mr. Duterte.

The police said they confiscated high-powered rifles, bundles of cash and an unspecified amount of methamphetamines at Mr. Parojinog's home. A police official, Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb, said one officer had been wounded in the firefight but that his life was not in danger.

Also at the The Washington Post, SunStar, BBC, and CNN Philippines.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @10:33PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 31 2017, @10:33PM (#547399)

    I see no reason for Duterte to be vilified by western MSM. I would think they would play up the anti-drug aspect and try to spin his insanity as "not so bad". I can't see any reason for western media to paint him as a bad guy.

    See Yellow Journalism [wikipedia.org]. Plus there is the old adage of, "If it bleeds, it leads." Plus there is always a market for, "Those wacky foreigners. The world is going to hell in a hand basket. (Aren't you lucky to live here, where it's safe?)"

    The media doesn't need a reason to vilify a foreigner, and an old motto I personally live by is, "if it sounds unbelievable, you probably shouldn't believe it." Sometimes the outlandish is legitimately outlandish, but more often than not it is something very reasonable which is being mis-reported. This includes things like EU-regulation saying bananas need to be straight, the "unreasonableness" of the infamous McDonalds Hot Coffee lawsuit, and numerous other "one simple tricks" reports.

    So to go back to my original question... is there anybody here who actually has personal experience or knows a person they trust (note: Washington Post, and Fox News are not people) with actual personal knowledge of the situation in the Philippines? What is the ground truth of what is really going on over there? Is it really as bad as western media is portraying, and what do the regular people think about it?

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 01 2017, @12:35AM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 01 2017, @12:35AM (#547447) Journal

    I have no current knowledge, but I served with a number of Filipinos.

    The first thing you have to understand is, the Philippines isn't exactly a "country" like the US or most of the rest of the western world nations. Instead, it is a chain of islands, with each of the islands belonging to one or another tribes. One of the "Filipinos" that I served with was a small giant, a Moro tribesman. His grand daddy was a head hunter, who saw most other Filipinos as food for the table. Tagalog hunted pigs for food, and Moro hunted Tagalog for food.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_Philippines [wikipedia.org] That page should help you to understand how diverse the Philippines are. Additionally, that page should make you suspect that you will never understand the Philippines until you understand tribalism. http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Tribalism [wikia.com]

    Keeping that in mind, recent news of DAESH/ISIS in the Phillipines shouldn't surprise anyone at all. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-influence-spreading-philippines-despite-government-claims-1537843 [ibtimes.co.uk]

    History is important when trying to understand what is happening in the Philippines. There are no simple answers to anything in the region. Tribalism rules.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @03:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 03 2017, @03:47PM (#548402)

      Tribalism rules.

      That's why many of them like a Big Chieftain like Duterte to lead them and stomp on people they don't like. They don't care about new-fangled concepts like whether it's actually legal or not by the written laws. The old concepts of "bad people deserve to die" apply.

      Simple as that. Applies to many other peoples with primitive cultures. Like certain sections of the USA too ;).