Cebu Yolanda Survivors to Duterte: Don't forget about us!

Survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda in Cebu seek help from president-elect Rodrigo Duterte, hoping that he would speed up rehabilitation of typhoon-hit towns

By Richale 

Cabauatan

UNFINISHED. Prescilla Jumao-as stands in front of her house, which was constructed after Super Typhoon Yolanda struck in 2013. The house remains unfinished.

CEBU, Philippines – Filipinos in northern Cebu will never forget who and what they lost to Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) on November 8, 2013.

Yolanda destroyed towns in the Eastern Visayas before plowing through northern Cebu.

Two and a half years later, most of the survivors of Yolanda are still suffering. Many of them say they have not fully recovered. (READ: Yolanda rehab: Only 30% complete as 2016 begins)

Last Monday, May 9, they trooped to the polls and voted for the first time since the typhoon struck.

What do the Yolanda survivors want from their leaders?

'We want homes'

"Kung maka-storya man gani nako ang sunod nga presidente... i-ampo gyud nako nga kami, mga biktima sa Yolanda, hatagan niya ug mga balay nga matawag gyud namo nga puy-anan," said a teary-eyed Prescilla Jumao-as.

(If I could talk to the president... I pray that he would give us, victims of Yolanda, houses we can really call home.)

Jumao-as, 65, said the government promised her a new home in 2013. Two and a half years later, she's still waiting.

What's worse, she added, is that her grandchildren had to suffer with her.

MAKESHIFT HOME. Tents housing Yolanda survivors haven't disappeared in Daanbantayan, Cebu. Photo by Richale Cabauatan/Rappler

Jumao-as was dropped from the list of survivors who needed housing and was never told why. She believes it's because she knows no one from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). NGOs which promised to help also never returned.

Jumao-as said it seems that the government has forgotten about them. "And maybe God has, too?" she wondered.

She is now pinning her hopes on president-elect Rodrigo Duterte.

Free education

DREAMING. Catherine Bentulan dreams of free education for her children.

"Dili gyud siya sayon uy. Dili gyud," said Catherine Bentulan, a mother of 4.

(It's not easy. It really isn't.)

"Giampo gyud nako nga kung kinsa man gani ang musunod nga presidente, iyaha gyung himuon nga libre ang edukasyon para sa pareha namo nga dili pa gyud kaya ipadala sa eskwelahan ang among mga anak," Bentulan told Rappler.

(I pray that whoever the next president is, he makes education free for people like us who can't afford to send our kids to school.)

Bentulan's eldest child is in college; the second one, a 9th grader; and the third one, in elementary school. Her youngest is a toddler.

She was 4 months pregnant the day Yolanda destroyed their house, which had just been standing for a week and hadn't even been furnished yet. She had a miscarriage in the days following the typhoon.

Although Bentulan often wishes that her baby had lived, she said that what happened might have been for the best: "I'm glad he or she didn't live a day to experience our hardships."

Bentulan shared that even before Yolanda came, they struggled to send their kids to school.

She hopes to see the next president, even if he weren't the one she voted for, prioritize education for under-privileged families like hers.

Higher pension

PENSION. Lorita Alarde hopes president-elect Rodrigo Duterte will prioritize increasing pensions for senior citizens like her.

"I hope pensions will rise. Today, it's not enough to raise a family. I'm old, you see. I can't work anymore. They don't hire the elderly and I have grandchildren to feed," said Lorita Alarde, 85 years old.

When Alarde's husband, Fernando, died in 1985, she had to make do with the small pension he left her. She had no job. She was always tending to the house and to the children.

A P3,500-pension today is not enough to provide for her 6 grandchildren, she said.

Alarde hopes Duterte will listen to the elderly like her – and fast – because she believes she doesn't have much time left.

Programs for farmers, fishermen

CABINET. Ruben Jumao-as shares that the cabinet behind him is the only possession that he was able to save during Super Typhoon Yolanda.

"I hope he gives more attention to the farmers and the fishermen. Give them more jobs and privileges," said Ruben Jumao-as, who has worked as a caretaker of a hacienda for more than 20 years.

Yolanda damaged hectares of the sugarcane plantation he takes care of. Tall sugarcanes turned into twigs scattered on the ground after the typhoon came. The plantation has yet to fully recover.

Jumao-as said it's painful for him to see the farmers working under these conditions. "They always seem tired and unappreciated," he said.

Big businesses, he added, make it even worse for farmers and fishermen who make so much less even with all their efforts combined.

Jumao-as relayed his message to Duterte: "Mr President, please take care of our farmers and our fishermen." – Rappler.com

Richale Cabauatan is a Rappler intern and Mover.

We’re half-hearted

SAT, MAY 14, 2016 BY THE MINDANAO DAILY MIRROR LEAVE A COMMENT

IN MY OPINIONKlaus Doring

The Re-public of the Philippines got a new president. The first in history from Mindanao. Congratulations Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. One term is on everybody lips now: unity! Yes, besides all black propaganda and smear campaigns from the past – this Philippine nation should continue as a united country.

Who is half-hearted? Let’s take a look again at Europe. The looming Europe crisis seems to continue. Can Greece deliver on its promises this time?

Five years, three bailouts, two governments and countless emergency meetings later, neither the country’s government nor its people – 25 percent of whom are unemployed in an economy that shrunk by a quarter in five years – fully back the latest austerity deal that was agreed on last Monday.

In fact, there have been major demonstrations against the €5.4 billion worth of measures, which will increase social security and pension contributions and raise taxes. Since the crisis broke out in 2010, similar deals have not borne fruit. So why would anything be different this time? In order to make a repayment due in July and receive the first tranche of funds from the EU bailout program, Greece desperately needed additional funds. The bailout money largely goes towards paying off Greece’s debt – and therefore has little effect on the economy.

‘Our agreement is a compromise’. In an exclusive interview with DW – Deutsch Welle, Nikos Pappas, Greek Minister of State, has now admitted the Tspiras government was “half-hearted in measures that we believe that could be implemented in a different way”. “Our agreement is a compromise. The agreement itself has got the elements that our partners asked us to implement, and our wi-shes. So, the program is not totally ours, it is a compromise,” Pap-pas added when Michel Friedman confronted him with a statement by the German Munich based Ifo Institute that said Athens were dragging its feet on economic reforms. Nikos Pappas currently serves as a Minister of State in Alexis Tsipras’ second cabinet.

Syriza – the far-left party that took government in 2015 – failed to deliver on its promises, posing a problem to Greek citizens, its creditors and EU diplomats in Brussels. German Klaus Regling, head of the Eurozone’s rescue fund EFSF said that although Greece has made some progress with its reforms, the overall “implementation capacity” has been slow – and in fact the “weakest in the European Union”.

Questions like ‘Is your tax collection office on a permanent vacation?’ have been noticed several times. When Friedman asked whether the constant emergency meetings don’t have a certain resemblance to a bad drama, with Athens simply repeating the same old lines, Pappas said: “We have never denied they were internal problems in the Greek state, the Greek economy and the Greek society, never. But these problems were matched with a totally wrong approach that resulted in such a severe recession.” Pappas also refused to take responsibility for the 17 billion EURO that escape state coffers every year, so that the Greek shadow economy repre-sents up to a quarter of the country’s GNP. Pappas called this figure “another extreme expression that does not reflect reality”.

Greece – quo vadis? Europe – quo vadis?

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Email: doringklaus@ gmail.com or follow me in Facebook or Twitter or visitwww.germanexpatin thephilippines.blogspot.com.

Unity

WED, MAY 11, 2016 BY THE MINDANAO DAILY MIRROR

EDITORIAL

History unfolds in Davao City with its mayor for decades, Rodrigo Duterte to sit as the country’s new President by June 30 after being favored by more than 15 million Filipinos and counting on election day, May 9.  It’s history for it’s the first time that the country’s president comes from Mindanao. It was a tough battle muddled with black propaganda that if it did bite, could have ruin the political career of the mayor. But it did not, in fact, the voters’ preference for the mayor shoot up. The dirty political scheme didn’t work to the dismay of his detractors and victory for his supporters.

However let bygones be bygones. The offering of friendship and healing by the mayor to his opponents which reflects the soft spot in him behind that robustness is proof he deserves the presidential post. Now that the people has made its judgment to all candidates, it would be best for everybody especially the losers to respect it.  Accept and forget the pain of defeat. The country has a lot of problems to address. How could the new leaders fix this ailing country if it remains polarized fueled by bitterness and hate.

The stigma of dirty politics should be unleashed to pave the way for unity and reconciliation. This is easier said than done most especially to those who were victims of smear campaigns. But what else is new in Philippine elections. Dirty campaigns have been there since time immemorial.  The politicians should have got used to it and just chew on all the election campaign residues for a  day or two, then move on.   Proclamation of the winners of the 2016 elections will be completed in next to no time.  Speed up the healing and buckle down to work.

Senator Peter Cayetano On The Result of the Vicepresidents Race

Office of the Senate Majority Leader

Alan Peter S. Cayetano

Rm. 603 GSIS Complex Senate of the Philippines Roxas Blvd Pasay City

         

12 May 2016

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano on the result of the VP race

It is often said that the voice of the people is the voice of God. In this regard, I humbly concede my vice presidential bid to Rep. Leni Robredo, who, by all accounts and with 96% of the votes already tallied, is our country's presumptive Vice President-elect. Rep. Leni is not only leading the race, she has clearly won it.

While losing an election hurts, nothing is more painful than the sight of a divided country. Thus, I call on all the other candidates to respect the people's will and rally behind presumptive President-elect Rodrigo "Rody" Duterte and his presumptive Vice President-elect Leni Robredo.

Let us begin the journey toward healing and unification.

I am confident that Vice President-elect Leni will likewise respect and value the people's will by giving her full support to the country's new President and his vision to end the disorder in the people's lives and introduce real change to our country.

I call on the people to rally behind our newly elected leaders. It is in this crucial hour that our voice is needed the most. Let us work together and let the process of real change begin. 

Philippines Election - BBC: Hardliner Duterte 'Set For Presidency'

• 59 minutes ago
 
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Media captionRodrigo Duterte has a persuasive story to tell, Jonathan Head reports

Hardline anti-crime candidate Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte looks set to become president of the Philippines after polls gave him an unassailable lead.

Mr Duterte, who stirred controversy during campaigning with his incendiary comments, said he accepted the apparent mandate with "extreme humility".

An accredited poll monitor said he led with most ballots counted, but this does not represent an official result.

The 71-year-old credited his success to his tough stance on law and order.

His record as the crime-crushing mayor of the southern town of Davao, once notorious for its lawlessness, earned him the moniker The Punisher and resonated with voters.

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Image copyrightAP

Image captionElection officials have said there was a record turnout at polling stations

Other driving issues of the election campaign were pervasive corruption, as well as the poverty and inequality experienced by many Filipinos despite economic growth under outgoing President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino.

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Analysis: Jonathan Head, BBC News, Manila

Rodrigo Duterte, a man dubbed by his rivals as an executioner who would bring terror to the Philippines, has won the presidency by a clear margin, polling nearly twice as many votes as his nearest rivals.

But what is less clear is what he will do with the job. His blunt promise to sweep away criminals and corrupt officials won him the backing of millions of Filipinos weary of ineffective governments.

But he has so far offered few policy details. A spokesman has already pledged a radical overhaul of the political system. Human rights groups have warned he may repeat what happened in the southern city of Davao, where as mayor he is accused of allowing death squads to murder hundreds of alleged criminals.

Mr Duterte has a formidable task in a country still hampered by poverty and poor infrastructure - just meeting the lofty expectations he raised during his campaign will be hard enough.

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'I will do my best'

Election officials have said there was a record turnout at polling stations, with more than 81% of the 54 million registered voters casting a ballot. Senators and about 18,000 local officials including mayors are also being elected.

The vice president looks likely to be Leni Robredo, a social activist who is currently slightly ahead of Bongbong Marcos, the son of a former dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The PPCRV (Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting) poll monitor said that with 90% of the presidential ballots counted, Mr Duterte had more than 14.8m votes - about 39%. The PPCRV is accredited by the election commission to monitor counting but its reporting does not represent an official tally.

Image copyrightEPA

Image captionGrace Poe said it was time to give Mr Duterte "a chance"

The winner is decided on a simple majority of votes cast. Manuel Roxas is in second place with 9m (23%). Senator Grace Poe had been considered a frontrunner but looked set for third place. She has conceded defeat, promising to "co-operate with the healing process" after a turbulent campaign.

'Extreme humility'

Mr Aquino is standing down as the constitution limits presidents to one six-year term. As Mr Duterte rose in opinion polls ahead of voting, Mr Aquino had tried to unite other candidates against him, warning his election could mean a return to dictatorship for the Philippines.

Image copyrightEPA

Image captionThis election represented the highest voter turnout in the Philippines, but in one village in Muntinlupa there was a protest rally over a poll dispute

But on Monday, as his lead extended, Mr Duterte told AFP news agency: "It's with humility, extreme humility, that I accept this, the mandate of the people."

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Duterte: From 'Punisher' to president

• Born in 1945 into a political family but with a more modest background than many Philippine politicians.
• Married twice but now single, he says he has several girlfriends.
• A lawyer, he became vice-mayor of Davao in 1986 and mayor in 1988. He has also previously held a seat in congress.
• Built a reputation fighting crime, militancy and corruption. He has promised to continue his tough stance as president, but has offered few specific policies.
• Well known for incendiary comments, such as saying he would kill thousands of criminals without trial.

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Mr Duterte has made many controversial statements during his campaign, saying that he would massacre criminals and drug-users, joking about the rape of an Australian missionary and saying he would dissolve congress if it didn't agree with him.

He has also given forthright opinions on the Philippines' territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea, saying he would sail to disputed islands and plant the Philippine flag there.

The Philippines has taken one of its claims to a court of arbitration at the Hague. On Monday, he said he would seek multilateral talks over the issue, to include the US and Japan.

Europe and Donald Trump

TUE, MAY 3, 2016 BY THE MINDANAO DAILY MIRROR 

IN MY OPINION

It seems that  Donald Trump’s foreign policy for European politicians is just “a scary mess”. This speech, meant to assuage America’s allies worried about a possible Trump presidency, backfired badly. It left European observers stunned, nauseous and alarmed.

In an apparent effort to tone down his inflammatory rhetoric and appear presidential, Donald Trump refrained from repeating the controversial proposal that had originally catapulted him in the media spotlight and made him a darling of right-wing zealots in the US and abroad. His promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico did not feature at all in what was billed as the Republican front-runner’s major foreign policy address. In fact, Trump did not even mention Mexico or Mexican immigrants, which he had insulted incessantly during his presidential campaign once in his 3,496-word speech.

Instead Donald Trump, reading from a teleprompter – presumably intended to prevent him from veering off-script on a topic he has shown to have little knowledge about – tried to lay out a coherent foreign policy. It did not work!

Donald Trump did speak in full sentences, did not insult anyone and did not brag about his personal success and wealth. But that alone does not make a coherent foreign policy platform.

That is because the content of his speech did little to assuage worries about a Trump presidency. Essentially, his foreign policy speech was a repetition of his populist mantra “Make America great again/America First” coupled with a laundry list of contradictions and vague promises like these: Trump told Washington’s partners that “America is going to be a reliable friend and ally again” only to threaten to leave them high and dry should they not cough up more money for their own security in NATO and generally follow America’s lead.

Trump wants to reconfigure NATO and force allies to pay more. Trump repeated his statement that he would get rid of the “Islamic State” terror group very quickly, preferably with the help of Middle Eastern countries, but again failed to give any specifics. Trump threatened again to launch trade wars to create new or renegotiate existing trade agreements that are favorable to the United States, again without offering any details how and why US’ trading partners might be willing to agree to such deals.

European observers (and count me in as German national!) were shocked by what they heard from Trump on foreign policy. “I came away, I must confess, with a vague sense of nausea,” said Federiga Bindi, who holds the Jean Monnet Chair in European Political Integration at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. “Trump is the ultimate populist, he managed to mix elements of America-ueber-alles, ultra-pacifism, acerbated militarism and gawkiness.”

“I am European, and I heard the American version of Le Pen, Orban and other European populists who want to make us believe that working together through pooling sovereignty is the source of all evil,” said Josef Janning, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“As a student of US diplomatic history, it is profoundly troubling and disturbing to hear someone who is very likely to become the Republican party’s flag bearer in the elections refer often and forcefully to America First, which by all accounts represents one of the darkest moments in American populism as it applies to international affairs,” said Vincent Michelot, a political science professor at Sciences Po University in Lyon.

Trouble for Europe? A big Yes! If Trump’s speech was envisaged as an effort to rebuild bridges with the Republican Party’s foreign policy establishment which had blasted the candidate in an open letter last month, that also did not work, said Matthew Kroenig, a national security scholar at Georgetown University and a foreign policy advisor for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.”If this was meant to be a serious foreign policy speech, it did not deliver,” said Kroenig. “If anything, this speech should make us more, not less, concerned about what a President Trump’s foreign policy would look like.”

For Europe specifically, noted Janning, the unilateralism and America first rhetoric espoused by Trump could mean “a lot of trouble for Europe as it may prompt US interventions in the Islamic world which will fail or have serious after effects.” Janning’s French colleague Michelot was “alarmed and disheartened” by what he heard from the Republican front-runner. But for Michelot at least, Trump’s remarks served an – unintended – positive purpose:

“The speech also represents a confirmation that barring some catastrophic event in the summer or early fall, the next president of the United States will be a woman.”

Asia and Donald Trump? Another story – or the same?

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Email: doringklaus@gmail.com or visit www.germanexpatinthephilippines.blogspot.com or follow me in Facebook or Twitter.

A safe space for children in Guiuan in Eastern Samar

 

UNICEF Philippines‏@unicefphils

Young artists from Eastern Samar help decorate the first disaster-resilient evacuation centre in the Philippines.

Asia's New Battlefield: The Philippines' South China Sea Moment of Truth

BY RICHARD JAVAD HEYDARIAN

A specter is haunting Asia—the specter of full Chinese domination in the South China Sea. Latest reports suggest that China could soon move ahead with building military facilities on the Scarborough Shoal, a contested land feature it has occupied since 2012. This would allow China, according to a Mainland source, to “further perfect” its aerial superiority across the contested waters. By building a sprawling network of dual-purposes facilities, and more recently deploying advanced military assets to its artificially created islands, China is inching closer to establishing a de facto Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the area. Integrating the Scarborough Shoal into its burgeoning defensive perimeter across the South China Sea will not only give it an upper hand in the contested waters, but also allow China to place the Philippines’ capital and industrialized regions within its strategic reach.

Philippines marines in training drill

This is nothing short of a nightmare for the Philippines, which is already struggling to protect its supply lines in the Spratly chain of islands due to growing Chinese military assertiveness in contested waters. Unlike most of Chinese occupied features, which lie well beyond the immediate shores of other claimant states, the Scarborough Shoal is located just about 120 nautical miles off the coast of the Philippines, well within the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)—and also its continental shelf. To put things into perspective, the shoal lies nine hundred kilometers away from the closest Chinese coastline. For Manila, the contested land feature is arguably what James Shoal is to Malaysia and Hainan is to Mainland China.

Manila lost control over the shoal after a tense standoff with Chinese coast guard forces in the middle of 2012. But for more than a century, the Philippines has treated Scarborough Shoal as its northernmost outpost in the South China Sea. In fact, as far back as the Spanish colonial era, the Southeast Asian country has treated the shoal as the natural extension of its national territory. During Cold War years, it was a gunnery range and regular area of naval exercises for American forces, which accessed military bases in the Philippines. Read more