YOUTH AND POLITICS

The Philippines is experiencing a lot of problems nowadays and these problems may have
been caused by the wrong guidance of our government. There are a lot of news about how our
country is experiencing the loss of independence, originality and essence. I have heard and read
some news spreading in the internet about foreign groups “invading” our beloved country. My
main example is how President Duterte formed an alliance with China and how much he is with
the support and side of these foreign invaders.

I will provide you some of the issues that has been bothering a lot of Filipino citizens
concerning China and their doings inside our country. It all started with the Scarborough Shoal;
and is also known as Panatag Shoal — and how two countries: the Philippines and China claims
and fights over its land over sovereignty. This island started being claimed by two countries since
2012 and up to this day, speaking on ANC's Beyond Politics, Atty. Jay Batongbacal, director of
the U.P. Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, said the Philippine government should
not say it does not know who owns the shoal which is part of Philippine territory and the
Scarborough Shoal is a traditional fishing ground of Zambales in Luzon.

It was also stated in the article that the Philippines would take necessary action to defend
and protect the country's sovereignty and entitlements in the disputed maritime borders,
presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said in a statement. However, the mayor in charge of
administration of South China Sea islands and reefs China said that preparatory work was being
planned this year to build monitoring stations on a number of islands. It is only natural for us
Filipino citizens to disagree and oppose to China's plans but when President Duterte was asked
for his response to the report of a radar station to be built at the Scarborough Shoal and he said:
"We cannot stop China." His statement made a ruckus especially in the social media, saying how
careless and irresponsible our President is to simply let China have the upper hand of the island.

Our President is a jokester, but not all his jokes must be taken lightly. An example was how
in a speech attended by the Chinese ambassador last February, President Duterte joked about
the Philippines becoming a province of China, a lot protested by hanging from the footbridge of
the fourteen-lane Quezon Avenue in Metro Manila on a July morning was a red banner bearing
bold letters, "Welcome to the Philippines, Province of China."
 Another of the President Duterte's “jokes” was dated back on February 13, 2018 when he
gave a directive of what to do with female guerrilla fighters. “‘There’s a new order coming from
the mayor, ‘We will not kill you. We will just shoot you in the vagina,’ ” said Duterte. He went on
to say that without their vaginas, women would be “useless”. Furthermore, as I read the article
President Duterte has been branded a misogynist and “macho-fascist” after he ordered soldiers
to shoot female communist rebels in the vagina. Even though they censored it from the official
palace transcript and made it as a harmful joke, this is one of the most sensitive contemporary
issues that the Philippines is experiencing and should not be seen as a joke, especially to the
President and his spokeperson.

Recently, there was a news about how China destroyed over 40,000 acres of reef. This
huge area of coral reefs is equivalent to the biggest city in Quezon. And even though everybody
knows about how our earth is already dying, the government still let China destroy those reefs
just for the sake of clam harvesting. Moreover, another news arises in connection with the coral
reefs stating that they have restored and rebuild an area that they destroyed. This action does
not change the fact that they destroyed the reefs in the first place, and they should not be praised
from this action.

At the beginning of Duterte's campaign before he became the President, I was not a voter
yet. But his campaign about “War on Drugs” plays a huge impact to the Filipino citizens. Drugs in
the Philippines have become one of the most major problems and no one seated in the
government who made the initiative to try and eradicate this problem. At first, I was rooting for
Duterte since drugs is really taking a negative toll and it also ruins the lives of the Filipino citizens,
especially the teenagers.

And on his term, the Filipino citizens have witnessed the true identity of President Duterte.
A lot of Filipino citizens have noticed how our President talks, his actions and how he manages
to run our country peacefully, as he should. Yes, he was somewhat successful and failed in doing
his campaign “War on Drugs”. It was a successful campaign for me because the criminal rate
towards drugs lessened significantly. But it is also a failure since many complications arose
together with the decreased rate of drugs, such as EJK. The human rights of an individual is being
violated by this campaign because there are news about a so-called drug addict was killed in the
middle of a raid because the drug addict fought back to the authorities. Some people say that not
all of the people killed were really drug dealers nor drug addicts, and not all of the truly fought
back. This was also the fault of our President since he is the one who ordered the soldiers and
police to “shoot to kill” if the said drug dealer fought back, without considering a proper trial and
investigation.

In order for us to prevent these kinds of problems, my main focus is to be knowledgeable

enough to know who you should vote. VOTE WISELY, since it hold the future of our country.
Voting is the root of the problems that our government is facing. We should not be blinded by the
false promises that the politicians say, and we should not also be swayed by vote buying. And
the youth plays a huge role in our country because most of the population are teenagers and if
everyone will participate in voting the right candidate we will have a chance to have a better future
for our country.

References:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/21/17/expert-says-ph-govt-should-know-who-owns-
scarborough-shoal

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/indepth/opinion/philippines-china-
181122085227993.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/13/philippines-rodrigo-
duterte-orders-soldiers-to-shoot-female-rebels-in-the-vagina