Duterte Gets Tougher on Speeding

"Anyone caught speeding in a 30mph zone will be shot on sight", said Mayor Duterte who is hellbent on clamping down on such offenses.

"DAVAO CITY Mayor Rodrigo Duterte issued an executive order for the strict implementation of the law on speed limit within the city after showing to Sun.Star Davao a video of traffic accidents in the city.

In an exclusive tour inside the Davao City Public Safety Command Center, Duterte showed the video presentation that recorded vehicular accidents in the city.

He said he will be showing the prepared video to the public anytime soon.

He said this is to drive his point as to why he decided to strictly implement speed limits within the city.

The video showed speeding vehicles colliding against each other and pedestrians victimized by speeding vehicles.

Duterte said that with the speed limit from 30-60 kilometers per hour (kph) only, accidents like those shown in the video could be minimized."

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/davao/local-news/2013/12/22/duterte-issues-law-speed-limit-320071

I wish you'd stop making stuff up. The article you are be quoting from does not include any such statement by Mayor Duterte as you assert in your first paragraph.

Did you say you have a sense of humour? But you just know he would like to

I most assuredly do have a sense of humour, I find I need one when dealing with some comments here!

However, you posted the story in the "News" section which, to my mind, should be be restricted to facts - at least for opening posts. Also, the way in which you post quoted extracts from the media (in italics), it's not that obvious that your first paragraph is a figment of your imagination. Had you used the quotation tags, as I do, then a casual reader would more easily be able to distinguish between the two. As it is, those who come to this site to learn more about this country might get completely the wrong impression about Mayor Duterte and Davao City. Do you get my point?

Needless to say though, there's nothing particularly new about this story, there's been a purge on speeding and other motoring offences in effect for quite some time. But some choose to ignore the law and Duterte found that he needed to remind people - just as he recently reminded people about the anti-smoking laws.

Well, I am not so sure he is a good advert for the Philippines. He surely needs a public health warning.

On the topic of giving the wrong impression, all that glistens isnt gold and I think that to post in such a way that paints the Philippines as paradise is out of order.

Per haps you could suggest a "get tough on electric thieves" policy Mark I heard he has already shot all the foxes but that may be an exaggeration

Well, I had planned to visit this year. But we have a one year old baby and my wife doesnt want to do the longhaul flight with a baby of that age who cant sit still for 5 minutes. But, also, I paid attention to Aposhark who pointed out that it is no fun in the Philippines, on vacation with young kids, rather than listen to the lure of the Sirens.

Electrocute them. That would stop em.

The Duterte Formula as reported in the Daily Snail:

"Fighting for the poor is something most politicians like to boast about on a daily basis.
But one Philippines mayor has taken the phrase literally after she was caught on camera punching a stubborn sheriff in the head as he tried to demolish a shanty town.
Sara Duterte-Carpio, mayor of Davao City, was trying to stop the demolition of shanty area where 217 families live."


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...o-punches-Sheriff-head-refuses-help-poor.html

Duterte and Davao in summary.

"Current vice mayor of Davao City, Philippines Rodrigo Duterte is noted for transforming the city from the murder capital of the nation to what tourism organizations there now call "the most peaceful city in Southeast Asia". He's been suspected of being involved with the vigilante outfit Davao Death Squad and has been criticized by human rights groups for tolerating extrajudicial killings of alleged criminals.

Depending on who you ask, Rodrigo Duterte is either a model crime fighter or a mass murderer. In his decade or so as mayor of Davou City, the Philipines' third largest city, he took what was a city with warzone violence to one without much crime at all. Duterte's now ceded power to his daughter but he remains Vice Mayor. And he did make the city peaceful. Up for debate are his methods.

Overall, the Philippines are a hard place to live despite its fine mid-Pacific setting: 7000 beautiful islands of beach, jungle, volcano’s and mountains where most of the nation's 90 million live in poverty. Colonized by the Spanish until Uncle Sam invaded early last century, the country has never emerged from client-state status. American corporations have a run of the place. There's every American chain, from Wendy's to Outback Steakhouse, but the vast majority of Filipinos live on less than $2 a day. There's few major industries, save manufacturing and shipping, where the Philippines has earned the title of Global Ship Manning Capital.

And down south, where Davou City is, on the island of Mindanao, there's all sorts of trouble. The waters between Mindanao and Papua New Guinea, called the Sulu Sea, are the second most pirated in the world, after Somalia. Davou City is the southern-most port of Mindanao, and, with it's large shipping industry, is a haven for smuggling of drugs, weapons, bootlegs, humans, you name it.

Oh, and then there's Jihadis. Mindanao Island is the main base for Moro Islamic Liberation Front, al-Qaeda linked terrorists who have struck Davou City in the past. This is one the places where US military is fighting it's global war on terror. 600 Special Operations troops are fighting alongside Filipinos in Operation Enduring Freedom Philippines, often in the jungles around Davou City. Not that anyone's paying attention, but yes; America is at war on Duterte's doorstep.

So, yeah, Duterte was mayor of a tough city. You could say what he did was like NYPD's Bill Bratton during the Giuliani years, if Bratton's main tactic was extrajudicial killing. See, Duterte got his revenge on criminals by saying they were a "legitimate target of assassinations." Around this time a right wing militia called the Davou Death Squad popped up and started killing criminals. It got so bad that between 2005-2008 720 people were disappeared. So as the murder rate declined, more people went missing at the hands of the state. Duterte was operating in such a corrupt environment that deniability was always there.

This insane version of cleaning up the streets is common practice in other "democratic" places like India, Brazil, Iraq and Pakistan. Like those countries, international human rights groups have been calling for proper investigations for years. "You Can Die Anytime," an uplifting 2009 report by Human Rights Watch, is but one example of the international community asking Filipino President Gloria Arroyo to investigate.

But the President Arroyo doesn't care. She hailed his "tough on crime" approach in 2003 and later appointed Duterte to a cabinet level position on crime. Forcing HRW's chief Kenneth Roth to say: "Arroyo has been taking security advice from someone who openly advocates murder to bring peace and prosperity."

And there's no way the media could ever do a proper expose. After all this is the country where 30 journalists were killed in a single politically motivated massacre in 2009--the largest mass killing of reporters ever. This, too, was the supposed work of another Filipino Mayor."

http://eyeforaneye.vice.com/editorial/the-punisher

So maybe you consider Ampatuan, Marcos, Estrada and Arroyo to be good role models for the country: they represent everything that Duterte fights against.

Paradise is not ready-made but what you make of your life.

I suggest that before you criticise Sara Duterte you actually do some research into why she did what she did and the aftermath of that.

Oh dear. A factually and grammatically-incorrect blog by someone who can't even spell, doesn't know if "the Philippines" is plural or singular and promotes unsubstantiated rumours as facts. I can't take such a piece seriously. Who wrote it, a 12 year-old grade school student?

Probably an American expat...regardless of grammatical ineptitude he still makes a good point.

No excuses, she should lead by example or is it the wild west out there?

And.........

I don't think he is any better.

Pardon the factoid, but Mayor Duterte was actually pulled over at a roadblock for riding a motorbike (a 750,fwiw) without a helmet, in iirc 2009. He had to hand over his licence, pay a fine and attend a counselling session.

A big advance on Mayor Binay of Makati.

Its funny you say that Dom because although I have never visited Italy,I have met many Italians,most of them non English speaking but now all living over here..The last one I met had one of these i pad things that he asked me to type English into.. This thing then translated every thing into his lingo and visa versa.
Really nice people but a serious amount of arm waving when I ask them why they left.
Some very angry Italians over here and increasing in numbers..
Whats going on over there?

Nope. The site describes itself as a "punk zine" which has expanded into "a leading global youth media company". In other words, that blog is the musings of an illiterate American school kid who very likely doesn't even know where the Philippines is. So what "good point" does he allegedly make?

Have you done as I suggested and researched the incident? No, I didn't think so; it's so much easier to be holier than thou from thousands of miles away basing your opinions on a simplistic overview published in a newspaper that you ordinarily hold in such disregard. Do you know what the outcome was of the joint investigation into the incident by DILG, DoJ and the Ombudsman?

Millions of Filipionos disagree and, frankly, neither your nor my opinions about him count. And in fact he is very law abiding:

The fact is that Rodi Duterte is a highly popular public figure who is often urged to run for the presidency. Were he to become a future President, then there's a very good chance that this country would be transformed just as the current Indonesian administration has transformed that country.

For some reason, John, you refuse to accept that there are one or two parts of this country that are very safe and pleasant places to live relative risk-free lives; Davao is one, Subic Freeport is another and, prior to Yolanda, Coron (Palawan) would be a third. Over the last year, I have drawn your attention to both the good and bad, the advantages and disadvantages and I've noted that you seize gleefully on the bad points but invariably diss or simply ignore the good ones. I'm forced to conclude that you are trying to convince yourself that a future move here - which your wife might be hopeful for but you are less inclined - would be a bad decision.

A growing number of Italians have moved here too recently according to a friend of ours who's an Estate Agent. We might have a few good restaurants opening as a result, which can't be bad!