Spoons or Chopsticks? Reflecting Back on the Philippines Elections - Life with an "Outsider" as President (sounds familiar!)

Do I Need To Learn Chinese Speak?

Just after the Philippines national elections I was reading some of the personal details about their newly elected president, Rodrigo Duterte. I readily learned about some of the reasons Duterte holds such a deep dislike for America. And the more I read, the more I learned. The way I understood it, Duterte holds grudges longer than most people live; for example, he is apparently still upset about a century-old conflict way back during the American occupation in the Philippines when 600 Moros, mostly women and children, were killed in Mindanao, after a two-day battle in 1906. It is almost reminiscent of what is currently happening with the American cultural upheaval of Southern Confederacy. Even before he entered politics, he consistently echoed anti-American sentiments. He was once a student of the Lyceum of the Philippines and a member of the Kabataang Makabayan, a leftist movement formed in 1964 whose leaders would later form the Communist Party of the Philippines.

President Duterte also went head-to-head with the U.S. government after a hotel explosion in 2002 when he claimed that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation spirited suspected and injured bomber Michael Terrence Meiring out of the country and without any approval from the Philippines government. He then further eyed the U.S. when a bomb exploded at the Davao International Airport in 2003 and followed by another explosion at the Sasa wharf several more months after the hotel explosion that injured Meiring, and is when he began suspecting that the U.S. could have had a hand in the said explosions (ya think?)

President Duterte has also criticized the U.S. for their interventions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, stating that “It is not that the Middle East […] exporting terrorism to America. America is importing terrorism.” He added that jihadists were people “pushed to the wall” by US actions. Nonetheless, Duterte's distrust for America is probably more well rooted than it is substantiated.

Personally, I like the man!

And even though Finance Minister Carlos Dominguez III described Duterte’s recent comments telling U.S. President Barack Obama to “go to hell” as a “bump in the road” in a century-long relationship with the United States that maintains deep business and family ties, they do not overshadow Duterte's most recent public statement to the Chinese where he declared that the Philippines relationship with the United States is "Officially" over.

New Skills Needed.

One morning after the election, my brother-in-law (who is working at our house on our ongoing construction project) was talking about how the Chinese are putting Duterte through his paces in that country, to determine his current and future allegiance to all Asian nations. He [DU30] was apparently asked [by the Chinese] if he used chopsticks or a teaspoon to eat with, and when he replied teaspoon (actually, they use tablespoons here in the Philippines), the Chinese laughingly questioned his motives. It was supposedly and jokingly suggested that if the Philippines wanted to become aligned with the Chinese, they must learn to adapt to more traditional Asian cultures and customs, like eating with chopsticks.

Time For Some Fun!

So, just before lunch break, I went back into the house and grabbed a pair of chopsticks which I handed to my brother-in-law. As I handed them to him, I suggested he go eat lunch and get some practice. "You're gonna need to learn" I told him. "The Chinese are coming!"

I remained optimistic however and looked at this situation as a potential benefit to the Filipino people going forward. If Duterte's U.S. policy moves backfires on him and the country, there will be nothing lost as I see it. The real benefit to me is this - I now know what to buy all the family members here for Christmas... their very own chopsticks! I even thought I could have them all personalized and could still save a lot of pesos buying presents.

Pedicab photo by Retired in Samar

I also thought of suggesting to a few pedi-cab (padjak padjak) drivers in town that they might consider trading-in their three-wheeled bicycles for the more traditional rickshaw.

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