Less than two years before President Rodrigo Duterte’s six-year term ends in 2022, two of his promises on his peace agenda have been delivered: the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and the enactment of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, repealing the Human Security Act of 2007 (HSA).
President Rodrigo Duterte barely mentioned the continuing modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in his fourth state of the nation address in 2019 and even undermined its capability to defend the Philippines from China’s intrusions. (See SONA 2019 Promise Tracker: Foreign Relations)
The rising tensions with China in the West Philippine Sea hogged President Rodrigo Duterte’s fourth state of the nation address in 2019, where he promised two things that remain hanging to this day:
Expressing disappointment over his failure to deliver on a campaign promise to end the drug menace, President Rodrigo Duterte repeated in his 2019 SONA his request to Congress to pass a bill restoring the death penalty on drug-related crimes and plunder.
For the second time since 1972, the government shut down broadcast network ABS-CBN, displacing more than 11,000 workers at a time the country is grappling with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic that is taking a heavy toll on the economy.
After the committee on legislative franchises of the House of Representatives rejected ABS-CBN’s bid for a new 25-year franchise, some lawmakers still wanted an investigation of the network’s blocktime agreement with AMCARA Broadcasting Network.
Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Marie Badoy repeated a wrong claim when she said the National Democratic Front (NDF) of the Philippines is a terrorist group while linking activist Sr. Mary John Mananzan to the organization.
For at least the third time, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro “Teddy Boy” Locsin Jr. falsely claimed that the serving of a warrant of arrest for illegal drugs triggered the Marawi siege.
From stressing that the Philippines “did not need” the United States to “survive as a nation,” President Rodrigo Duterte, through his foreign affairs secretary, is now citing “political and other developments in the region” to delay by at least six months the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).
Martial law has been a part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s vocabulary since he assumed power in 2016, and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo appears to share this fascination.
