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Tag: Rodrigo Duterte

  • Meta’s Oversight Board is fine with leaving manipulated content on Facebook

    Apparently misleading protest videos are welcome to stay on Facebook now. Meta’s Oversight Board has ruled that the company was right to leave up a manipulated video that made footage of a Serbian protest look like it took place in Holland and was in support of Rodrigo Duterte, former president of the Philippines. A user reshared it within days of Duterte’s March 2025 extradition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands.

    The original video gained additional audio and captions, including chants of “Duterte” and the song Bayan Ko — which accompanied many Filipino 1980s anti-martial law protests — played in tagalog. About 100,000 users viewed the manipulated video, alongside “hundreds” of shares.

    Meta’s automated systems flagged the video as potential misinformation and lowered its visibility for non-US users. However, despite it being added to the fact-checking queue, the “high volume of posts” meant it was never reviewed. Fact-checkers in the Philippines checked some similar viral videos and labeled them as false. It reached the attention of the Oversight Board only after a separate Facebook user reported this video and appealed it when Meta left the content up.

    But the Oversight Board now says it agrees with Meta’s decision to leave a completely inaccurate protest video public. It just notes that Meta should have given the video a “High-Risk” label “because it contained a digitally altered, photorealistic video with a high risk of deceiving the public during a significant public event.” How something with that description merits staying up on Facebook is very unclear.

    The Oversight Board further states that Meta should have prioritized a video of this nature getting fact-checked. Moving forward, it recommends that Meta create a separate fact-checking queue for any content of a similar nature to what has been fact-checked in that market — and that fact-checkers should have improved tools to more swiftly find misleading viral media. It also wants Meta to better describe its labels for manipulated media so users can understand the criteria.

    Meta notably suspended its fact-checking program in the US in January, opting instead for Community Notes. However, it’s now looking at expanding that system other countries and has asked the Oversight Board for advice on locations.

    Sarah Fielding

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  • Rodrigo Duterte Fast Facts | CNN

    Rodrigo Duterte Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at the life of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.

    Birth date: March 28, 1945

    Birth place: Maasin, Southern Leyte, Philippines

    Birth name: Rodrigo Roa Duterte

    Father: Vicente Duterte, lawyer and politician

    Mother: Soledad (Roa) Duterte, teacher

    Marriage: Elizabeth Zimmerman (annulled in 2000)

    Children: with Elizabeth Zimmerman: Paolo, Sebastian and Sara; with Honeylet Avanceña: Veronica

    Education: Lyceum of the Philippines University, B.A.,1968; San Beda College, J.D.,1972

    Religion: Roman Catholic

    Duterte was mayor of Davao City for seven terms and 22 years, although not consecutively.

    His father was the governor of unified Davao and a member of President Ferdinand Marcos’ cabinet.

    Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte, was the mayor of Davao City.

    Once compared himself to Adolf Hitler, saying he would kill millions of drug addicts.

    Cursed Pope Francis for traffic problems caused by the pontiff’s visit to the Philippines.

    For decades, he has allegedly been tied to “death squads” in Davao City.

    Has declared that he will urge Congress to restore the death penalty by hanging in the Philippines.

    1977-1986 – Special counsel, and then city prosecutor of Davao City.

    1986-1988 – Vice-Mayor of Davao City.

    1988-1998 – Mayor of Davao City.

    1995 – After Flor Contemplacion, a Filipino domestic worker, is hanged in Singapore for murdering her co-worker in 1991, Duterte leads protestors in burning the Singapore flag.

    1998-2001 – Becomes a congressman representing Davao City’s 1st District.

    2001-2010 – Mayor of Davao City.

    April 6, 2009 – Human Rights Watch publishes the findings of its “Davao Death Squad” investigation, scrutinizing more than two dozen killings that occurred in 2007 and 2008. Findings show no direct link to the killings and Duterte but do provide evidence of a complicit relationship between government officials and members of the DDS.

    May 24, 2015 – He vows to execute 100,000 criminals and dump their bodies into Manila Bay.

    April 2016 – Duterte comes under fire after making a controversial comment during a campaign rally about a 1989 prison riot that led to the rape and murder of a female missionary. According to a CNN Philippines translation of the video, he says, “they raped her, they lined up to her. I was angry she was raped, yes that was one thing. But she was so beautiful, I thought the mayor should have been first. What a waste.” His party issues an apology, but Duterte later disowns it.

    May 30, 2016 – The Philippine Congress officially declares Duterte the winner of the May 9th presidential election after the official count is completed.

    June 30, 2016 – Takes office as president.

    August 5, 2016 – In a speech, he claims he told US Secretary of State John Kerry that US Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg is a “gay son of a bitch.”

    September 7, 2016 – Duterte and US President Barack Obama meet briefly in Laos while attending the yearly Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit. The two were scheduled to meet prior for bilateral talks regarding the South China Sea, but Obama canceled their meeting as Duterte’s fiery rhetoric escalated.

    September 15, 2016 – A witness, Edgar Matobato, testifies before a Philippine Senate committee, claiming he is a member of Duterte’s alleged “Davao Death Squad,” and that the Philippine president gave orders to kill drug dealers, rapists and thieves. The committee was set up to probe alleged extrajudicial killings in the three months since Duterte became president.

    October 4, 2016 – The Philippines and the United States begin joint military exercises in Manila for what Duterte claims will be the final time under the decade-long landmark Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

    October 20, 2016 – Duterte announces at the PH-China Trade & Investment Forum, “In this venue I announce my separation from the US; militarily, [but] not socially, [and] economically.”

    November 29, 2016 – Nine members of Duterte’s security team are injured after their convoy is hit by an explosive device in advance of a planned visit by the president to Marawi City.

    December 12, 2016 – Admits to killing suspected criminals during his time as mayor of Davao City.

    November 9, 2017 – Ahead of APEC meetings with regional leaders, Duterte tells a group of Filipino expatriates, in the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang, that he stabbed someone to death when he was 16.

    November 13, 2017 – US President Donald Trump and Duterte “briefly” discussed human rights and the Philippines’ bloody war on drugs during their closed-door conversation, the White House announces. However, the spokesman for Duterte tells reporters that “human rights did not arise” during the meeting.

    February 8, 2018 – The International Criminal Court (ICC) says it is opening a preliminary examination of the situation in the Philippines regarding extrajudicial killings. The examination “will analyze crimes allegedly committed … in the context of the ‘war on drugs’ campaign,” specifically since July 1, 2016. Duterte’s spokesman tells reporters that the president “welcomes this preliminary examination because he is sick and tired of being accused of the commission of crimes against humanity.”

    December 5, 2018 – The ICC reports that they have a “reasonable basis to proceed with the preliminary examination” into the alleged extra-judicial killings of thousands of people since July 1, 2016.

    March 17, 2019 – The Philippines officially leaves the ICC. The action, taken after a 12-month waiting period required by ICC statute, follows an initial announcement made March 14, 2018.

    October 5, 2020 – Duterte reveals he has a chronic neuromuscular disease. In a speech in Moscow, he tells a crowd of Filipinos living in the Russian capital he had myasthenia gravis, which he describes as a “nerve malfunction,” reports CNN Philippines.

    March 12, 2020 – Duterte places Metro Manila under community quarantine from March 15 to April 14 to contain the COVID-19 spread in the metropolis.

    March 23, 2020 – The Senate, in a 12-0 vote, approves a bill declaring the existence of a national emergency and granting Duterte additional powers to address the COVID-19 crisis. The additional powers will remain in effect for at least three months or until the state of calamity in the entire country is lifted.

    November 15, 2021 – Files to run for senator in the 2022 election. Duterte is not eligible to run for president again, and his daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, is running for vice president. He withdraws his bid on December 14.

    June 30, 2022 – Duterte steps down as president.

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  • Indonesia’s presidential election has high stakes for US and China

    Indonesia’s presidential election has high stakes for US and China

    JAKARTA – When Indonesians cast their votes on Wednesday for a new president in one of the world’s biggest elections, the stakes will also be high for the United States and China.

    The Southeast Asian nation is a key battleground economically and politically in a region where the rival global powers have long been on a collision course over Taiwan, human rights, U.S. military deployments and Beijing’s aggressive actions in disputed waters, including the South China Sea.

    Outgoing President Joko Widodo’s foreign policy avoids criticism of Beijing and Washington but also rejects alignment with either power. The delicate balancing act has won considerable Chinese trade and investment for Indonesia, including a $7.3 billion high-speed railway that was largely funded by China, while Jakarta has also boosted defense ties and intensified military exercises with the U.S.

    These policies would likely continue if election frontrunner Prabowo Subianto, the current defense minister whose vice presidential running mate is Widodo’s eldest son, wins, according to analysts.

    “None of the major structural features of defense and foreign policy, I think, will change,” said Evan Laksmana, a Southeast Asia security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore.

    Subianto adheres to a policy of neutrality and has publicly praised the U.S. and China. He cited America’s historical role in pressuring the Netherlands to recognize Indonesian sovereignty in the 1940s, during a forum in November at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Jakarta.

    “This is part of history and we cannot forget this debt of honor,” said Subianto, who also extolled China’s importance to Southeast Asia. “China is a great civilization. It has contributed a lot and now it is very, very active and contributing a lot to our economy.”

    Former Education Minister and Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, a presidential candidate who is trailing Subianto in most independent surveys, said he would shift what he called Widodo’s “transactional” foreign policy to one anchored on principles if he triumphs in the elections.

    “When a country invades another country, we can say this is against our basic values. Even though we are friends, if rights were violated, we can reprimand them,” Baswedan told The Associated Press in an interview last month without saying which country he was alluding to.

    Baswedan said human rights and environmental protection should underpin Indonesia’s foreign policy. “If we have no values, then there is a cost-benefit relationship, where we will only support countries that are profitable for us,” he said.

    The U.S. and China have both seen how the emergence of a new leader in the region can threaten their interests.

    Rodrigo Duterte, after capturing the Philippine presidency on an anti-crime platform in 2016, became one of the most vocal critics in Asia of U.S. security policy while nurturing close ties with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Duterte threatened to evict American military personnel who were in the Philippines for combat exercises. He later moved to terminate a defense agreement with Washington that allowed thousands of Americans to enter the country for largescale combat drills, but he ended that effort as he appealed to the U.S. to provide vaccines at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

    Duterte’s stormy term ended in 2016 and he was succeeded by Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who approved an expansion of the U.S. military presence at Philippine military bases under a 2014 defense pact. Marcos said his decision was aimed at bolstering his country’s territorial defenses at a time of increasing aggression by China’s coast guard, navy and suspected militia forces in Philippine-claimed off-shore areas.

    China protested the decision, saying it would provide American forces staging grounds in the northern Philippines across the sea border from the Taiwan Strait that could undermine Chinese national security.

    Indonesia and other state members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations belong to the Non-Aligned Movement, a Cold-War era bloc of mostly developing nations that aspire not to be formally associated with or against any major global power.

    Still, the rivalry between Washington and Beijing has permeated the region.

    Criticisms of China’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea have always been watered down in ASEAN, the 10-member regional bloc.

    State members aligned with Beijing, in particular Cambodia and Laos, have opposed any such reproach or attempt to name China as the object of criticism in joint communiques after their annual summits, several regional diplomats have told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity over the years because they lacked authority to speak publicly.

    Last year, the Philippine government accused the Chinese coast guard and suspected militia forces of using water cannons, a military-grade laser and dangerous maneuvers against Philippine coast guard patrol ships that caused minor collisions in a series of high-seas faceoffs in the disputed waters.

    Under the chairmanship of Indonesia, ASEAN did not specifically mention China but only made general expressions of concern over aggressive behavior in the disputed waterway after their summit meetings.

    ___

    Associated Press journalists Jim Gomez in Jakarta, Indonesia and David Rising in Bangkok, Thailand contributed to this report.

    Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.



    Niniek Karmini And Edna Tarigan, Associated Press

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  • ICC to resume investigation into Philippines’s deadly drug war

    ICC to resume investigation into Philippines’s deadly drug war

    Manila had argued it was conducting its own investigation into deaths under the controversial policy.

    The International Criminal Court has said it will reopen its investigation into possible “crimes against humanity” in the Philippines over former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, which led to the deaths of thousands of people.

    The Hague-based court announced plans for an investigation in February 2018 but suspended its work in November 2021 at the request of the Philippines’ government after Manila said it was undertaking its own review.

    Last June, having considered the files submitted by the authorites in the Philippines and others, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said the delay was not warranted and filed an application to reopen the ICC case.

    The court has since been examining submissions from the Philippines, the prosecutor and victims. In a statement on Thursday, the ICC said it was “not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the Court’s investigations”.

    The statement added: “The various domestic initiatives and proceedings, assessed collectively, do not amount to tangible, concrete and progressive investigative steps in a way that would sufficiently mirror the Court’s investigation.”

    Duterte, a former mayor of the southern city of Davao who campaigned for office on a platform of fighting crime, launched his “war on drugs” as soon as he took office in June 2016, and repeatedly urged police to “kill” drug suspects.

    A United Nations report in 2021 found that 8,663 people had been killed in anti-drug operations but the Human Rights Commission of the Philippines and local human rights groups say the toll could be as much as three times higher.

    Human Rights Watch says it found evidence that police were falsifying evidence to justify unlawful killings, with Duterte continuing the “large-scale extrajudicial violence as a crime solution”, which he had established during his 22 years running Davao.

    Duterte announced in March 2018 that he would withdraw the Philippines from the ICC – a decision that took effect a year later – and that his government would not cooperate with any investigation.

    The court has jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed up until March 2019 when the Philippines’s withdrawal became official.

    Presidents in the Philippines can serve only one six-year term and Duterte was replaced by Ferdinand Marcos Jr last year. Marcos Jr has said he will continue the “war on drugs” but with a focus on rehabilitation.

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  • Philippine prisons chief charged in journalist’s killing

    Philippine prisons chief charged in journalist’s killing

    MANILA, Philippines — Philippine authorities filed murder complaints on Monday against the top prisons official and an aide, accusing them of masterminding the killing of a radio commentator in an elaborate crime they said showed that the country’s prisons system had been turned into a “criminal organization.”

    The complaints were filed against Bureau of Corrections chief Gerald Bantag, who has been suspended from his post, prisons security official Ricardo Zulueta and other key suspects in the Oct. 3 fatal shooting of Percival Mabasa. The journalist had fiercely criticized Bantag and other officials for alleged corruption and other anomalies.

    Mabasa, who used the broadcast name Percy Lapid, is among the latest media workers killed in a Southeast Asian country regarded as among the most dangerous for journalists in the world.

    A joint statement read at a news conference by top justice, interior and police officials said three gang leaders locked up in the country’s largest prison under Bantag’s control were tapped to look for a gunman to kill Mabasa for a 550,000-peso ($9,300) contract.

    After the killing, however, the gunman, who was identified by police as Joel Escorial, surrendered in fear after government officials raised a reward for his capture. He then publicly identified an inmate, Jun Villamor, who he said was assigned by detained gang leaders to call him and arrange Mabasa’s killing. The gang leaders later killed Villamor inside the prison by suffocating him with a plastic bag allegedly on orders of Bantag and Zulueta, officials said.

    “Bantag had a clear motive to effect the murders,” officials said in the statement.

    Mabasa was shot to death for his critical exposes against the prisons chief, and Villamor was killed by gang leaders as a cover-up after he was publicly identified by the gunman as the inmate who arranged the killing behind bars, they said.

    Bantag has denied any involvement in the killings. He and Zulueta have also been charged for the killing of Villamor. No warrants have been issued yet for their arrests, officials said.

    The investigation of the killings bared “the unfortunate transformation of a pillar of justice – the correction pillar – into a deep, large-scale and systematic criminal organization,” officials said in their statement.

    “This will be the cause of many reforms in government and the strengthening of current mechanisms to ensure that nothing of this nature will happen again,” they said.

    As suspicions grew over Bantag’s involvement in the two killings, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered him suspended indefinitely and replaced with a former military chief of staff, Gregorio Catapang Jr.

    A recent search of the maximum-security prison complex under Bantag’s control yielded more than 7,000 cans of extra-strong beer, bladed weapons, cellphones, laptop computers and suspected drugs in a discovery that deepened long-held suspicions of prison anomalies involving officials and guards, Catapang said.

    “There are many crimes that we have to look into,” Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla told a news conference. He cited the beer, drugs and other contrabands smuggled into prison and the deaths of 18 detained drug lords supposedly of coronavirus infection followed by their cremation in a span of 75 days.

    Aside from Bantag, Mabasa had also strongly criticized former President Rodrigo Duterte, who oversaw a deadly crackdown on illegal drugs. Duterte ended his turbulent six-year term in June.

    Duterte appointed Bantag as Bureau of Corrections chief in 2019 despite pending criminal complaints. Bantag had faced charges for a 2016 clash that killed 10 inmates when he was the warden in another detention center. A court later cleared him.

    Media watchdogs have condemned Mabasa’s killing, saying the attack underscores how deadly the Philippines remains for journalists.

    Nearly 200 journalists have been killed in the country since 1986, when dictator Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown, according to the journalists’ union. The group led a protest Tuesday night and called on the government to do more to stop the killings.

    In 2009, members of a powerful political clan and their associates killed 58 people, including 32 media workers, in an execution-style attack in southern Maguindanao province that horrified the world.

    The mass killing, linked to a political rivalry, demonstrated the dangers journalists face in the Philippines, which has many unlicensed guns, private armies controlled by powerful clans and weak law enforcement, especially in rural regions.

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  • Philippine police kill 3 inmates amid rampage in Manila jail

    Philippine police kill 3 inmates amid rampage in Manila jail

    Philippine police have killed three inmates, including a top Abu Sayyaf militant, after they stabbed a jail officer and briefly held a detained former opposition senator in a failed escape attempt at the police headquarters in the capital region

    MANILA, Philippines — Philippine police killed three inmates, including a top Abu Sayyaf militant, after they stabbed a jail officer and briefly held a detained former opposition senator Sunday in a failed attempt to escape from the police headquarters in the capital region, police said.

    National police chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. said former Sen. Leila de Lima was unhurt and taken to a hospital for a checkup following the brazen escape and hostage-taking attempt in a maximum-security jail at the main police camp in Metropolitan Manila.

    One of the three inmates stabbed a police officer who was delivering breakfast to the inmates after dawn. A police officer posted at a sentry tower fired warning shots, and then shot and killed two of the prisoners, including Abu Sayyaf commander Idang Susukan, when they refused to yield, police said.

    The third inmate ran to the cell of de Lima and briefly held her hostage but he was also gunned down by police commandos, Azurin said.

    “She’s safe. We were able to quickly resolve the incident inside the custodial center,” Azurin told reporters.

    De Lima has been detained since 2017 and has been facing a trial for drug charges she says were fabricated by former President Rodrigo Duterte and his officials in an attempt to muzzle her criticism of his deadly crackdown on illegal drugs, which has left thousands of mostly petty suspects dead and sparked an International Criminal Court investigation as a possible crime against humanity.

    Duterte, who had insisted on de Lima’s guilt, stepped down from office on June 30 at the end of his turbulent six-year term and was succeeded by Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of a former dictator who was ousted in a 1986 pro-democracy uprising.

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  • US, Philippine forces hold combat drills to brace for crisis

    US, Philippine forces hold combat drills to brace for crisis

    MANILA, Philippines — More than 2,500 U.S. and Philippine marines joined combat exercises Monday to be able to respond to any sudden crisis in a region long on tenterhooks over South China Sea territorial disputes and increasing tensions over Taiwan.

    The annual military drills are some of the largest so far between the longtime treaty allies under newly elected Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. His predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, had been an outspoken critic of U.S. security policies and frowned on military exercises with American forces he said could offend China.

    Called Kamandag the Tagalog acronym for “Cooperation of the Warriors of the Sea” — the drills involve 1,900 U.S. Marines and more than 600 mostly Philippine counterparts in mock amphibious assaults and special operations, U.S. and Philippine military officials said. America’s HIMARS missile launchers and supersonic fighter jets will be in live-fire maneuvers that will end on Oct. 14, they said.

    The venues include the western island province of Palawan, which faces the South China Sea, and the northern Philippines, across the Luzon Strait from Taiwan.

    The military maneuvers in the Philippines are being held simultaneously with combat exercises between U.S. Marines and Japanese army self-defense forces on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido that involve about 3,000 military personnel from both sides, U.S. military officials said.

    U.S. Maj. Gen. Jay Bargeron of the Japan-based 3rd Marine Division said the simultaneous exercises were aimed at bolstering the defensive capabilities of the U.S. alliances with the Philippines and Japan “through realistic combined training.”

    “These exercises will allow our forces to strengthen interoperability and readiness to ensure we are prepared to rapidly respond to crisis throughout the Indo-Pacific,” Bargeron said in a statement.

    “Our strength, resolve and commitment to our allies and partners in the region are our most effective deterrent,” U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Kurt Stahl told The Associated Press. “Together, we can deter potential adversaries from ever testing our capabilities or our relationships.”

    In July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on China to comply with a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea and warned that Washington is obligated to defend the Philippines under the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty if Filipino forces, vessels or aircraft come under attack in the disputed waters.

    The ruling was issued by an arbitration tribunal set up in The Hague under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea after the Philippine government complained in 2013 about China’s seizure of a shoal off its northwestern coast. China did not participate, called the arbitration decision a sham and continues to defy it.

    In addition to China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have had overlapping claims in the busy waterway, where an estimated $5 trillion in goods passes each year and which is believed to be rich in undersea gas and oil deposits.

    Separately, President Joe Biden said last month that American forces would defend Taiwan if Beijing tries to invade the self-ruled island, sparking protests from China.

    The long-simmering sea disputes and the increasingly tense relations between China and Taiwan have become key fronts of the U.S.-China rivalry.

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