October 4, 2018 • 37 mins
In Part Two about Rodrigo Duterte, Robert is joined again by comedian Blake Wexler and they discuss Duterte's presidency and spoiler alert how Facebook helped him get elected.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mmm, so we're back. I'm again Robert Evans, and this
is Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you
everything you don't know about the very worst people in
all of history. My guest today is Blake Wexler, and
he did an album called Stuffed Boy and is a
stand up comedian and a variety of other things. Yeah,
(00:22):
so this is this is part two of a of
a two part episode on Rodrigudutarte. If you haven't cut
part one, probably listened to that, but there will be labeled.
So I assume if you're listening to this as part two,
you've made a choice one way or the other, and
we're just gonna we're diving into it now. I'm just
getting into it. November of two thousand and sixteen was
a surprising time for a lot of people around the world. Uh.
(00:44):
It came at the end of a surprising election, uh
for those of us in the United States. But I
think we in the US allow an apology to the
people of the Philippines because I don't think we had
the craziest election of two thousand sixteen. Um, you remember,
like how a couple of months before, uh, you know,
the the election came down that access Hollywood tape leaked
and we got to hear a presidential candidate make laughing
(01:05):
references to sexual assault. Remember that, how crazy that's saying.
There's no way that guy won, right, There's there's no
way another presidential candidate topp that in the same year.
Only that exact thing happened because one month before the
May two thousand sixteen Philippine presidential election, the clinical analysis
that I read in the first part of this episode
(01:27):
that declared Rodrigo du Terte and aggressive narcissist was leaked
to a Philippine national television news station. Suddenly, every voter
in the country knew that a mental health expert had
declared a major presidential candidate to lack quote any capacity
for remorse or guilt. And yet sixteen million people still
voted for Rodrigo du Terte, more than enough to hand
(01:48):
him the election. Part of why this happened has to
do with the army of trolls candidate d Tete wielded
to a great effect during the race. See du Terte
has an active cyber army today, but according to New Republic,
he's started using it from the beginning of his national ambitions.
Quote November of two fifteen, when he decided to run
for president, he enlisted a marketing consultant named Nick Gabonada
(02:10):
to assemble a social media army with a budget of
just over two hundred thousand dollars. Gabunada used the money
to pay hundreds of prominent online voices to flood social
media with pro dutarte comments, popularized hashtags, and attack critics.
So what we had going on in our election, some
of it directed from Russia, some of it just completely organic.
(02:30):
He was harnessing himself to use and like it's it's
as if Trump had actually been like getting on eight
chan and four chan and like trying to get people
to make memes and stuff like do tete was actually
organizing a troll army. I assume he delegated a lot
of that to people to the internet because he's like seventy.
But still this was knowledge at that age, and this
(02:52):
was a major part of his strategy because he very
famously spent way less money on his campaign than any
of his competitors because he knew where to focus it.
He really well, I mean, you're gonna pay some to
murderers that was already going up, but no onlike trolls
online that was his thing, rather than like traditional advertising
and whatever like. He realized that's not going to convince anybody,
(03:13):
but a bunch of arguments on Facebook have a better
shot at actually changing some minds. So the article of
that New Republic, Sean Williams knows very well what it's
like when when of dottertes mobs goes after a critic.
He earned their attention after reporting on the bloodshed behind
the new president's now national anti drug campaign. There's another quote.
Her name was Madeline. She was young and attractive, with
(03:33):
long hair and deep brown eyes. When I posted about
de tertes war on drugs, Madeline responded with derision. Maybe
you are anti Duterte troll all caps, she tweeted, a
foreigner who knows nothing all caps about my country. She
seemed to devote her waking hours to spreading her love
of Deuterte and assailing anyone who questioned him, posting dozens
of times a day my president and I am proud
of him. One tweet reads get lost critics. So it's
(03:58):
very familiar sounding. It's canny. Yeah, it's really it's really uncanny,
and it seems silly. It is it is very silly,
but the sheer flow of information did its job. Hundreds
of thousands of paid and unpaid people successfully dominated much
of the Philippines national digital discourse. Rodrigo de Terte owes
a lot to our dear friend Facebook because in March fifteen,
(04:19):
Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company was partnering with smart
Communications to release a free app called internet dot Org.
This app provides free mobile Internet access to anyone with
a smartphone, but it doesn't give users access to the
whole Internet, just twenty four websites, including Wikipedia, ACU, Weather,
and of course Facebook. Have you spotted the downside of
(04:41):
this plan yet? So? The median age in the Philippines
is twenty three as compared to like thirty seven point
eight something years here in the United States. It's a
very young country. Half of the nation's hundred plus million
citizens are active social media users. At least one study
suggests that Filipino people may lead the world in terms
of time spent on social media an average of four
(05:02):
hours and seventeen minutes per day, a half hour longer
than the next highest at Blake Wexler. By the way,
at the Philippines, at you're gonna get your tar tape
mob on you, I hope. So you need the followers
as followers man, the pr this guy sounds like a genius.
Well so, I mean if this is like the perfect storm,
because like at least when we started dealing with all this,
(05:23):
most people have access to the Internet and the whole internet.
What happened in the Philippines is that Facebook gave millions
of people free mobile internet, but also in doing that,
they created a separate walled Internet that millions of poor
people were on, and the only reliable source sort of
was Wikipedia, and the vast, vast majority of news came
(05:44):
through social media. So you would see people posting about
news on Facebook, but you wouldn't be able to click
on a link to read about it, to like com
or deny it. All you had was the misinformation spreading
through social media because that the only internet Facebook has
any vested interest in giving you for free, right, So
they created a separate internet for poor people where disinformation
(06:05):
was even easier to spread. And Facebook did this. They
did this presuming to be nice, like that was the
how they presented. I mean, obviously they just wanted the
data on these people, but they didn't think about the
fact that any repercussion whatsoever other than money, and do
Tarte was like, oh, some millions of people now have
access to Facebook, but nothing else. Well, let's hire people
(06:25):
to spread propaganda on Facebook. It seems really worth the
money and it totally was. When these people would see
or participate in fights on Twitter or Facebook about mayor
Do Tartes murderous policies, it would just look like one
horde of angry people screaming at a smaller horde of
angry people. There would be almost no way for people
looking at this to research any of the claims being made.
(06:47):
You might just side with whatever group seemed the most
confident and prominent. Needless to say, fake news spread through
the Philippines like wildfire. The book Fire and Fury in
the Philippines gives a rundown of how adept to Tartes
campaign was at using this to their advantage. One example
of the government's use of fake news was a viral
post by Juttes campaign spokesman Peter to Lavinia, which defended
(07:07):
the war on drugs. Lavinians cited a report about a
nine year old girl who was raped and murdered. He lambastad,
human rightists, bishops and prostitutes for their failure to condemn
what he called this brutal act. They, he said, we're
derailing the government's war against drugs and crime and Trumpian style.
He went on, Our righteous battles are fierce and relentless
because we faced the devil himself. We cannot be softer,
(07:28):
let our guards down, less we ourselves be devoured and defeated.
Below this, he posted a graphic and distressing photograph purporting
to show the dead child and her weeping mother. As
the online news website Rappler would later point out in
a series of articles which showed how the government was
weaponized in the Internet, the photo was taken in Brazil,
not the Philippines, so fake news big part of this election.
(07:49):
Trolls were used to burnish the mayor's record and devout
It was critical to his presidential campaign that he'd be
seen as having cleaned up the city. One piece of
evidence used to support this was a two thousand fifteen
crowdsourced survey that had ranked Devour City is the ninth
safest city in the world. Because you want to go
too much higher than you know what I mean? It's
way bigger cities out there who have legitimate people voting
(08:12):
on them, as opposed to this in which it was
just but still like, you have a bunch of people vote,
you know, in your online mob vote for devour City
is the safest city in the world, and you get
up to number nine. That's good enough to get the election,
and it cracks the top ten, cracks the top ten.
That's not bad. So do Tear Taste trolls earned their
money on a sliding scale based on how active they were,
(08:32):
with salaries reaching up to two thousand a month, which
you'll remember from the first episode, more or less the
same retainer you get for being one of the leaders
of the Devout Death Squad. Uh. These trolls are augmented
by true believers and of course bots. Some research suggests
that of all Twitter accounts that mentioned Rodrigo do Tearte
are bots. Here's another quote from Free Republic. Elisair Carlos,
(08:55):
a human rights advocate, was forced to change his Facebook
profile after he received repeated threats of islands in a
country where anti government activists have been killed during the
Tear Taste drug war. Carlos takes such threats seriously, sometimes
you go home, you're alone and you need to buy
something from the store. He says, then the fear kicks in,
which is again, these are not just petty criminals and
(09:15):
stuff who have been killed a devout. There have also
been journalists killed. There have been political opponents of his killed,
and his president He's continued to do this sort of
thing to like go after people who speak out against
him because now there's just this precedent that people die
in the streets a lot. People are gunning down in
the streets a lot, and it's just these vigilantes, Like,
I mean, that's what happens in streets. People die in streets. Like, yeah,
(09:36):
cars are there, foot traffic is there, but death is
the primary death inhabitor. Of course. Yeah, so do tear
Te acknowledged hiring social media commentars for his campaign, but
he denies running a digital army, just like he denies
running a death squad. Sometimes sometimes he admits running a
death squad. He denies it until he doesn't. Yeah, he
(09:56):
was against the death squad before he started the death squad.
Despite running by far the cheapest presidential campaign of any
major candidate, Rodrigo dou Tarte one nearly of the vote.
He was elected in May of two thousand sixteen, and
his spokesman issued dou Tar Taste thanks to fourteen million
social media volunteers. Once he was president, several bloggers who
spread pro do Tarte fake news were given press credentials
(10:19):
in July of two thousand seventeen, and Oxford University study
revealed that roughly five hundred paide rolls were likely involved
in do tarrtase online army. Oxford estimated that it would
have cost him around two hundred grand to do so.
This is a pretty good value for the money. When
do Tarte was told about this study, the now president replied,
Oxford University, that's the school for the dumb perfect and
(10:42):
you know what fun their dictionary is, Amryan Webster guy,
the school for the school for the dumb. I've been
saying that for years. On June two sixteen, right after
his inauguration, Do Tarte visited the slum of Tondo and Manila.
He told a crowd quote, if you know of any addicts,
go ahead and killed them yourself, as getting their parents
to do it would be too painful. He's a humanitarian.
(11:04):
I mean, that's nice. That's nice. Just go ahead kill
a drug addict so his mom doesn't have to. Yeah,
that's because before the mom's had to kill their own
and that was a dark era. Right. We're more humanists
now we kill drug addicts for their mothers. Right, that's nice. Uh.
In August of two sixteen, President du Terte announced his
(11:25):
new NARCO list of more than a hundred and fifties citizens,
many of them local government officials, judges, or police. They
were all stripped of any police escort. Any who were
serving as officers were relieved of duty. By this point,
just a few months into his presidency, eight hundred and
fifty two people had already been killed in the now
national drug war. When questioned by reporters about his list,
the president explained that if suspects showed the slightest violence
(11:47):
and resistance, I will tell the police shoot them. By
early two thousand seventeen, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency revealed
that the NARCO list had been expanded to more than
six thousand suspects. This is somewhat at odds with the
reporting of The New York Times, who suggests the list
may have over a million names by now. Quote said
do terte in October, the human rights people will commit
(12:09):
suicide if I finish these all, which again, there's never
any hiding this. He's he's never not pretending to be
a terrible, terrible monster. Jesus. Yeah uh, here's the New
York Times. The list was a distilled essence of do
ter taste appeal, a raw and brutal effort at law
and order, whatever the cost. As of October, the president
(12:31):
enjoyed an eighty six percent approval rating nationwide. His popularity
was greatest among the poorest Filipinos surveyed. Family members of
the drug Wars casualties, on several occasions told me they
supported Dottertase violence, even as they insisted their sons and
daughters were targeted and accurately, Which is if you get
people to believe that, like, yeah, that sort of tough
justice thing is the only way to keep the country safe,
(12:53):
and they'll be like, yeah, man, it's just a shame
that they got Mark, Like yeah, you know, I mean,
if Mark has to go, he's got to go. He
did sniff glue. You know, he was a glue stick.
He was a glue stiffer. And he stole a cell
phone that one. I mean, the point of the matter is,
no death squad is perfect. You know, you can't hold
a death squad to an unreasonable standard. You know, a
death squad, I would say, you want a death squad
(13:14):
to be at least accurate. But anymore than that, you're
kind of asking for the moon, you really are. Yeah,
and they don't. You don't want them going to some
shitty college like Oxford right now, that's our university. They
do their own research poorly, I would imagine. Uh so
do Tote had won six and a half million more
votes in the next most popular candidate in the presidential election,
(13:34):
so it was not particularly close. The public seemed to
eat up his promises of unspeakable violence and death. In fact,
after his election, the president started to claim that he'd
killed three suspected criminals while he was mayor of de
Vous City. The way he tells it, it it sounds like
he ambushed three people and gunned them down in the street.
He's very proud of this. He also claims to have
thrown a rape and murder suspect out of a flying helicopter. Well,
(13:56):
here's here's just a quick question. It's not like a bus,
you know, like where you just happened to run into
someone that you don't know who happens to be a
rape and murder suspect. Like why were they in the
same Like there's the pilot, there's the co pilot, there's
the president, and then there's a rape and murder suspect.
Like how many people are in this helicopter just wandering in?
(14:17):
I'm assuming what he's talking about is like when Pinochet
was president, it would capture communists, they would take them
up in helicopters, and that's how they'd executed that. It
wasn't an opportunistic thing. It was just it's just like,
who then is this rapist? So I'm the president, what
do you do? Well, I'm a rapist. Your seat belt, sir,
door opened. It would be kind of cute if it
(14:41):
was just serendipity. Yeah, well that's a weird coincidence. You're
the president, I'm a rapist. Oh well, just push me
right on out, jump up into the blades. Oh boy, Rodrigo,
you know, now that he's president, has managed to stay humble.
He insists that his colleagues continue to call him mayor.
(15:02):
This is somewhat fitting because do tear te more or
less does the same things as president that he did
his mayor, just on a grander scale. One of his
first priorities after being elected was to secure a massive
increase in the Presidential Intelligence Fund, which can be used
with the president's discretion with no oversight, to do things
like pay assassins on motorcycles to murder drug users in
the streets hypothetically. Hypothetically, hypothetically, you could also use it
(15:25):
birthday parties, of course, streamers instead. We don't have to
name all the things. Let's just name that one. And
and in fact, disbursements from the Intelligence Fund are not
itemized and unless supported by agencies, and receipt of the
money are not audited. So that's nice. It increased roughly
from like fifty million dollars the year before to ten
million dollars now that do Chete was president. And yeah,
(15:46):
he gets to use it basically on whatever he wants.
So yeah, that's that's kind of neat. He gets to
like buy gifts and rewards for like for people he
wants to bribe, and he also gets to buy bullets
for people that he wants to kill people and pay
the money for killing people. That's nice. We should have
have a presidential intelligence fund that just is completely unaccountable,
like a good time. Yeah, i'd be good with a
(16:07):
president with intelligence. Thank you so much. We'll be right back. Nice, nice,
It is about time. I know that you were joking
with that ad break, but let's do an actual ad
break and fucking blow some people's minds. I'll take it.
Buy some products. We're back, boy, howdy. I mean, those
(16:28):
products and services were just so much better than the
products and services that came on during whatever last ad
break you'll listen to. Yeah, I feel comfortable saying you
build off the previous one, which is a professional thing
to do. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely, always taking steps forward and
never taking steps backwards, unless you're taking a step backward
in order to make a long jump forwards like Seaquille O'Neal. Yeah.
(16:51):
Or one of those assholes on a hike who walk
up backwards to work the front with the front part
of your life. Does that happen in a lot of hikes.
I'll see him. I mean, that could be your death
squad thing, but it could be what you use your
death squad for. The al Right, well we've got two
things for the death squad. People who make their own
speed limits and people who walk backwards on ice. All right, See,
(17:15):
everybody's got a death squad if you really think hard
at it. And I challenge you listeners at home, pick
your death squad target. Everyone's got a group, you know,
all right, So do tartes first year in office saw
ten thousand deaths from his now national death squads. Now
you may note that is three times as many people
(17:37):
who died during the Bloody Rain of Ferdinand Marcos. So
he is in the first year, in his first years yea,
and Marcos had like fourteen years. Is dictator and fucking
do Tartes not even dictator yet? And he's he's already
way better at killing people. So I'll give that to him.
Like he's a better dictator than Ferdinand. He's better at
(17:58):
murdering people than Ferdinand. Move scho he moves fast. He's
not a lazy president riot. You would not say that
about him, although he does not like to get up
early in the morning. Not one third of the people
shot dead were by the police. The vast majority two
thirds died in vigilante hits by killers. Writing in tandem, Now,
writing in tandem is sort of a phrase in the Philippines.
(18:19):
A bicycle built for two, right, it's two people on
a motor site. Right. And this technique was first pioneered
by Griselda Blanco, who we did an episode on. She
was most likely the inspiration for this strategy because Rodrigo
dou Tarte is a huge fan of true crime novels
and I think the show Narcos, so he seems to
get ideas. He invited like a true crime novelist over
to the country to hang with him instead of God. Like,
(18:40):
he seems to get a lot of his ideas from
these things. And he clearly saw like, oh, motorcycle assassins,
that's a really good way to kill people in this Yeah,
it's a great way because you don't have to worry
about traffic. You know, that's true. Yeah, it's sensible. It's
the only way to run a death squad in a
city with severe urban congestion. Yeah, I mean, you can't
do it from an suvdeo. Oh my god, can you
(19:01):
imagine Jesus, No, what a waste of gasoline. I mean,
you only have so much money in the slush fund, right,
It's just it makes more sense. It's just good economics exactly.
An awful lot of little kids have died, and that's
an ugly I'm sitting that one out. A lot of
children died in the crossfire of this drug war. Refers
to these dead children as collateral damage. Here's the Guardian.
(19:24):
Do Tart said those cases would be investigated, but added
that police can kill hundreds of civilians without criminal liability.
He gave a hypothetical example of an officer using an
M sixteen rifle when dealing with a gangster who wields
a pistol. Quote when they meet, the exchange fire with
the policeman in the M sixteen, it's one burst burr
and he hits the thousand people there and they die.
It could not be negligence because you have to save
(19:46):
your life. It could not be recklessness because you have
to defend yourself. So if a policeman fires a thousand
rounds wildly into a crowd because the one guy had
a gun, that's okay, oh my god. Which is like,
it's like the problems we have now with police in
our country, but taken to the nth level, because here
(20:06):
we'd be like at least and people panicked and like,
you know, the right thing wasn't done, but it was
not purposeful. And he's just like, no, you can fire
a thousand rounds doing fuck it? Yeah, you ahead again,
right one. I mean that guy with the gun could
have killed ten people, upwards of a dozen people off
(20:27):
to save ten. Yeah. Of course the checks out um
dictator math would be a fun class to teach, associated
it would. On Christmas two thousand sixteen, twelve year old
Christine Joyce Salog was shot and killed in the car
park of her church is she left Christmas Mass. The
bullet that killed her was alleged to have been fired
by a mask man on a motorcycle, aiming at someone
(20:49):
else who also died in the attack. At least thirty
one children were shot dead in the first six months
of the national drug war. The youngest victim was four.
In August and early September of two seventeen, ninety six
people were killed in Manila in the space of what
the police called a one time, big time assault on
drug dealers in the capital. Here's fire and fury in
the Philippines. The first to die was seventeen year old
(21:11):
can Lloyd Delo Santos and Calocan City, on the northern
fringes of Metropolitan Manila Police claimed that he was a
meth dealer who had fired at cops during a raid.
They had acted in self defense, they said, after he
had opened fire on them. But for once, CCTV footage
emerged that told a very different story. It clearly showed
two plainclosed police officers dragging the teenager away before he
was shot dead in a rubbish strewn alleyway. His body
(21:32):
dumped next to a pig sty. He was found with
a hole in his head and another gunshot wound to
his torso, grasping a pistol in his left hand. His
parents said their son was right handed. Justice Secretary Battaliano
Aguir the Second described the killing as an isolated case.
Human Rights Watch said that to deliberately target children for
execution marks an appalling new level of depravity in this
(21:53):
so called drugs war. So people started to have issues
with all of the murdering. Can's funeral became a giant
pro test march against the new drug war. More than
five thousand people took to the streets. Many of them
were family members of people who've been murdered by duteier
taste hired guns. The government was forced to investigate, and
the Justice Department actually did look into the killings. This
led to the firing of the entire person police force
(22:15):
in the city of Calucan, where Kan had been killed.
They were ordered to receive forty five days of training,
and then most of them were rehired and reassigned other stations,
which you may recognize as not being fired. Right, right,
and also very odd for the Catholic Church, which he
hates so much. He's taking an exact strategy that they
used by reassigned. Oh my god, I didn't even think
(22:35):
about that. But he is doing the rape priest thing,
but with cops that shoot children, right, Yeah, remarkable, one
of the worst sentences I've ever heard. Priest with cops children.
It's just a bang, bang bang of horribleness. Yeah, it's
really yeah, but efficient, a very efficient sentence and accurate. Unfortunately,
(22:55):
we'll say this for the Catholic Church, they know how
to cover up a crime for a while, for for
a while. So yeah, Can's parents met with Duterte, who
told them those who had committed wrong would not go unpunished.
This was not enough to stop the Catholic Church from
condemning Duterte for all of the deaths. Deuterte did not
actually give a funk what the church had to say,
(23:17):
as I noted in the first episode. In two thousand sixteen,
after Your Pope Francis's motorcade caused a traffic Jaman Manila,
he called the Holy Father a son of a whore. Now,
this particular phrase is if you haven't guessed the president's favorite.
The exact term he uses is putang ena, which translates
roughly to son of a whore. Apparently, some people count
his p i s fire and Fury actually makes the
(23:39):
claim that there are people who sort of like listen
to his speeches to see how many times he'll say
son of a whore, and so far the record is
forty eight times in a forty five minute speech, which
is a lot of times. It does make it seem
like less of an attack on the Pope. He just
can't stand like, that's just like a comma for this guy.
What was the speech on you know, like, oh, I
have no idea um that would be, but yeah, yeah,
(24:03):
he's probably Yeah. When Philippine priests condemned do Tarte for
slandering the Pope, do Tarte responded, we are all the
creations of God. We have God given talents. The talent
that God gave me is cussing. Instead of blaming me,
blame God because he created me. Bullet proof logic. You
gotta give it to him. There the ultimate deflection. Yeah, No,
(24:27):
God made me. He made me good at saying fucking whore.
Whatever right you pray to him, You pray to him,
you ask him. Yeah, I'm just doing what's natural. Um Now.
President do Tarte did eventually apologize to the Pope, but
he seems to honestly have very little control over his mouth.
In the moment when he met with thein Secretary of
State John Kerry, he called the U. S Ambassador America's
(24:49):
gay ambassador. Uh and he meant gay as a slur
and is a literal thing. It's it's kind of hard
to tell. He called President Barack Obama a son of
a whore in two thousand and sixteen, and then apologized
for that too. In June of two eighteen, Rodrigo dou
Tete really shot for the moon and declared God stupid.
Here's just going after God, the guy everything. Here's the
(25:12):
BBC reporting on a speech he gave in Devour City,
asking who is this stupid God? Mr do Tart criticized
the biblical story of creation and Adam and Eve being
thrown out of the garden of Eden after the eighth
of forbidden Fruit. You created something perfect and then you
think of an event that would attempt and destroy the
quality of your work, He said, so really has some
(25:32):
logical problems with God? Right, fair enough, there's some holes
in that story if you poke enough. Yeah, yeah, oh boy, Yeah,
we'll get to the fallout of calling God stupid because
it's not great in a country where like nine people
are a Christian. Yeah, now, right now. One of the
big debates in Philippine politics, alongside should we be murdering
(25:55):
drug users and petty criminals in the streets, is whether
or not President do Tete is going to clare martial
law like his predecessor Ferdinand Marcos and like the U.
S Military before Marcos Uh. In May of two seventeen,
around one Muslim fighters laid siege to the city of
Marawi on the island of Mendano. In response, the president
declared martial law across the island. So not all of
(26:15):
the Philippines in the island of Mendana, which is also
the island where devout city is. Fire and Fury discusses
an address he gave the soldiers on Mendano shortly after
the declaration quote. He sought to reassure them that should
they be accused of committing abuses under martial law, he
would take personal responsibility for their actions. Then he joked,
if you raped three, I admit it, that's on me. Yeah,
(26:38):
no one laughed. But when social media exploded withoutrage, Yeah,
that's what Fire and Fury says. No one laughed. I
wasn't there. The ultimate fool me. Once you're raped three people,
that's on me. Social media exploded with outrage. Chelsea Clinton
attacked Uterte, said he was a murderous thug with no
regard for human rights and a sickening sense of humor.
(26:59):
Rape is never a joke. Not funny ever, so that
Chelsea Clinton went after the President of the Philippines. Not
sure why she wound up seeing his tweets, but whatever,
it's worthwhile thing to attack him on. Do Tarte did
not wait for his pr people to figure out a
good response or some way to spend the story. He
gave another speech a little bit later to naval officers
and devout and reminded Miss Clinton of her father's affair
(27:20):
with Monica Lewinsky. Here's do Terte talking to naval officers,
but really talking to Chelsea Clinton, because I don't think
he's a big Twitter guy. These hors they hear rape
like Chelsea, she slammed me. I was not joking. I
was being sarcastic. I will tell her when your father,
the president of the United States then was screwing Lewinsky
and the girls in the Office of the President on
the table on the sofa, how did you feel did
(27:42):
you slam your father? Which if you thought locker room
talk was bad, try Filipino naval ship talk. That's pretty
bad as well. This gives me to something. One of
the nicknames he's gotten is like the Trump of the Philippines,
which I don't think is fair. He is way worse
than Donald Trump, saying so much grosser and more violent
and like scary, right uh? And and also but who
(28:06):
is because they both admire each other, Like you said before,
they really get along. Yeah, I'm sure almost the same person.
They are, just yeah, ones more openly violence. Well, I
feel like do Tarrte is Donald Trump if he had
physical courage because Do Tcharite is clearly not afraid to
get and dirty. Put Yeah, like his Les Kanyes, the
guy who claims to have been one of the heads
(28:26):
of the di squad, claims that he's watched the president
kill eight people. I can't imagine Trump doing that. I
just don't think he's got the stomach for He isn't
like one of the biggest narcissistic assholes in the world
Trump is, but he is also a coward. Yeah, well,
they is the opposite of a coward. He's certainly not
a physical coward. He's willing to like get into the
(28:47):
fucking MUCKs say that for him. He's also really attacking
Chelsea Clinton. He in a way that's very gross. So
in October of two seventeen, Steven Seagal came to visit
Rodrigo do Tarte. Of course course, of course, Steven Seagal
came to visit you ter day. I'm surprised he wasn't
already there. He just has a home there. The two
(29:08):
hitted off. Seagal was in country to do location scouting
for a film about illegal drugs and other crimes. Apparently,
what he said, they took a picture together, punching towards
the camera, and it's it's everything that you would expect.
It will be incredible, but it's it's a great picture.
That's one website behind the bastards dot com. Steven Seagal. Yeah,
the guy really knows who to associate himself with. Yeah.
(29:31):
The president allegedly told Segal that he believes movies reflect life,
then talk to him about his plans for the drug
war quote. Segal endorsed him in exchange, confiding that he
had made close to a hundred visits to the Philippines
over the years, Although he didn't say why, what he
did say was that he was a big fan of
the president, who has been instrumental in making the Philippines
a safer place. Steve. We all know why, stevens galen
(29:52):
of the Philippines a hundred times. And it's gross. They
don't need to say anything more about and it is gross.
It's super gross. I'll so, I feel like you can
predict that with any vacation Steven Seagal makes, there's probably
one reason he's vacationing there. And it's gross. Steven Seagal, Right,
oh god, that's disgusting. Film poison poured into a heavy suit,
(30:17):
whatever kind of suit he's wearing in that that's a
solidified cylinder of milk. Yeah yeah, he does look like
what happens when a human being curdles, right. Uh. In
February of eighteen, President Do Tete gave a speech to
two hundred communist guerilla fighters who had surrendered. A quarter
(30:39):
of them were female. During the speech, he specifically instructed
his soldiers not to kill any female fighters they encountered
in the field, shoot their vagina, because without that they
are useless. He then addressed the surrendered women, we won't
kill you. We will just shoot your vagina. If there
is no vagina, it would be useless. And he's referring
to the women women, right yeah, yeah, yeah, Rodrigod tarr
(31:01):
te everybody. Yeah. Uh. For the first year or so
that he was in power to Tear, his approval ratings
were unassailable, But in more recent months it seems like
he started to stumble. It's kind of hard to say
because I've I've found some surveys and whatnot say that
his approval ratings dropped after the calling God's stupid comment
down Like, but that's just one. Another said fifty six.
I found another couple that say he's still very popular
(31:23):
in the seventies or eighties. So these aren't numbers being
filtered through the government. These are actually these are other
people trying to figure out what's going on. It does
seem like his approval rating has fallen, particularly in the
last six months. Growing inflation seems to be a big
part of that. So it's not clear if all of
the murder and vagina shooting comments have actually had an
impact or it's just because the economy stumbled. But it
(31:46):
seems like he maybe finally losing some support, but there's
also evidence that he is still very popular, So I
don't know. It's like, what do you have to do?
It's almost in another just mirroring Trump is when Trump
said that like fam is quote where he could shoot
someone in the middle of the street and it wouldn't
affect anything. To Tarte literally shot multiple people in the
middle and his approval rating scott and he got elected president. Yeah,
(32:09):
he became Yeah, people were big fans of that. Interestingly enough,
Rodrigo Jutarte is something of a hypocrite on the matter
of drugs. According to Fire and Fury in the Philippines.
Deutarte has confessed to taking several times the prescribed dosage
of the powerful painkiller fentonyl, the synthetic opioid on which
the musician Prince overdosed and died. When it was reported
that himself was a drug addict, he retracted his claim
(32:32):
and said he'd been joking. Side effects of this highly
addictive drug include mood swings, cognitive abnormalities, confusion, trouble concentrating,
feeling sad or empty, in erectile dysfunction, although this would
be countered by his enthusiastic embrace of viagra, which he
is publicly bragged about. So no evidence that that is
an actual thing that he takes. What a fucking drug cocktail?
That is like a bunch of fyl board that is
(32:55):
war heart crisis speedball. Yeah, we hope it's I hope
it's bad for his So as as we speak to,
Chart is currently trying to convince both houses of the
Philippine Congress to reintroduce capital punishment. If that happens, they
will be the first country in history to ban capital
punishment and then reintroduce it. Do Charte has said he'd
like to put five or six people to death every day.
(33:15):
As you might expect, he's never a dollman for journalist
to cover. On one occasion, a Filipino journalist asked about
the president's health. He called the assembled journalists sons of whorse,
and then he asked the reporter who questioned him, how
is your wife's vagina? Is it smelly or not smelly?
Give me a report. So this is the president in
a press conference to National News. Another time, he was
(33:39):
he's saying that it's inappropriate to ask if he's in
good health. You're the president. It's always appropriate to make
sure you're in good health. You're the president. It is
our business, you're the press. Yeah, okay, I'm sorry. I
was trying to apply a logic to a logical situation,
and now he's just a mad Yeah. Another time, he
was asked about what he planned to do to protect
(33:59):
journalist in the Philippines, the deadliest country in Asia for journalists.
Five I think have died at least since he took office, responded,
Just because you're a journalist, you are not exempted from
assassination if you are a son of a bitch. So
it's good to know it. Qualifier. Yeah, it's hard to
say how serious Rodrigo is about that or half of
the ridiculous things he says. The president is on record
(34:21):
is saying that out of every five things he says,
only two are true and the other three are just
wise cracks. That's why it's hard to know if his
next plans for the nation include an expansion of the
state of martial law. In Mendano, when asked about that,
he has said, quote, you know, I have to protect
the Filipino people. It is my duty. And I tell
you now, if I have to declare martial law, I
(34:41):
will declare it. I will declare martial law to preserve
my nation. Period. So he's probably gonna de clare martial law. Yeah,
or he is joking because you know how funny martial laws.
That might be one of those three out of five
statements that he's joking about it. I wonder he's claimed
to kill people at least three times, so the odds
are he's at least not lying about one of the
murders that he's admitted to committing. Rodrigo do terr te
(35:04):
quite the fellow. How do you feel having learned all this?
I feel great, I feel good. I find energize. I
feel like it's motivating me to do more with my
life and and lie more often. And that does seem
to be one of the through lines of all these
bastards is that if you just keep lying and saying
insane things to people and and shouting and then accepting
(35:24):
responsibility whatever, accept responsibility, call everyone a son of a whore,
have people's shot. That is, if I was going to
like write, what's this famous self help book people like
the purpose Driven Life, perfect the death Squad Driven Life,
you could do a do terr Te themed version of
that and it would have a lot of good advice
for politics and murder, yeah, which are unfortunately have come
(35:47):
together as one thing in this podcast. They're inextricably intertwined. Yeah. Um,
well this has been great. Yeah, you want to plug
some plug doubles before we I am blake Lex. That
was just me stalling for a time, so I said
my own name, um black blocks dot com at black
Star on Twitter. And then a new album, Um stuff boy,
(36:08):
my stand up comedy album is out on everywhere you
download that ship beautiful. You can find us on behind
the Bastards dot com. All the sources for this article
will be available. You can also find us on Twitter
and Instagram at at bastards Pod. We have t shirts
and coffee mugs and phone cases and stuff with all
sorts of funny googos on them. You can get them
on the behind the Bastard store for t public so
(36:32):
check that out to the money goes to me so
that I can buy narcotics um, so yeah, help me
not be as sober as I am right now in
the second. Anyway, check us out. We'll be back next
Tuesday and every Tuesday from now until the end of time,
and until then, I love about
Mmm, so we're back. I'm again Robert Evans, and this
is Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you
everything you don't know about the very worst people in
all of history. My guest today is Blake Wexler, and
he did an album called Stuffed Boy and is a
stand up comedian and a variety of other things. Yeah,
(00:22):
so this is this is part two of a of
a two part episode on Rodrigudutarte. If you haven't cut
part one, probably listened to that, but there will be labeled.
So I assume if you're listening to this as part two,
you've made a choice one way or the other, and
we're just gonna we're diving into it now. I'm just
getting into it. November of two thousand and sixteen was
a surprising time for a lot of people around the world. Uh.
(00:44):
It came at the end of a surprising election, uh
for those of us in the United States. But I
think we in the US allow an apology to the
people of the Philippines because I don't think we had
the craziest election of two thousand sixteen. Um, you remember,
like how a couple of months before, uh, you know,
the the election came down that access Hollywood tape leaked
and we got to hear a presidential candidate make laughing
(01:05):
references to sexual assault. Remember that, how crazy that's saying.
There's no way that guy won, right, There's there's no
way another presidential candidate topp that in the same year.
Only that exact thing happened because one month before the
May two thousand sixteen Philippine presidential election, the clinical analysis
that I read in the first part of this episode
(01:27):
that declared Rodrigo du Terte and aggressive narcissist was leaked
to a Philippine national television news station. Suddenly, every voter
in the country knew that a mental health expert had
declared a major presidential candidate to lack quote any capacity
for remorse or guilt. And yet sixteen million people still
voted for Rodrigo du Terte, more than enough to hand
(01:48):
him the election. Part of why this happened has to
do with the army of trolls candidate d Tete wielded
to a great effect during the race. See du Terte
has an active cyber army today, but according to New Republic,
he's started using it from the beginning of his national ambitions.
Quote November of two fifteen, when he decided to run
for president, he enlisted a marketing consultant named Nick Gabonada
(02:10):
to assemble a social media army with a budget of
just over two hundred thousand dollars. Gabunada used the money
to pay hundreds of prominent online voices to flood social
media with pro dutarte comments, popularized hashtags, and attack critics.
So what we had going on in our election, some
of it directed from Russia, some of it just completely organic.
(02:30):
He was harnessing himself to use and like it's it's
as if Trump had actually been like getting on eight
chan and four chan and like trying to get people
to make memes and stuff like do tete was actually
organizing a troll army. I assume he delegated a lot
of that to people to the internet because he's like seventy.
But still this was knowledge at that age, and this
(02:52):
was a major part of his strategy because he very
famously spent way less money on his campaign than any
of his competitors because he knew where to focus it.
He really well, I mean, you're gonna pay some to
murderers that was already going up, but no onlike trolls
online that was his thing, rather than like traditional advertising
and whatever like. He realized that's not going to convince anybody,
(03:13):
but a bunch of arguments on Facebook have a better
shot at actually changing some minds. So the article of
that New Republic, Sean Williams knows very well what it's
like when when of dottertes mobs goes after a critic.
He earned their attention after reporting on the bloodshed behind
the new president's now national anti drug campaign. There's another quote.
Her name was Madeline. She was young and attractive, with
(03:33):
long hair and deep brown eyes. When I posted about
de tertes war on drugs, Madeline responded with derision. Maybe
you are anti Duterte troll all caps, she tweeted, a
foreigner who knows nothing all caps about my country. She
seemed to devote her waking hours to spreading her love
of Deuterte and assailing anyone who questioned him, posting dozens
of times a day my president and I am proud
of him. One tweet reads get lost critics. So it's
(03:58):
very familiar sounding. It's canny. Yeah, it's really it's really uncanny,
and it seems silly. It is it is very silly,
but the sheer flow of information did its job. Hundreds
of thousands of paid and unpaid people successfully dominated much
of the Philippines national digital discourse. Rodrigo de Terte owes
a lot to our dear friend Facebook because in March fifteen,
(04:19):
Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company was partnering with smart
Communications to release a free app called internet dot Org.
This app provides free mobile Internet access to anyone with
a smartphone, but it doesn't give users access to the
whole Internet, just twenty four websites, including Wikipedia, ACU, Weather,
and of course Facebook. Have you spotted the downside of
(04:41):
this plan yet? So? The median age in the Philippines
is twenty three as compared to like thirty seven point
eight something years here in the United States. It's a
very young country. Half of the nation's hundred plus million
citizens are active social media users. At least one study
suggests that Filipino people may lead the world in terms
of time spent on social media an average of four
(05:02):
hours and seventeen minutes per day, a half hour longer
than the next highest at Blake Wexler. By the way,
at the Philippines, at you're gonna get your tar tape
mob on you, I hope. So you need the followers
as followers man, the pr this guy sounds like a genius.
Well so, I mean if this is like the perfect storm,
because like at least when we started dealing with all this,
(05:23):
most people have access to the Internet and the whole internet.
What happened in the Philippines is that Facebook gave millions
of people free mobile internet, but also in doing that,
they created a separate walled Internet that millions of poor
people were on, and the only reliable source sort of
was Wikipedia, and the vast, vast majority of news came
(05:44):
through social media. So you would see people posting about
news on Facebook, but you wouldn't be able to click
on a link to read about it, to like com
or deny it. All you had was the misinformation spreading
through social media because that the only internet Facebook has
any vested interest in giving you for free, right, So
they created a separate internet for poor people where disinformation
(06:05):
was even easier to spread. And Facebook did this. They
did this presuming to be nice, like that was the
how they presented. I mean, obviously they just wanted the
data on these people, but they didn't think about the
fact that any repercussion whatsoever other than money, and do
Tarte was like, oh, some millions of people now have
access to Facebook, but nothing else. Well, let's hire people
(06:25):
to spread propaganda on Facebook. It seems really worth the
money and it totally was. When these people would see
or participate in fights on Twitter or Facebook about mayor
Do Tartes murderous policies, it would just look like one
horde of angry people screaming at a smaller horde of
angry people. There would be almost no way for people
looking at this to research any of the claims being made.
(06:47):
You might just side with whatever group seemed the most
confident and prominent. Needless to say, fake news spread through
the Philippines like wildfire. The book Fire and Fury in
the Philippines gives a rundown of how adept to Tartes
campaign was at using this to their advantage. One example
of the government's use of fake news was a viral
post by Juttes campaign spokesman Peter to Lavinia, which defended
(07:07):
the war on drugs. Lavinians cited a report about a
nine year old girl who was raped and murdered. He lambastad,
human rightists, bishops and prostitutes for their failure to condemn
what he called this brutal act. They, he said, we're
derailing the government's war against drugs and crime and Trumpian style.
He went on, Our righteous battles are fierce and relentless
because we faced the devil himself. We cannot be softer,
(07:28):
let our guards down, less we ourselves be devoured and defeated.
Below this, he posted a graphic and distressing photograph purporting
to show the dead child and her weeping mother. As
the online news website Rappler would later point out in
a series of articles which showed how the government was
weaponized in the Internet, the photo was taken in Brazil,
not the Philippines, so fake news big part of this election.
(07:49):
Trolls were used to burnish the mayor's record and devout
It was critical to his presidential campaign that he'd be
seen as having cleaned up the city. One piece of
evidence used to support this was a two thousand fifteen
crowdsourced survey that had ranked Devour City is the ninth
safest city in the world. Because you want to go
too much higher than you know what I mean? It's
way bigger cities out there who have legitimate people voting
(08:12):
on them, as opposed to this in which it was
just but still like, you have a bunch of people vote,
you know, in your online mob vote for devour City
is the safest city in the world, and you get
up to number nine. That's good enough to get the election,
and it cracks the top ten, cracks the top ten.
That's not bad. So do Tear Taste trolls earned their
money on a sliding scale based on how active they were,
(08:32):
with salaries reaching up to two thousand a month, which
you'll remember from the first episode, more or less the
same retainer you get for being one of the leaders
of the Devout Death Squad. Uh. These trolls are augmented
by true believers and of course bots. Some research suggests
that of all Twitter accounts that mentioned Rodrigo do Tearte
are bots. Here's another quote from Free Republic. Elisair Carlos,
(08:55):
a human rights advocate, was forced to change his Facebook
profile after he received repeated threats of islands in a
country where anti government activists have been killed during the
Tear Taste drug war. Carlos takes such threats seriously, sometimes
you go home, you're alone and you need to buy
something from the store. He says, then the fear kicks in,
which is again, these are not just petty criminals and
(09:15):
stuff who have been killed a devout. There have also
been journalists killed. There have been political opponents of his killed,
and his president He's continued to do this sort of
thing to like go after people who speak out against
him because now there's just this precedent that people die
in the streets a lot. People are gunning down in
the streets a lot, and it's just these vigilantes, Like,
I mean, that's what happens in streets. People die in streets. Like, yeah,
(09:36):
cars are there, foot traffic is there, but death is
the primary death inhabitor. Of course. Yeah, so do tear
Te acknowledged hiring social media commentars for his campaign, but
he denies running a digital army, just like he denies
running a death squad. Sometimes sometimes he admits running a
death squad. He denies it until he doesn't. Yeah, he
(09:56):
was against the death squad before he started the death squad.
Despite running by far the cheapest presidential campaign of any
major candidate, Rodrigo dou Tarte one nearly of the vote.
He was elected in May of two thousand sixteen, and
his spokesman issued dou Tar Taste thanks to fourteen million
social media volunteers. Once he was president, several bloggers who
spread pro do Tarte fake news were given press credentials
(10:19):
in July of two thousand seventeen, and Oxford University study
revealed that roughly five hundred paide rolls were likely involved
in do tarrtase online army. Oxford estimated that it would
have cost him around two hundred grand to do so.
This is a pretty good value for the money. When
do Tarte was told about this study, the now president replied,
Oxford University, that's the school for the dumb perfect and
(10:42):
you know what fun their dictionary is, Amryan Webster guy,
the school for the school for the dumb. I've been
saying that for years. On June two sixteen, right after
his inauguration, Do Tarte visited the slum of Tondo and Manila.
He told a crowd quote, if you know of any addicts,
go ahead and killed them yourself, as getting their parents
to do it would be too painful. He's a humanitarian.
(11:04):
I mean, that's nice. That's nice. Just go ahead kill
a drug addict so his mom doesn't have to. Yeah,
that's because before the mom's had to kill their own
and that was a dark era. Right. We're more humanists
now we kill drug addicts for their mothers. Right, that's nice. Uh.
In August of two sixteen, President du Terte announced his
(11:25):
new NARCO list of more than a hundred and fifties citizens,
many of them local government officials, judges, or police. They
were all stripped of any police escort. Any who were
serving as officers were relieved of duty. By this point,
just a few months into his presidency, eight hundred and
fifty two people had already been killed in the now
national drug war. When questioned by reporters about his list,
the president explained that if suspects showed the slightest violence
(11:47):
and resistance, I will tell the police shoot them. By
early two thousand seventeen, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency revealed
that the NARCO list had been expanded to more than
six thousand suspects. This is somewhat at odds with the
reporting of The New York Times, who suggests the list
may have over a million names by now. Quote said
do terte in October, the human rights people will commit
(12:09):
suicide if I finish these all, which again, there's never
any hiding this. He's he's never not pretending to be
a terrible, terrible monster. Jesus. Yeah uh, here's the New
York Times. The list was a distilled essence of do
ter taste appeal, a raw and brutal effort at law
and order, whatever the cost. As of October, the president
(12:31):
enjoyed an eighty six percent approval rating nationwide. His popularity
was greatest among the poorest Filipinos surveyed. Family members of
the drug Wars casualties, on several occasions told me they
supported Dottertase violence, even as they insisted their sons and
daughters were targeted and accurately, Which is if you get
people to believe that, like, yeah, that sort of tough
justice thing is the only way to keep the country safe,
(12:53):
and they'll be like, yeah, man, it's just a shame
that they got Mark, Like yeah, you know, I mean,
if Mark has to go, he's got to go. He
did sniff glue. You know, he was a glue stick.
He was a glue stiffer. And he stole a cell
phone that one. I mean, the point of the matter is,
no death squad is perfect. You know, you can't hold
a death squad to an unreasonable standard. You know, a
death squad, I would say, you want a death squad
(13:14):
to be at least accurate. But anymore than that, you're
kind of asking for the moon, you really are. Yeah,
and they don't. You don't want them going to some
shitty college like Oxford right now, that's our university. They
do their own research poorly, I would imagine. Uh so
do Tote had won six and a half million more
votes in the next most popular candidate in the presidential election,
(13:34):
so it was not particularly close. The public seemed to
eat up his promises of unspeakable violence and death. In fact,
after his election, the president started to claim that he'd
killed three suspected criminals while he was mayor of de
Vous City. The way he tells it, it it sounds like
he ambushed three people and gunned them down in the street.
He's very proud of this. He also claims to have
thrown a rape and murder suspect out of a flying helicopter. Well,
(13:56):
here's here's just a quick question. It's not like a bus,
you know, like where you just happened to run into
someone that you don't know who happens to be a
rape and murder suspect. Like why were they in the
same Like there's the pilot, there's the co pilot, there's
the president, and then there's a rape and murder suspect.
Like how many people are in this helicopter just wandering in?
(14:17):
I'm assuming what he's talking about is like when Pinochet
was president, it would capture communists, they would take them
up in helicopters, and that's how they'd executed that. It
wasn't an opportunistic thing. It was just it's just like,
who then is this rapist? So I'm the president, what
do you do? Well, I'm a rapist. Your seat belt, sir,
door opened. It would be kind of cute if it
(14:41):
was just serendipity. Yeah, well that's a weird coincidence. You're
the president, I'm a rapist. Oh well, just push me
right on out, jump up into the blades. Oh boy, Rodrigo,
you know, now that he's president, has managed to stay humble.
He insists that his colleagues continue to call him mayor.
(15:02):
This is somewhat fitting because do tear te more or
less does the same things as president that he did
his mayor, just on a grander scale. One of his
first priorities after being elected was to secure a massive
increase in the Presidential Intelligence Fund, which can be used
with the president's discretion with no oversight, to do things
like pay assassins on motorcycles to murder drug users in
the streets hypothetically. Hypothetically, hypothetically, you could also use it
(15:25):
birthday parties, of course, streamers instead. We don't have to
name all the things. Let's just name that one. And
and in fact, disbursements from the Intelligence Fund are not
itemized and unless supported by agencies, and receipt of the
money are not audited. So that's nice. It increased roughly
from like fifty million dollars the year before to ten
million dollars now that do Chete was president. And yeah,
(15:46):
he gets to use it basically on whatever he wants.
So yeah, that's that's kind of neat. He gets to
like buy gifts and rewards for like for people he
wants to bribe, and he also gets to buy bullets
for people that he wants to kill people and pay
the money for killing people. That's nice. We should have
have a presidential intelligence fund that just is completely unaccountable,
like a good time. Yeah, i'd be good with a
(16:07):
president with intelligence. Thank you so much. We'll be right back. Nice, nice,
It is about time. I know that you were joking
with that ad break, but let's do an actual ad
break and fucking blow some people's minds. I'll take it.
Buy some products. We're back, boy, howdy. I mean, those
(16:28):
products and services were just so much better than the
products and services that came on during whatever last ad
break you'll listen to. Yeah, I feel comfortable saying you
build off the previous one, which is a professional thing
to do. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely, always taking steps forward and
never taking steps backwards, unless you're taking a step backward
in order to make a long jump forwards like Seaquille O'Neal. Yeah.
(16:51):
Or one of those assholes on a hike who walk
up backwards to work the front with the front part
of your life. Does that happen in a lot of hikes.
I'll see him. I mean, that could be your death
squad thing, but it could be what you use your
death squad for. The al Right, well we've got two
things for the death squad. People who make their own
speed limits and people who walk backwards on ice. All right, See,
(17:15):
everybody's got a death squad if you really think hard
at it. And I challenge you listeners at home, pick
your death squad target. Everyone's got a group, you know,
all right, So do tartes first year in office saw
ten thousand deaths from his now national death squads. Now
you may note that is three times as many people
(17:37):
who died during the Bloody Rain of Ferdinand Marcos. So
he is in the first year, in his first years yea,
and Marcos had like fourteen years. Is dictator and fucking
do Tartes not even dictator yet? And he's he's already
way better at killing people. So I'll give that to him.
Like he's a better dictator than Ferdinand. He's better at
(17:58):
murdering people than Ferdinand. Move scho he moves fast. He's
not a lazy president riot. You would not say that
about him, although he does not like to get up
early in the morning. Not one third of the people
shot dead were by the police. The vast majority two
thirds died in vigilante hits by killers. Writing in tandem, Now,
writing in tandem is sort of a phrase in the Philippines.
(18:19):
A bicycle built for two, right, it's two people on
a motor site. Right. And this technique was first pioneered
by Griselda Blanco, who we did an episode on. She
was most likely the inspiration for this strategy because Rodrigo
dou Tarte is a huge fan of true crime novels
and I think the show Narcos, so he seems to
get ideas. He invited like a true crime novelist over
to the country to hang with him instead of God. Like,
(18:40):
he seems to get a lot of his ideas from
these things. And he clearly saw like, oh, motorcycle assassins,
that's a really good way to kill people in this Yeah,
it's a great way because you don't have to worry
about traffic. You know, that's true. Yeah, it's sensible. It's
the only way to run a death squad in a
city with severe urban congestion. Yeah, I mean, you can't
do it from an suvdeo. Oh my god, can you
(19:01):
imagine Jesus, No, what a waste of gasoline. I mean,
you only have so much money in the slush fund, right,
It's just it makes more sense. It's just good economics exactly.
An awful lot of little kids have died, and that's
an ugly I'm sitting that one out. A lot of
children died in the crossfire of this drug war. Refers
to these dead children as collateral damage. Here's the Guardian.
(19:24):
Do Tart said those cases would be investigated, but added
that police can kill hundreds of civilians without criminal liability.
He gave a hypothetical example of an officer using an
M sixteen rifle when dealing with a gangster who wields
a pistol. Quote when they meet, the exchange fire with
the policeman in the M sixteen, it's one burst burr
and he hits the thousand people there and they die.
It could not be negligence because you have to save
(19:46):
your life. It could not be recklessness because you have
to defend yourself. So if a policeman fires a thousand
rounds wildly into a crowd because the one guy had
a gun, that's okay, oh my god. Which is like,
it's like the problems we have now with police in
our country, but taken to the nth level, because here
(20:06):
we'd be like at least and people panicked and like,
you know, the right thing wasn't done, but it was
not purposeful. And he's just like, no, you can fire
a thousand rounds doing fuck it? Yeah, you ahead again,
right one. I mean that guy with the gun could
have killed ten people, upwards of a dozen people off
(20:27):
to save ten. Yeah. Of course the checks out um
dictator math would be a fun class to teach, associated
it would. On Christmas two thousand sixteen, twelve year old
Christine Joyce Salog was shot and killed in the car
park of her church is she left Christmas Mass. The
bullet that killed her was alleged to have been fired
by a mask man on a motorcycle, aiming at someone
(20:49):
else who also died in the attack. At least thirty
one children were shot dead in the first six months
of the national drug war. The youngest victim was four.
In August and early September of two seventeen, ninety six
people were killed in Manila in the space of what
the police called a one time, big time assault on
drug dealers in the capital. Here's fire and fury in
the Philippines. The first to die was seventeen year old
(21:11):
can Lloyd Delo Santos and Calocan City, on the northern
fringes of Metropolitan Manila Police claimed that he was a
meth dealer who had fired at cops during a raid.
They had acted in self defense, they said, after he
had opened fire on them. But for once, CCTV footage
emerged that told a very different story. It clearly showed
two plainclosed police officers dragging the teenager away before he
was shot dead in a rubbish strewn alleyway. His body
(21:32):
dumped next to a pig sty. He was found with
a hole in his head and another gunshot wound to
his torso, grasping a pistol in his left hand. His
parents said their son was right handed. Justice Secretary Battaliano
Aguir the Second described the killing as an isolated case.
Human Rights Watch said that to deliberately target children for
execution marks an appalling new level of depravity in this
(21:53):
so called drugs war. So people started to have issues
with all of the murdering. Can's funeral became a giant
pro test march against the new drug war. More than
five thousand people took to the streets. Many of them
were family members of people who've been murdered by duteier
taste hired guns. The government was forced to investigate, and
the Justice Department actually did look into the killings. This
led to the firing of the entire person police force
(22:15):
in the city of Calucan, where Kan had been killed.
They were ordered to receive forty five days of training,
and then most of them were rehired and reassigned other stations,
which you may recognize as not being fired. Right, right,
and also very odd for the Catholic Church, which he
hates so much. He's taking an exact strategy that they
used by reassigned. Oh my god, I didn't even think
(22:35):
about that. But he is doing the rape priest thing,
but with cops that shoot children, right, Yeah, remarkable, one
of the worst sentences I've ever heard. Priest with cops children.
It's just a bang, bang bang of horribleness. Yeah, it's
really yeah, but efficient, a very efficient sentence and accurate. Unfortunately,
(22:55):
we'll say this for the Catholic Church, they know how
to cover up a crime for a while, for for
a while. So yeah, Can's parents met with Duterte, who
told them those who had committed wrong would not go unpunished.
This was not enough to stop the Catholic Church from
condemning Duterte for all of the deaths. Deuterte did not
actually give a funk what the church had to say,
(23:17):
as I noted in the first episode. In two thousand sixteen,
after Your Pope Francis's motorcade caused a traffic Jaman Manila,
he called the Holy Father a son of a whore. Now,
this particular phrase is if you haven't guessed the president's favorite.
The exact term he uses is putang ena, which translates
roughly to son of a whore. Apparently, some people count
his p i s fire and Fury actually makes the
(23:39):
claim that there are people who sort of like listen
to his speeches to see how many times he'll say
son of a whore, and so far the record is
forty eight times in a forty five minute speech, which
is a lot of times. It does make it seem
like less of an attack on the Pope. He just
can't stand like, that's just like a comma for this guy.
What was the speech on you know, like, oh, I
have no idea um that would be, but yeah, yeah,
(24:03):
he's probably Yeah. When Philippine priests condemned do Tarte for
slandering the Pope, do Tarte responded, we are all the
creations of God. We have God given talents. The talent
that God gave me is cussing. Instead of blaming me,
blame God because he created me. Bullet proof logic. You
gotta give it to him. There the ultimate deflection. Yeah, No,
(24:27):
God made me. He made me good at saying fucking whore.
Whatever right you pray to him, You pray to him,
you ask him. Yeah, I'm just doing what's natural. Um Now.
President do Tarte did eventually apologize to the Pope, but
he seems to honestly have very little control over his mouth.
In the moment when he met with thein Secretary of
State John Kerry, he called the U. S Ambassador America's
(24:49):
gay ambassador. Uh and he meant gay as a slur
and is a literal thing. It's it's kind of hard
to tell. He called President Barack Obama a son of
a whore in two thousand and sixteen, and then apologized
for that too. In June of two eighteen, Rodrigo dou
Tete really shot for the moon and declared God stupid.
Here's just going after God, the guy everything. Here's the
(25:12):
BBC reporting on a speech he gave in Devour City,
asking who is this stupid God? Mr do Tart criticized
the biblical story of creation and Adam and Eve being
thrown out of the garden of Eden after the eighth
of forbidden Fruit. You created something perfect and then you
think of an event that would attempt and destroy the
quality of your work, He said, so really has some
(25:32):
logical problems with God? Right, fair enough, there's some holes
in that story if you poke enough. Yeah, yeah, oh boy, Yeah,
we'll get to the fallout of calling God stupid because
it's not great in a country where like nine people
are a Christian. Yeah, now, right now. One of the
big debates in Philippine politics, alongside should we be murdering
(25:55):
drug users and petty criminals in the streets, is whether
or not President do Tete is going to clare martial
law like his predecessor Ferdinand Marcos and like the U.
S Military before Marcos Uh. In May of two seventeen,
around one Muslim fighters laid siege to the city of
Marawi on the island of Mendano. In response, the president
declared martial law across the island. So not all of
(26:15):
the Philippines in the island of Mendana, which is also
the island where devout city is. Fire and Fury discusses
an address he gave the soldiers on Mendano shortly after
the declaration quote. He sought to reassure them that should
they be accused of committing abuses under martial law, he
would take personal responsibility for their actions. Then he joked,
if you raped three, I admit it, that's on me. Yeah,
(26:38):
no one laughed. But when social media exploded withoutrage, Yeah,
that's what Fire and Fury says. No one laughed. I
wasn't there. The ultimate fool me. Once you're raped three people,
that's on me. Social media exploded with outrage. Chelsea Clinton
attacked Uterte, said he was a murderous thug with no
regard for human rights and a sickening sense of humor.
(26:59):
Rape is never a joke. Not funny ever, so that
Chelsea Clinton went after the President of the Philippines. Not
sure why she wound up seeing his tweets, but whatever,
it's worthwhile thing to attack him on. Do Tarte did
not wait for his pr people to figure out a
good response or some way to spend the story. He
gave another speech a little bit later to naval officers
and devout and reminded Miss Clinton of her father's affair
(27:20):
with Monica Lewinsky. Here's do Terte talking to naval officers,
but really talking to Chelsea Clinton, because I don't think
he's a big Twitter guy. These hors they hear rape
like Chelsea, she slammed me. I was not joking. I
was being sarcastic. I will tell her when your father,
the president of the United States then was screwing Lewinsky
and the girls in the Office of the President on
the table on the sofa, how did you feel did
(27:42):
you slam your father? Which if you thought locker room
talk was bad, try Filipino naval ship talk. That's pretty
bad as well. This gives me to something. One of
the nicknames he's gotten is like the Trump of the Philippines,
which I don't think is fair. He is way worse
than Donald Trump, saying so much grosser and more violent
and like scary, right uh? And and also but who
(28:06):
is because they both admire each other, Like you said before,
they really get along. Yeah, I'm sure almost the same person.
They are, just yeah, ones more openly violence. Well, I
feel like do Tarrte is Donald Trump if he had
physical courage because Do Tcharite is clearly not afraid to
get and dirty. Put Yeah, like his Les Kanyes, the
guy who claims to have been one of the heads
(28:26):
of the di squad, claims that he's watched the president
kill eight people. I can't imagine Trump doing that. I
just don't think he's got the stomach for He isn't
like one of the biggest narcissistic assholes in the world
Trump is, but he is also a coward. Yeah, well,
they is the opposite of a coward. He's certainly not
a physical coward. He's willing to like get into the
(28:47):
fucking MUCKs say that for him. He's also really attacking
Chelsea Clinton. He in a way that's very gross. So
in October of two seventeen, Steven Seagal came to visit
Rodrigo do Tarte. Of course course, of course, Steven Seagal
came to visit you ter day. I'm surprised he wasn't
already there. He just has a home there. The two
(29:08):
hitted off. Seagal was in country to do location scouting
for a film about illegal drugs and other crimes. Apparently,
what he said, they took a picture together, punching towards
the camera, and it's it's everything that you would expect.
It will be incredible, but it's it's a great picture.
That's one website behind the bastards dot com. Steven Seagal. Yeah,
the guy really knows who to associate himself with. Yeah.
(29:31):
The president allegedly told Segal that he believes movies reflect life,
then talk to him about his plans for the drug
war quote. Segal endorsed him in exchange, confiding that he
had made close to a hundred visits to the Philippines
over the years, Although he didn't say why, what he
did say was that he was a big fan of
the president, who has been instrumental in making the Philippines
a safer place. Steve. We all know why, stevens galen
(29:52):
of the Philippines a hundred times. And it's gross. They
don't need to say anything more about and it is gross.
It's super gross. I'll so, I feel like you can
predict that with any vacation Steven Seagal makes, there's probably
one reason he's vacationing there. And it's gross. Steven Seagal, Right,
oh god, that's disgusting. Film poison poured into a heavy suit,
(30:17):
whatever kind of suit he's wearing in that that's a
solidified cylinder of milk. Yeah yeah, he does look like
what happens when a human being curdles, right. Uh. In
February of eighteen, President Do Tete gave a speech to
two hundred communist guerilla fighters who had surrendered. A quarter
(30:39):
of them were female. During the speech, he specifically instructed
his soldiers not to kill any female fighters they encountered
in the field, shoot their vagina, because without that they
are useless. He then addressed the surrendered women, we won't
kill you. We will just shoot your vagina. If there
is no vagina, it would be useless. And he's referring
to the women women, right yeah, yeah, yeah, Rodrigod tarr
(31:01):
te everybody. Yeah. Uh. For the first year or so
that he was in power to Tear, his approval ratings
were unassailable, But in more recent months it seems like
he started to stumble. It's kind of hard to say
because I've I've found some surveys and whatnot say that
his approval ratings dropped after the calling God's stupid comment
down Like, but that's just one. Another said fifty six.
I found another couple that say he's still very popular
(31:23):
in the seventies or eighties. So these aren't numbers being
filtered through the government. These are actually these are other
people trying to figure out what's going on. It does
seem like his approval rating has fallen, particularly in the
last six months. Growing inflation seems to be a big
part of that. So it's not clear if all of
the murder and vagina shooting comments have actually had an
impact or it's just because the economy stumbled. But it
(31:46):
seems like he maybe finally losing some support, but there's
also evidence that he is still very popular, So I
don't know. It's like, what do you have to do?
It's almost in another just mirroring Trump is when Trump
said that like fam is quote where he could shoot
someone in the middle of the street and it wouldn't
affect anything. To Tarte literally shot multiple people in the
middle and his approval rating scott and he got elected president. Yeah,
(32:09):
he became Yeah, people were big fans of that. Interestingly enough,
Rodrigo Jutarte is something of a hypocrite on the matter
of drugs. According to Fire and Fury in the Philippines.
Deutarte has confessed to taking several times the prescribed dosage
of the powerful painkiller fentonyl, the synthetic opioid on which
the musician Prince overdosed and died. When it was reported
that himself was a drug addict, he retracted his claim
(32:32):
and said he'd been joking. Side effects of this highly
addictive drug include mood swings, cognitive abnormalities, confusion, trouble concentrating,
feeling sad or empty, in erectile dysfunction, although this would
be countered by his enthusiastic embrace of viagra, which he
is publicly bragged about. So no evidence that that is
an actual thing that he takes. What a fucking drug cocktail?
That is like a bunch of fyl board that is
(32:55):
war heart crisis speedball. Yeah, we hope it's I hope
it's bad for his So as as we speak to,
Chart is currently trying to convince both houses of the
Philippine Congress to reintroduce capital punishment. If that happens, they
will be the first country in history to ban capital
punishment and then reintroduce it. Do Charte has said he'd
like to put five or six people to death every day.
(33:15):
As you might expect, he's never a dollman for journalist
to cover. On one occasion, a Filipino journalist asked about
the president's health. He called the assembled journalists sons of whorse,
and then he asked the reporter who questioned him, how
is your wife's vagina? Is it smelly or not smelly?
Give me a report. So this is the president in
a press conference to National News. Another time, he was
(33:39):
he's saying that it's inappropriate to ask if he's in
good health. You're the president. It's always appropriate to make
sure you're in good health. You're the president. It is
our business, you're the press. Yeah, okay, I'm sorry. I
was trying to apply a logic to a logical situation,
and now he's just a mad Yeah. Another time, he
was asked about what he planned to do to protect
(33:59):
journalist in the Philippines, the deadliest country in Asia for journalists.
Five I think have died at least since he took office, responded,
Just because you're a journalist, you are not exempted from
assassination if you are a son of a bitch. So
it's good to know it. Qualifier. Yeah, it's hard to
say how serious Rodrigo is about that or half of
the ridiculous things he says. The president is on record
(34:21):
is saying that out of every five things he says,
only two are true and the other three are just
wise cracks. That's why it's hard to know if his
next plans for the nation include an expansion of the
state of martial law. In Mendano, when asked about that,
he has said, quote, you know, I have to protect
the Filipino people. It is my duty. And I tell
you now, if I have to declare martial law, I
(34:41):
will declare it. I will declare martial law to preserve
my nation. Period. So he's probably gonna de clare martial law. Yeah,
or he is joking because you know how funny martial laws.
That might be one of those three out of five
statements that he's joking about it. I wonder he's claimed
to kill people at least three times, so the odds
are he's at least not lying about one of the
murders that he's admitted to committing. Rodrigo do terr te
(35:04):
quite the fellow. How do you feel having learned all this?
I feel great, I feel good. I find energize. I
feel like it's motivating me to do more with my
life and and lie more often. And that does seem
to be one of the through lines of all these
bastards is that if you just keep lying and saying
insane things to people and and shouting and then accepting
(35:24):
responsibility whatever, accept responsibility, call everyone a son of a whore,
have people's shot. That is, if I was going to
like write, what's this famous self help book people like
the purpose Driven Life, perfect the death Squad Driven Life,
you could do a do terr Te themed version of
that and it would have a lot of good advice
for politics and murder, yeah, which are unfortunately have come
(35:47):
together as one thing in this podcast. They're inextricably intertwined. Yeah. Um,
well this has been great. Yeah, you want to plug
some plug doubles before we I am blake Lex. That
was just me stalling for a time, so I said
my own name, um black blocks dot com at black
Star on Twitter. And then a new album, Um stuff boy,
(36:08):
my stand up comedy album is out on everywhere you
download that ship beautiful. You can find us on behind
the Bastards dot com. All the sources for this article
will be available. You can also find us on Twitter
and Instagram at at bastards Pod. We have t shirts
and coffee mugs and phone cases and stuff with all
sorts of funny googos on them. You can get them
on the behind the Bastard store for t public so
(36:32):
check that out to the money goes to me so
that I can buy narcotics um, so yeah, help me
not be as sober as I am right now in
the second. Anyway, check us out. We'll be back next
Tuesday and every Tuesday from now until the end of time,
and until then, I love about
Behind the Bastards News
Host
Robert Evans
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