Duterte’s high approval rating boggles the mind

There he goes again! In the news item “Locsin orders filing of protest over swarming of 240 China vessels in WPS” (4/14/21), Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. sounded like a broken record. Never has a top diplomat of this country looked so silly and pathetic in the eyes of the world.

In the face of the relentless Chinese occupancy of our territories in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), Locsin can waive his middle finger at his Chinese counterparts all he wants, but with his boss, President Duterte himself, in the pocket of Chinese President Xi Jinping, they just laugh at him. How much “kapal ng mukha” can he still manage to grow amid all the insults from the Chinese scofflaws?

China has never had it so good under Mr. Duterte, who has virtually quitclaimed in its favor everything we own in the WPS. Surveys invariably show most Filipinos distrust China. It boggles the mind, then, what idiotic standard Filipinos are basing on so high an approval rating of Mr. Duterte, such that his sycophants are now urging him to continue (mis)ruling this country one way or the other beyond 2022.

ANGELI O. MARCONI
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