TERRORISM ( DAVAO NIGHT MARKET BOMBING)

MANILA, Philippines (6th UPDATE) – An explosion at a night market in Davao City on Friday night,
September 2, killed at least 14 people and injured more than 60, Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella
said.

An improvised explosive device caused the explosion, presidential spokesman Martin Andanar said,
adding drug traffickers opposed to Duterte's war on crime or Islamic militants may have been
responsible.

"There are many elements who are angry at our president and our government," Andanar told DZMM
radio, after referring to the drug traffickers and the militants.

"We are not ruling out the possibility that they might be responsible for this but it is too early to
speculate."

In a statement early Saturday, September 3, Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte confirmed that 10
people died on the scene following the explosion, which occurred around 10:20 pm at the market along
Roxas Avenue.

Four others later died after being rushed to the hospital.

"Let us pray for the victims of this unfortunate incident, especially for those who died. Let us pray for
those who are being treated in different hospitals and pray for their quick recovery," the vice mayor
said.

"Right now, we cannot yet give a definite answer as to who is behind this as we are also trying to
determine what really exploded," he added.

Earlier, witnesses said they heard a loud bang and saw smoke from the site of the explosion, a massage
area in the market. Ambulances rushed to the scene, carrying the injured on stretchers.

POLITICAL DYNASTY

Voters have had no choice: Dynast versus dynast

Research by the AIM Policy Center reveals a bleak picture of just how little choice our citizens have.
When a province’s politics devolves into monopolies or duopolies of power, voters are often left
choosing between two dynastic candidates.

In the 2013 elections there were 80 gubernatorial races. In 50% of those local elections the candidates
for governor were all members of political dynasties, the race was dynast versus dynast. Another 11% of
races were uncontested, only a political dynast was running. A shocking 61% of governorships in the
country were locked in a dynastic trap. Voters had no choice. In Northern Samar’s 2013 gubernatorial
election Jose Ong Jr was running against Paul Daza, the other political dynasty clan in the province.
The figures are only slightly better for the mayorship races, 27% of mayorship elections were dynast
versus dynast, another 11% were uncontested for dynastic candidates. Thirty-eight (38%) percent of all
the mayoral races were locked into a dynastic outcome.

It’s time for us to stop blaming voters for electing political dynasts into office. They have had no choice,
they have been powerless. It is an unjust and unfair situation. The system has evolved into one that is
rigged against the poor.

Multiculturalism and Effects of Social Discrimination

Multiculturalism and Effects of Social Discrimination

The bad aspect of multiculturalism is that many minorities suffer from social discrimination. Since the
big waves of immigration in the early 60’s in most industrialized countries, some ethnic groups still have
difficulties to integrate themselves to the community because of their race or their religion. This
discrimination creates poverty, anger and political exploitation.

One of the most obvious consequences of discrimination is that those minorities suffer from poverty. In
fact, some racist employers refuse to hire people who are “different”. Thus, many of these victims are
unemployed. These racist employers rather choose a “white profile” for instance. Moreover,
discriminated people confront the same situation when they want to rent an apartment; they are not
only unemployed, but also homeless.

The second main effect is that it creates anger in the society. As a result, this anger turns into violence.
No one can forget American racial discrimination regarding black people: the black power was a
legitimate means of expression full of anger. In addition, this anger creates a boundary between citizens:
the “good ones” and “the bad ones”. On the other hand, governments should fight this violence and
develop solidarity.

Another consequence is that social discriminations create a political exploitation. Indeed, some political
parties, especially in the extreme right, make benefits on this discrimination: they start talking about
minorities as they are criminals or charges that kill the national economy. Unfortunately, their ideas are
becoming more and more popular. Furthermore, this political exploitation enforces racism.

http://www.freecontentweb.com/content/multiculturalism-and-effects-social-discrimination
Corruption Is Still A Big Problem In The Philippines

President Rodrigo Duterte’s death squads have killed the democratic process in the Philippines, and they
haven’t killed the system that reproduces and perpetuates corruption.

In fact, the Philippines is getting more corrupt under Duterte, dropping 13 notches in the 2017
Corruption Index published recently by Transparency International.

That’s on top of six notches it dropped in 2016, which had already pushed the country closer to highly
corrupt Asian countries like Pakistan, and far below countries like Singapore and New Zealand that are
almost corruption free.

To be fair, the findings of the survey should be interpreted with a great deal of caution, for a couple of
reasons. One of them is that they are based on other surveys and polls, and therefore, subject to
aggregation errors. Another reason is that some of the data included in these surveys go back a couple
of years ago, and therefore that data reflects the policies of the previous administrations more than it
does the Duterte administration.

Meanwhile, other surveys show that Filipinos are better off today than they were two years ago. Like a
Gallup survey, which finds an increase in the percentage of Filipinos who consider their lives positive
enough to rate it as "thriving" since Duterte assumed office.

Specifically, 28% of Filipinos consider themselves thriving in 2017 compared to 26% in 2016, pushing the
Philippines up one notch in the ranking of the Asian-Pacific countries.

For an obvious reason: Duterte's economy is running on high gear. It was ranked the world’s 10th fastest
growing economy in the world in 2017.

That’s according to the World Bank’s latest edition of Global Economic Prospects.

Still, fighting corruption is a big bet for the Philippines and for foreign investors buying Philippine stocks.
Why? Because it will determine whether the Philippines can move forward to become a developed
country or slide back to the frontier status.